The End is Neigh... · 7:03pm Dec 18th, 2017

“You’re going to need a bigger plumber.”

So the cat's out of the bag, and a bunch of leaked pony material has flooded the Internet. I shall now give my opinions on these, even though I know maybe three other people read this blog, and that’s being very generous.

It should go without saying that spoilers shall ensue. Read at your own risk.

Let's start out with the first thing: Season 9 being the final season. All in all, I'm not that angry about it.

And neither is Will Smith, apparently.

Seriously, I think that's a legitimately good place to stop (though maybe making it an even ten seasons would be cool too). There's an unwritten rule that series can only run for seven years before they start going down the toilet, and MLP has already reached that limit. While it hasn't quite gotten to toilet levels, I think doing two seasons with the firm idea of ending all of the characters' stories is a pretty decent idea. Too many shows keep getting renewed year after year, even when it's clear that the creators/writers have gotten tired of the concept, and they end up being pretty lousy.

Hey, who put this here?

There’s been a slight tinge of that with MLP (notice how Dave Polsky is the only original writer still attached to the show in some degree?), so it’s probably best they cut their losses now and just stop before they decide to burn the franchise and run.

The leaked episode synopses for Season 8 are also relatively harmless. Hell, some of them are even pretty solid sounding. Having Chrysalis and Tirek come back is grand, Trixie is always a plus, seeing Starlight and Sunburst’s parents sounds good, and Spike finally growing as a dragon makes me cry tears of joy.

That moment when "friends" upgrades to "friends with benefits".

All in all, it looks like a pretty respectable lineup. I get the suspicion this is because many of the staff know the show’s ending, so they’re packing in as much conclusive material as they can. Which is fine and dandy; it’ll be nice to have conclusive answers to some things at the end of the ride, instead of just ending it prematurely and making the whole thing irritating by how much it doesn’t answer.

Remember “The Event”? Don’t worry, nobody does.

Now the thing that does irritate me within these leaks is the Generation 5 designs and story concepts.

Let's just say that they were able to make a face crazier than this.

Look, I get that a lot of the Gen 4 characters are retooled from previous generations of MLP, and that’s fine. Creating new interpretations of characters is perfectly reasonable, especially in a franchise like MLP that plays fast and loose with any kind of inter-generational (or even inter-season) continuity.

But retooling the characters and creating an entirely new show around them less than a year after their previous show ends does not bode well at all. For one, you’re making the shows seem similar enough from the outset that it’ll be hard as hell to not constantly compare the two generations. This was the same problem with “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” or “Heroes”, where the lack of change between chapters left many people feeling unsatisfied.

Remember "Heroes"? Don’t worry, nobody does.

I get wanting to have some connection to Gen 4, if only because it has provided toy sales so powerful you could launch a new Lunar program with it. But if that’s the case, why not just do a “Batman Beyond” or “Star Trek: The Next Generation” kind of thing, with a new set of heroes rising up in the future to take the place of the Mane 6? You could still have the old characters, while also setting up new ones who can grow and have their own adventures. Hell, you already have Q in MLP! The parallels draw themselves!

Shine on, you heavenly-voiced diamond.

But that’s probably unlikely because at the end of the day, Hasbro is interested in the bottom-line. Generation 4 has certainly been making that bottom-line, but that also makes it unlikely they’re going to try anything different in the near-future. MLP has become one of the major franchises of the New Tens, and they’re going to do their damndest to make sure it stays that way into the Twenties. Which means they’ll probably recycle characters and locations, because they’re safe investments.

I know I sound especially frustrated about it, because…well, I am. In an age where Disney owns roughly 75-80% of entertainment media in America and is constantly using other people’s creations to fuel their enterprise (say hi, Marvel and Lucasfilm), it would be great to see other creators fighting back with new and different ideas.

But based on these leaks, that’s not going to happen.

Phooey.

The other thing that I don’t dig is the idea of the new movie. Say what you will about the last MLP film, it was at least fun to see something 2D animated in the theaters again. Not only do the documents show the next film being a CGI-fest like every other animation company, but it’s also supposed to be a lead-in to Generation 5 instead of a closure to Gen 4.

When you love your TV Show, but Hasbro's making it hard to keep the relationship going.

I mean, jeez, Hasbro. You’re already stepping on a lot of toes ending the series; not even ending it with a traditionally animated movie is going to send plenty of bronies into the stratosphere.

In the end, however, there should be a little reservation of judgment. While I don’t doubt that the show will end within the next two or three years, I’m not sure the plans after Season 8 will fully follow through as listed. Remember how Season 3 was supposed to be the end, before they swerved at the last minute and renewed it for another season? Remember how Equestria Girls was originally supposed to be a TV series? The point is while the general direction will probably stay the same, there’s a lot of little things that could change.

And honestly, based on these leaked materials, I hope a lot of things do change.

That’s it for me. Stay tuned for the vlog that I’ll release in the next few days about the subject.