Pony Life is a regression to Season One · 2:51pm Jun 28th, 2020
Maybe it's just because the MLP stop-motion shorts lowered my expectations, but so far I think Pony Life is okay. I wouldn't call it good, but at least it doesn't directly insult older fans the way Thundercats Roar does (or so I've heard). I enjoy Pony Life's animation style enough to recommend watching five minutes of it. Plus, there is actual dialog spoken by the same VA's from FiM, and they put much more effort into their lines than the script writer did. I even like how this seems to be an ensemble show with each of the Mane 6 taking a turn in the spotlight, unlike some seasons of FiM and the movie, which came across as Twilight and her sidekicks. Although, if Twilight is your favorite character, you might not like the way she's being sidelined so far.
The stories feel like they were written by someone who listened to a fan describe FiM in detail, but who never actually watched an episode. There are several choices that make no sense, such as a competitive baking TV show. Yes, they call it a TV show, although there is no camera crew present, so the writer might as well have made it an non-televised competition and avoided the confusion. Also, I know Celestia eating cake is a meme, but you'd think she'd have more important things to do than judge a baking competition. She doesn't seem to have abdicated – uh, “retired” yet in this series, since Twilight doesn't appear to have any responsibilities.
Another weird detail is that Sugar Cube Corner is on the edge of a cliff now. I'm kind of rooting for it to fall off as the result of a tragic baking accident.
Rainbow Dash has a little blue colt following her around instead of Scootaloo, although he is admittedly cute. And Fluttershy has the ability to shrink and grow for unexplained reasons. I think it's an imitation of anime style and not meant to be taken literally, but no other characters have gone chibi or giant so far.
In some ways, this show seems like a regression to Season 1 of FiM. The world is smaller, and the unicorn and alicorns use their hooves more often (although Rarity uses magic twice). Spike's absence reminds me of some of the early episodes where he was randomly gone for no reason.
I agree with the fans who say the biggest problem with this show is that it focuses on goofy gags, but it's not that funny. I laughed once per episode, which isn't enough to justify spending too much time watching it. I'll give the show at least one more episode to see if it gets better, but when it comes to wholesome cartoons, I'd rather watch Miraculous Tales of Ladybug. Or better yet, I'd rather rewatch FiM.
It seems like you're treating this as FIM, even though it IS a different show. You shouldn't expect a well developed world or other things that you saw in FIM. Also I don't get why people don't think the show is funny. A lot of times the jokes felt like they would be in FIM, and I remember some of them being similar to jokes that were actually in FIM. I don't know if it's some sort of bias because it's something new or the animation style, but it just seems that people are unfair towards the show sometimes.
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I tried to watch the show with an open mind, but it was hard to set aside my knowledge of what came before. One of the issues with the show is that, if this is a hard reboot, it makes very little effort to establish the rules and characters of this world, and the show itself seems to assume the audience has watched FiM - for example, Applejack looks at the camera and says, "Did you miss this? I missed this." And humor is subjective, so I can understand how some people would find it funny. It's just that for me and a lot of other people I've seen on this site, most of the jokes fell flat.
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That's a fair point. It's a spin off, so I think it is expected you watch FIM but approach it like something new.
And I suppose that's true. I don't personally see why people who found G4 funny don't find this funny but like you said humour is subjective. I recommend you watch "how Applejack got her hat back" though, it seems the fandom's reaction to that has been much more positive than with the last 2 episodes.
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Ok, I'll check it out.