My hopes and fears for G5. (Version 2) · 10:29pm Aug 13th, 2021
Hello, my fellow bronies,
Yes, some of you saw a blog post about this subject before, but I felt it was poorly done because I finished it on the fly. Also, I've seen the recent G5 trailer, and so my view of G5 has shifted quite a bit.
But...not necessarily for the better. A lot of it is my own bias against 3D effects. I just prefer MLP: FIM's animation style over CGI, because I associate CGI with everything wrong in animation.
But having watched the trailer, I feel I can properly dissect my hopes and fears for G5.
Unlike the previous My Little Pony continuities, which are disconnected from one another, G5 is marketing itself as the direct successor to G4.
I have mixed feelings about this: as I've discussed in previous blog posts, I believe sequel series and reboots can be good. However, there are several rules they have to follow:
1. There is a deep respect for what made the previous story great.
2. There has to not only be an acknowledgment that time has changed, but the sequel story has to be more evolved.
3. The flaws of the previous work are not repeated.
Cobra Kai is the best example of this: it brings us what we loved about the Karate Kid movies, but the underlying theme of the story is that the 1980s are in the past, and we have to move on. Cobra Kai doesn't try and force Daniel LaRusso back into the ring in a cheap attempt to recreate the struggle of the old movie, but instead forces an old antagonist, Johnny Lawrence, to evolve and confront his own demons.
G5...seems to be doing this. Instead of trying to bring back the world of Equestria, the movie shows Equestria as a long-dead golden age, and the ponies of the world are once again divided and antagonistic toward one another.
The protagonist isn't some magical superstar being groomed for royalty, but an "average" pony living an "average" life who must fight an uphill battle against a deeply polarized society.
I hope that we'll see a more mature story with a more mature morality and complex emotions.
But I fear that G5 will handle the subject matter in a very juvenile and hamfisted way.
I don't know: the humor, tone, and characterizations seem a bit too...Disney-esque for my tastes.
When September arrives, I'll give these new little ponies a shot, and hopefully, they'll give me the engaging storyline we all crave.
Sincerely,
Redandready45.
Red, I've read the description for it and I have a bad feeling about it.
To me it's just pure brain-dead entertainment I don't look for anything deeper into it unless it interests me that much. I felt that way with Friendship is magic till at least season six
5568393
What does the description says?
5568555
It takes place in the Twilight Sparkle era, but the ponies are disgusting and paranoid. There's only three villains who are capable of that.
5568556
It sounds like they are bringing the sirens back that could be interesting……..I have mixed feelings
5568558
Not the Sirens. Try again, this time villains who weren't banished.
5568561
Sombra?
No magic... what has Celly or Lulu gone into a 1000 year coma again or something...
5568654
No. Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow
5568556
What do you mean by "the Twilight Sparkle era"? Where's this description you're paraphrasing?
5569075
Look at the Wikipedia page of it.
5569077
Wikipedia is not a primary source. There should be a footnote at or near the relevant passage.
5569080
Okay.
They certainly didn’t intend to throwing away everything Gen 4 established. No creator ever tries that when they’re brought into a franchise in the payroll of the IP owners. But for their society to regress to this point of segregation? The only thought process I can think of for this bizarre departure are A) The new show staff threw their hands up on matching anything with G4... or B) they came up with a totally fresh setting and timeline, and then some exec or analyst at Hasbro said “Heck no, you are GOING to connect this with our previous money-printing machine. Got it?”
I’ve heard at least one comparison to the Sequel trilogy, which I expected. True, there’s some notable superficial similarities. It’s decades(?) later, the original heroes are spoken of as myths, for various reasons the world is in trouble, and our protagonist is a disciple-slash-fangirl of what the previous heroes fought for. But this is way more drastic and bizarre of a development.
The conflict in the Sequel Trilogy for the galaxy at large is that the Empire has returned, but rebranded. A new set of assholes wanted power, teamed up with some of the old assholes, got a bunch of big guns, and held the galaxy hostage. That’s something that just happens in repeated strokes of history. It’s the re-drawing of a bunch of borders. The only moral failing there is being lax with fascists.
Having the Sequel Trilogy retread a plot also isn’t as weird as the My Little Pony franchise. The Force Awakens was made decades after the OT concluded, and the previous Prequel Trilogy took a really different direction and wasn’t received well. Then the franchise got completely new owners. So going back to its roots to start things out was a logical move. It’s only been THREE YEARS between these different shows of MLP, so the repetition doesn’t have much charm. Although repetition may not be the right word, since the setup for this show’s racial dilemma is way more extreme.
Equestria for some reason has gone through a jaw-dropping morale decay. Not only have they embraced division they were fighting against in seasons 8 & 9, they’ve regressed to the level of segregation before Equestria was FOUNDED. The Star Wars equivalent of that would be not only everyone fighting the First Order, they also suddenly don’t allow Wookies and other aliens to drink from the water fountains. Like, how the heck did that turn into a problem?
If the only progress undone from Gen 4 were the relationships with the non-ponies introduced later, that would actually make more sense. Social equality has reactionary backlash, which often occurs immediately after landmark victories. Ponies were the ones that held the most power on the world stage (some kinds more than others in Equestria).
But the WAY bigger issue isn’t internal logic and retcons. It’s the potential mishandling of the topic of racism, and I worry we’ve already on shaky ground. The morale of “segregation is bad” feels like bottom of the barrel, kind of copout way of tackling racism. At least, it does for settings that are extremely modern like Generation 5 clearly is. Segregation of people by ethnicity, by rule of law, has fully shifted to obsolesce in the cultural landscape of first world countries. Not even the most deranged lunatics in our government like Boebert or Greene advocate for it (not yet anyway). Stories about segregation can still be done really well of course, but it can’t just be about wiping it off the lawbooks and solving everything. It needs look at why people do this in the first place, who fights for it as the status quo, and what social structures and habits keep the thing in place despite the efforts of good people.
Of course, we still HAVE segregation in society. Not legally, but de facto thanks to economic status and civic planning. And not just physical separation, but grotesque imbalances of power and means. Look at job opportunities, home ownership, insurance evaluations, scrutiny by police, investment in local schools, etc. In G4 it was pretty clear that WAY more unicorns got to live in the lap of luxury or centers of commerce and education. Earth ponies were more spread out, rural, and based on an agrarian existence to feed the country. It’s not that G4 did much with it, but that kind of setup is way closer to modern day inequality, and would be a more fertile bed for those kind of stories. Admittedly, the Pegasi city in the trailer looked absolutely LOADED, so maybe we do have that element in store.
What the trailers and press releases are saying feels weak even as just a segregation story. The movie makes segregation look like a bunch of people moving out like feuding roommates… instead of being put in place by a group of people with a shitload more power and money than everyone else. Segregation is portrayed as a mutual agreement, not exploitation. My worry is that they’re going to go to Pocahontas routes, and make the root of racism a select few rich assholes spreading lies. And undoubtedly, rich people in the private and public sector DO profit off of ignorance and violence, and divert attention from real problems. But when white people in America were treating everyone as subhuman, it wasn’t FEAR that was driving it (at least, not exclusively). For one, it was profit and sheer convenience. Manual labor and the least desirable tasks could be foisted on to ‘lesser’ peoples, and they wouldn’t even require a humane wage. Even if there hadn’t been those empirical benefits, discrimination also brought the sadistic sense of self-importance that comes from standing on someone else’s neck. The imaginary structures of racism let people feel comfortable about their place in the universe.
Companies and studios will gladly tell their audiences to sympathize with victimized individuals and populations of oppression, and hate the individuals acts done upon them. But then they’ll get cagey about making some members of the audience feel any kind of guilt, from distantly benefitting from that system; or maybe even subtlety being part of one. It’s not good for the bottom line to name a civilian population for taking any racist, oppressive or outright murderous actions. No, it’s a single evil dictator (or CEO, or general) and their gaggle of cronies, who just needs to be overthrown. We see this toothless crap play out over and over because corporate entities are scared of some dipshits with megaphones losing their minds over the slightest whiff of ANY reference to some kind of systematic critique. Because some people are so fragile at the idea of accusation, self-examination, or guilt. Because it goes back to having an identity, a proud or sympathetic self-image.
5585195
This may be likely the case.