It's no secret that G5 changed canon, from the three Pony crystals all the way down to the pony magic designs. Even putting aside those issues, G5 answered next to no questions about G4 Equestria's fall. Where are the Wendigos, Discord, or the Tree of Harmony? No answer from the movie. Even if the show does answer these questions, It's bad form not to answer simple questions in the introduction of the series. The usual defense, or excuse, is that G5 may answer these questions later in the comics or in Make your Mark, but there's no guarantee that it will if it gives a sufficient explanation. G5 stacked obstacles against itself with all the changes it made as it develops a new series and carries baggage from the previous generation. While I doubt that this would improve its quality, G5 would have been better off as its own thing, but Hasbro has to link everything to G4. Because of this, G5 renders everything accomplished in G4, regardless of how one feels about said accomplishments, void. Equestria and the other species united, but the pony races turned on each other while most of the other creatures vanished. Now, a common deflection could be that "It's been a long time, of course, things changed!". Yes, but that doesn't mean Equestria had to change in that way. They could have made an Equestria where all creatures stood as friends and focused on slice-of-life episodes like season 1 of G4. Instead, they repeated the same storyline we saw for the 3rd time about ponies being racist to each other. I say three because I'm counting the Hearth's Warming play.

At the time I'm writing this I've only seen the G5 movie, so I could be completely wrong. Feel free to correct me whenever, but I stand by the idea that G5 should have been its own thing.

Watch the rest of the series that’s available. It gets worse.

7753050

Where are the Wendigos, Discord, or the Tree of Harmony?

Those three can be easily answered.

1. No magic, no Wendigos. Besides, the Wendigos were destroyed in Ending of the End so it's a moot point.

2. Discord makes an appearance in one of the comics, but is yet to appear in the main show.

3. The Tree of Harmony was destroyed in Season 9, remember?

Equestria and the other species united, but the pony races turned on each other while most of the other creatures vanished.

It is entirely possible for an apparently united society to fracture and fall apart. You don't need to look very far back into history to find examples. And seeing as Sprout was able to convince the Earth Ponies to engage in a race war with minimal difficulty, it is not beyond possibility that the ponies wiped the other species out.

Instead, they repeated the same storyline we saw for the 3rd time about ponies being racist to each other. I say three because I'm counting the Hearth's Warming play.

Here, it's a bit different. The main reason friendship was adopted in G4's backstory was as a survival mechanism, which cheapens it. 'We need to be friends or else ice demons will suck out our souls!'

In G5, the approach is 'we need to be friends because being friends is a good thing'.

7753050
Yeah, it's idiotic and terribly written, but MLP's MO has been to come up with the dumbest possible option for years so I'm not even remotely surprised.

7753050
Maybe so, but it doesn’t change the shitty ending for G4 or excuse it.

7753083
True.

7753067
I fell off the show after season 5, so most of what I know about the later seasons is mostly clips and word of mouth. That said, I know Discord made an appearance in the comics, but not in the show because I saw the comic cover. I had no idea the Wendigos were destroyed, but I figured something happened to them. My memory is sketchy about the tree, but I thought it was regrown. I just used those three examples off the top of my head. Still, my fault for not knowing. A real example would be that cutie mark-swapping dragon.

I know events like destructive wars happen throughout history, but I don't know if it was confirmed in the G5 show or comics. Even if that is true, that's awful! Do you mean to tell me that the ponies went to war with the other species and killed most of them off? So much for the power of Friendship. My point is that it nullified the Mane Six's accomplishments, not that events like societal collapse can't happen in FIM. This reinforces my point that G5 should have been its own thing to avoid these gruesome implications.

The reasons for the story are different, but it doesn't change the fact that it's the same story in principle. The movie is just different motives, characters, and set pieces.

G4 changed it's own canon so much it's rendered meaningless, G5 is just beating up the dead horse. Hence why I ignore the recent canon if/when I write.

7753104
You make fair points. I sincerely hope that the ponies didn't engage in genocidal wars; a recent Make your Mark clip implies that the pony groups separated rather peacefully:

Then again, I have no clue how reliable this evidence is since we only have Sunny's word to go off, and she's not above bending the truth to suit her own ends.

7753107
It's not just that; some familiar plot beats are coming up as well. One MYM episode appears to be a retread of Magical Mystery Cure.

7753062
How?

7753125
When I heard Sunny's story, I had to stand up. I hope neither versions are true, and I doubt Misty's is. Is this show suggesting the ponies fractured because of an accident? Seriously? Even if that was the case, it was between an earth pony and a unicorn, and they all split up after one mistake. Let's just say, for argument's sake, this actually happened, why split up the magic? Why not try to explain to everyone what happened or investigate? Furthermore, the princess just took all their abilities and forced them into a new way of life. Aside from those questions, Sunny's story is just a vague rehash of G4 with some details left out. The only other option is that G5 retconned G4, which isn't the worst idea. Given how all the races just fought each other over an accident, I wouldn't call that peaceful.

7753148
As I say, we only have Sunny's word to go off, and she's hardly a reliable narrator. Here we are seeing an example of what Michel-Rolph Truillot termed 'narrative control'. Here, we have two competing versions of the same story fighting for dominance to become the accepted 'history'.

7753137
You haven’t noticed the feedback over the course of G5’s run? And we’re not the only ones noticing.

7753154
I know what you mean, I just think Misty's version seems all too convenient for the evil alicorn she talks to. Sunny's version could be wrong, but I do agree that Sunny's not trustworthy.

7753160
I noticed the reception, it just didn't look as "explosive" as I would have suspected. I figured the fanbase was Ok at best with G5.

7753219
Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if the makers of G5 never even watched G4.

7754199
Who knows? This show could retcon events from G4.