Am I the only one who’s been frequently noting how loopy, disorganized, & inconsistent G5’s continuity as a series is? Especially in contrast to the claims of it being tighter than G4’s?

For instance, Chapter 2’s “The Traditional Unicorn Sleepover”, the second issue of the G5 comic, and Chapter 5’s “The Isle of Scaly” each gave a different backstory as to why the Unity Crystals were created, the disappearance of magic, and the splitting of the tribes. And, “Tell Your Tale” is supposed to be officially canon with “Make Your Mark”, yet both series have a different depiction of how Opaline is defeated despite their similarities; “Tell Your Tale” also mentions a pony civilization called Pony Tropico, yet “Make Your Mark” says that Maretime Bay, Bridlewood, and Zephyr Heights are the only pony-based cities.

7929538
Yeah the people behind it didn't seem to know exactly where they were going and seem to make it up as they went along. The comic version however play like several other MLP comics from Gen 4. Not meant to be in actual continuity unless you choose to believe it does. The comic in Gen 5 featuring Discord's return was just the comic people's idea on it rather than wait for those behind the series to give an actual description why things happened. I mean the comic made it look like it happened because more disharmony was being stirred among the pony tribes because of Opaline, and it got so bad it was beyond Twilight's attempts to simply calm them, and made the crystals as a desperate measure. Yeah they didn't do a good job in portraying Twilight making a desperate move like that. The MYM story seemed much believable since she made them to hide the magic from Opaline. The reason the pony tribes divided still remains a mystery

7929538
7929540

the people behind it didn't seem to know exactly where they were going and seem to make it up as they went along.

This is why I am constantly saying that a Show Bible is fundamental for every major project: that way everyone is working on the same page towards the same goal along the same roadmap. A unified vision for a property is necessary to have the audience get a feel for how the rules governing the universe they are watching is supposed to operate and who the major players and powers are that live in that universe, along with a general direction that those characters are meant to go in order to properly convey that story to the audience as either a Character Arc or Heroes Journey. People who claim that these three elements are unnecessary for a story to function really have no clue to what they are talking about, because without these three basic elements to a story: the flagship series that was pioneered with a certain animation style that was used in the Pilot Movie meant to premiere your series to the public will wither and die after less than two years, and inevitably get replaced by a YouTube side series GO!-Clone that isn't meant to be canon to the original series or taken as something meant to be seriously watched or paid attention to begin with, causing the ratings for your project to completely drop due to the audience you were supposed to bring in and keep around leaving the property.

This isn't meant to be a criticism of the G5 Defenders or any movement started by me to promote the downfall of G5: I'm just stating the facts as they inevitably played out because I'm more than familiar with the outcome due to having spent the last decade seeing similar situations play out in Media where fanbases imploded due to the downward spiral that companies seem to take with modern day polarizing writing styles. Disney failed with "The Star Wars Fanfic Trilogy", and NetFlix has now failed with "G4: The Search For More Money".

"From where your kneeling must seem like an 18-Carat run of Bad Luck. The truth is... the Game was rigged from the start."

-Benny, Fallout: New Vegas

7929545
What's "G4: The Search for More Money"?

7929556
another nickname to give to G5, because G5 is little more than a blatant cash-grab by Hasbro to rake in as much Green from G4 without really doing anything with it by telling an entirely forgettable story with uninteresting characters that cannot really drive the plot along and has little-to-no bearing on the setting of G4 despite relying entirely on the universe of G4 without following any of the established rules of that universe.
Safe to say, but there's so little originality to quantify it as it's own original property, it almost feels like "Tight-Mim" is meant to be a side-hustle in the veins of G3.5 while Hasbro works on creating an ACTUAL G5 that they will release in the near-future.

It's basically the Warlords of Draenor Expansion of MLP: meant only to serve as a distraction for the content drought and little else.

7929556

7929558

7929558
Sure, Sure.... try keep telling yourself that all you want, The Ohvist. :/

7929538
I've said it before and I'll say it again.

"The Traditional Unicorn Sleepover" makes sense since Opaline would absolutely put a different spin on things to make herself the victim

As for the comics and chapter six offering different origins, one's coming from Discord, and the other expands and refines the story - it's as much a retcon as Shining Armor was, because the writers hadn't thought that far ahead

7929656
Yet there's a credible difference to how G4 introduced Shining Armor compared to how G5 introduced Opaline: Shining Armor was hinted at in Season 1 with the Royal Guards being more comfortable and familiar around Twilight Sparkle that she showed gratitude to them for bringing her to Ponyville, where the other two Guards took Twilights' word that Fluttershy was someone that could be trusted, and later still where her parents were able to send Twilight to as prestigious an institution as Celestias' School for Gifted Unicorns showing that they are a very influential Noble Family: showing us the audience that Twilight has more to her than just being Celestias' Apprentice which would have built into her being the younger sister of The Captain of The Guard.
Opaline however, came completely out of nowhere with no build-up or hints to her existence within the Movie or in the Pilot until the last moment: and even then that few seconds long clip of her acting like she's the antagonist of the Pilot is little more than a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment due to how irrelevant and disconnected from the central conflict of the Episode she actually was.

Could Shining Armor's introduction have been handled a lot better? Of course. If anything there should have been hints here-and-there throughout the first two Seasons about "Twilights' Brother" in scenes involving Twilight Sparkle or Spike when talking with others, paired later on with scenes of Shining Armor doing his services first as a Lieutenant-Commander during Discords' escape from Stone in maintaining order in Canterlot, followed later on with Rarity meeting with Shining Armor during the events of Sweet and Elite, before finally connecting the dots in Royal Canterlot Wedding when Shining and Twilight meet on-screen.

7929581
the fact we have not had an actual G5 series explains everything. the rushed ended g4 despite it being the most popular version of the franchise ever. to make a near scratch version but saying its same universe but ignores all lore. Look how G4 ends. Twilight is ruling with her friends. friendship still growign out. Not one thing hinted at what G5 starts with. for no explaination the allainces Twilight and co made ended, Equestria whicjh lasted for 1000s of years with three different groups of leaders completely collapses to pre Equestria and barest mentions of the mane 6 considering if they are remembered enough to be figurines then their lessons as well. heck were there any ruins in the movie. I didn't bother watching it.

G5 is a failure on all levels.

7929710
According to one episode: we meet with a Unicorn who's a descendant of Moondancer and was young enough to have remembered Princess Twilight Sparkle, meaning that G5 takes place at least a few decades after G4... exactly how fucked up is the world to have a once vibrant Continent-spanning Empire collapse into little more than a moderate-sized city, a coastal town, and a woodland village that are all within at least a weeks' walking-distance from each-other: and not have any sort of detailed or archived historic account about how the collapse of Equestria even happened?

At the very least, why is it that nobody in either Zephyr Heights or Maretime Bay decided to go try colonizing the now-vacant lands of Equestria at some point? Due to how easy it was for a Magicless Unicorn to just walk in to Maretime Bay one day: showing that there wasn't any boarder defenses or a wall surrounding the town that would have proven a set obstacle to keeping the Earth Ponies inside, and making Sunny seem like an even bigger idiot for just hanging around a town that hated her guts for all those years doing that soapboxing crap that she's been put on a list by the local authorities, instead of trying to carry on her fathers' work in documenting the history of Equestria and finding a way to restore Magic once again.

7929710
Yeah well if you must know: There are G5 defenders such as myself. >:/

7929691
Or maybe the guards act the way they do because Twilight is Celestia's student?

7929656
How does Spike's telling "Expand and Refine" the story, exactly? And how does it not retcon Sunny's telling?

7929751
Tread carefully, you could be insinuating that the Royal Guard doesn't have any respect for their Captain of The Guard and his family with that statement.

7929753
Sunny's was incomplete
Spike was an eyewitness source

7929754
Just suggesting there may be another reason, that's all. Although Shining is their boss (although at time of broadcast we didn't know he existed), ultimately Celestia is their top boss as commander in chief. Mistreating the prized student of the commander in chief would be monumentally dumb.

7929753
As I pointed out in the thread that got locked, they tell different perspectives on the same conflict. Spike was not involved in the War of the Three Tribes and speaks solely about the conflict with Opaline. Sunny's narrative focuses solely on the pony conflict; pony history would have no reason to record what the dragons were up to as they were not fighting the dragons.

7929720
Elderflower wasn't alive during the G4 era, and also clearly suffers from schizophrenia as she's talking to ponies who aren't there and referring to events she cannot possibly have witnessed (no pony that looks like her can be seen in A Canterlot Wedding; I checked).

Several bronies have run the numbers to calculate how much time has passed. Elderflower calls Moondancer her great great great aunt. This suggests five generations have passed at the bare minimum (mother,-grandmother-great grandmother-great great grandmother-great great great grandmother). We know that ponies live a very long time (Granny Smith was over 100 years old when she died), so if we plug the numbers in this suggests 500 years have passed at the minimum. Seeing as our world seems to go to pot every 10 years, 500 years is plenty of time for stuff to fall apart.

You also know why Sunny never left; she was depressed, and depression often saps a person of the will to do anything. (Source: a friend of mine who has had depression.)

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7929771
I dunno. It seems more like an instance of incohesive writing.

7929780
Do you mean incoherent writing?

7929790
That I do.

7929733
How do you even defend it. seems worse then i thought and in mere decades Twilight is gone everything built centuries before gone. do you even see ruins? from what i saw no. G5 poorly written and poorly planned. They only connect it to G4 hoping to right it's popularity. it failed. there is no g5 show, heck I have not seem merch of it. just G4. G5 has failed, likely the worst of the generations.

7929791
Just checking.

7929792
500 years at least separate the generations. Decades is also plenty of time for things to go to pot; the post-WW1 consensus fell apart in less than 20 years, to give a real life example.

7929720
as we have seen these past few years in both teleivsion and movies. writing has been horrible.

7929794
😉No worries.

7929799
It is interesting to note that with Allura G5 is moving away from the past and in a different narrative direction.

7929795
first there is at least ruins to note it. even today europe did has the scars of the trenches and cities in certain areas still have bullet marks on them. Do you see ANY signs of G4 Equestria in G5? out of the clips I have seen nope. add to the fact Equestria as a nation has lasted for over 1000 years and last saw under the rule of a mare that faced its greatest threats in ten years and seemingly ruling a very peaceful and prosperous nation suddenly gone to the point no ruins and only vague stories of the Mane 6. Heck the ponies going back to tribal despite the fact EVERY YEAR they are taught why that is a bad thing. No G5 made a grave error to connect to G4. if there was no connection then no lore issues arise. Because it does it has failed because you pissed off the fan base seeing all those struggles for naught and don't even explain why it collapsed. Thus bad righting. Now to be fair they may have explained in the actual show they were planning but the movie did not do well enough to fund a show so so we are only given the after math never the cause.

7929538
Yeah, the continuity has been really off from the word go.

7929803
We do have plenty of things from G4. To list a few;

1. Argyle's workshop has the Bewitching Bell, the map of Equestria, and anatomical drawings from a Season 7 episode (as well as several pages from Starswirl's book). His journal is identical in design to the book that both opens and closes the show, and Sunny's diary is filled with G4 stuff.

2. Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark is a recurring motif throughout the film; it appears on Sunny's diary and in several stained glass windows in Zephyr Heights, to name two.

3. The airship station's departure board features the names of many G4 places, confirming they existed before the schism. Furthermore, we see a Wonderbolts poster and advertisements for travel to G4 settlements; Canterlot is clearly mentioned in one.

4. The characters pass the Crystal Tree from Season 9 on their way to Bridlewood.

5. Several G4 objects appear in the Crystal Tearooms.

6. Opaline has the Box with the Six Locks in her private chambers. The Castle is also identical in design to the main tower of Canterlot Castle.

7. Many objects from G4 can be spotted at the Breezie Night Market.

8. Dragons get 'shimmers', which was introduced in Season 6.

I've got plenty more examples, but I think that's a good start.

7929845
Honestly, each of those things really seemed to be more like unnecessary Easter eggs made to cash off of G4 more than anything else. They carried no meaning behind why they were there, and they certainly didn’t make sense.

7929803
As for the whole 'going back' thing. We know the Three Tribes only came together because they shared the same enemies, so once their threats were gone they no longer had any reason to cooperate. As this has happened in our reality a lot, it's not implausible ponies would stop working together for the same reason.

7929848
If that's the case, they're oddly specific things to put in there.

7929850
Hasbro has been known to frequently make unnecessary use of product placement in the past, so it’s not surprising that they’d resort to incorporating G4 Easter eggs without thinking over what purpose they’d ultimately serve.

Other than that, the other problem with the Easter egg incorporations is that they ultimately caused G5 to be conflicted over what it wanted to be: A stand-alone series or a direct successor of G4.

7929845
those are objects and not ruins. Something so big to destroy Equestria and it's allies it would leave ruins. the atom bombs left ruins. so where are the ruins? No this was a cash grab by either the showrunners or hasbro to feed off those that love G4 and it FAILED. Note Rome lasted for centuries and even when it failed its legacy is seen around us in several ruins. besides what you mentioned there is notign of an kingdom that lasted for over 1000 years. Where is the ruins of the castle of friendship? Where are the ruins of Caternlot? Where are the ruins of Manehattan? All is seen is brand new locations. So any reference to G4 is an attempt to keep G4 fans and again IT FAILED. There is nothing beyond the movie. the comics exist because they didn't get the money to do a show and by their own stance such things are beta canon. Thus all the questions on how G4 became this is never answered. G4's first episode at least told us how things came to be. luna grew jealous and angry at ponies loving her sister and the day and shun her night. while some more specifics are missing form that at least we have an idea of why things are at the start of the show. We get nothing with G5. just that everything before is gone, no friendship, no magic. all gone. This is a massive fail. and G5 should have been completely seperate. It would have had a better chance without that connection.

7929849
but stayed together after that. note for some time Equestria existed before the sisters so more then that.

7929850
no its not its goign look look Twilight's mark

7929864
We also do have ruins. Quite notable ones, actually. Opaline's castle incorporates components from the Palace of the Two Sisters, and several building layouts from Canterlot can be seen in Zephyr Heights. Maretime Bay sits right on top of Baltimare and incorporates its street layout. Bridlewood is in the forests around Vanhoover (and the mountains are consistent with the Unicorn Range).

The questions are actually answered in MYM. They're just given in a coded way that requires us to think a little. Case in point; the story of the greedy bat in Father of the Bridlewood. This story requires a little bit of lateral thinking on the part of the viewer.

As explained above your claim that everything is gone is false.

7929865
Equestria did exist, yes. But it was fraught with tension the entire time, and the three tribes lived largely segregated anyway. Ponyville is described as being unusual for having a mixture of all three races.

On a historical note, your assertion that the nations that fought in WW2 'stayed together after that' is incorrect. The USA and USSR engaged in the Cold War, the USSR and China nearly went to war, Britain and the US nearly came to blows over the Suez, Germany, Italy, and Japan switched sides entirely at the end of WW2, Turkey and Greece effectively went to war over Cyprus... I could go on.

7929866
It isn't. Furthermore, the existance of Spike and the fact he talks about Twilight Sparkle confirms she existed- and there's her message in the Crystals as welll.

7929777
Even if she was depressed, she could have at the very least made some attempt to leave Maretime Bay since she felt so unwelcomed and had barely any connections to the place to justify her self-inflicted torture sessions.

7929933
And go where, precisely? Going solely off what we know in the movie (which is the extent of Sunny's knowledge base at the time) the other tribes would probably not be receptive. Even if the locals in Maretime Bay aren't hugely fond of her, at least they won't kill her for being a different species.

7929928
Are those in the actual movie and not beta canon.

If so the key issue temains. We are never told the cause of this massive change and it is massive again based where g4 left off. And while there was an occasional conflict it was relatively peace hence the ineptitude of the royal guard.

The movie never address why everything failed. We are just supposed to accept everything Twilight strived for failed.

That is bad writing.

7929983

The movie never address why everything failed. We are just supposed to accept everything Twilight strived for failed.

And therein lies the flaw in your argument. The movie doesn't address it because it's not meant to. It's the pilot for the G5 setting, not a standalone project. It's setting the world up and introducing us to the characters. If it explained everything there'd be nothing for the show to explore.

Dropping all the lore at once in a single production is bad writing. Leaving mysteries is not.

7929792
G5 toys

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7929999
No we should have a foudation. hitns at what happened. take a look at the pilot of G4. to this day we don't know the actual trigger event that cause luna to go Nightmare Moon. but we do know the reasons. with G5 movie we do not. just that friendship and magic is gone. and the country collapsed. No reason given why and considering where we left off that makes no sense. This is the sequel triology problem. Somehow the First order has the ability to turn a planet into Star killer even though they are the fraction of the Empire's size.

maybe it would be explained in a g5 series why this happened but that series never happened. Why didn't happen, the movie did not perform well enough to warrant it and why is that? BAD WRITING.

7930042
That series did happen. It's called Make your Mark. What happened between G4 and G5 is brought up a fair bit. In the film we do get hints; watch the opening again and pay attention to what Sprout says.

G4's pilot did set that up, yes, but they didn't dump the entire lore of Equestria in one episodes. Things were left as mysteries. Why is it fine for G4 to do it but not G5?

7930043
Boook or tv show?

7930066
TV show. Make your Mark is on Netflix.

https://www.netflix.com/title/81443471

7930068
okay but how does one alicorn get equestria to this state, not even nightmare moon pulled that off and depending on where in time she would face 4 to FIVE alicorns. It makes no logical sense for this to happen. This is again bad writing when little old me can figure out issues with this direction. Not only are they using a hybrid of Starlight and Cozy Glow for the main villian for that show, but she did something not even Discord pulled off, yet somehow this alicorn did? This is bad writing. be better writing if again not connected to G4 since there wouldn't be any restrictions and be a blank slate. since its not it has to deal with these issues and its failing. Okay they have merch, puts them above nu Trek for sure but look around, what its still out here. G4 merch and that sells. But late G4 and G5 have writing issues. yes I am calling out G4 which till the later seasons had a pretty good writing team with few flops (looking at you Mare Do Well). But the later season dropped the ball. Heck making Grogar a villian many were waiting for be Discord all along massive error.

Okay G5 got a show, very small show it seems. But 2 thigns turned me off to G5.

1 animation. why go full CGI, i get flash was goign to die but why not use what they did on the final g4 movie?

2: premise that the 9 years we spent with the mane 6 and all their struggles meant NOTHING. Fuck no to that. thus G5 has not retained enough of the G4 fanbase. and note habsro is having finical issues now because i bet they aren't have the same sells with G5 as they did G4 alogn with other mistakes they have made lately.

G5 is failing because it's trying to latch on to G4 hoping to retain the audience it had and it didn't work, got some but not enough. now wether there was a mandate by Hasbro to connect to G4 or not the writers failed to have that connection make logical sense. to go from where we ended to G4 to where G5 is makes no sense.