A
Amaris
Guest
You and me both!
Yup.
On an unrelated note, I was checking out a stores fandom shirt section, they had dozens of retro and fandom geekery, all just listed the price and standard sizes then this:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y17/Chemy/Photos/dohp_zpshgk34d41.jpg
The "That means you!" is implied there.
On an unrelated note, I was checking out a stores fandom shirt section, they had dozens of retro and fandom geekery, all just listed the price and standard sizes then this:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y17/Chemy/Photos/dohp_zpshgk34d41.jpg
The "That means you!" is implied there.
Well, that was a hundred kinds of awesome. 
Also interesting that they used the existing Mane 6 actors for the (more prevalent) cast members: Ashleigh was Lyra, Andrea was Bon Bon, Tabitha was Derpy, etc. I envision a future where Hasbro tires of the Mane 6 and commissions a spinoff featuring these ponies, which would happen to keep everyone employed. :P
As a Doctor Who fan, this had DW fandom references pours out the ears. The whole Doctor / Derpy thing was lifted right from the fan web series, and at the end when he's shouting how he didn't realize how it was LOVE that was the key to the whole thing, right to Rose.
Then the bow tie and scarf, "Allons-y", and sooo much more.
I had never realized how often those three flower ponies were seen together (and over-reacting to things) over the years. Now it's a REAL THING. But like the Lyra / Bon Bon ship, it sails only as far as the individual fan wants it to.
This is plenty to keep the fandom happy for a LONG time. If the show makes it to 200, I trust we'll have something as special - and NOT BEFORE THEN. This was great as a one-off, but I don't want to suddenly have all our backgrounders suddenly taking larger roles on a regular basis. Back to cameo status you go..!
Mark
Also interesting that they used the existing Mane 6 actors for the (more prevalent) cast members: Ashleigh was Lyra, Andrea was Bon Bon, Tabitha was Derpy, etc. I envision a future where Hasbro tires of the Mane 6 and commissions a spinoff featuring these ponies, which would happen to keep everyone employed. :P
As a Doctor Who fan, this had DW fandom references pours out the ears. The whole Doctor / Derpy thing was lifted right from the fan web series, and at the end when he's shouting how he didn't realize how it was LOVE that was the key to the whole thing, right to Rose.
Then the bow tie and scarf, "Allons-y", and sooo much more. I had never realized how often those three flower ponies were seen together (and over-reacting to things) over the years. Now it's a REAL THING. But like the Lyra / Bon Bon ship, it sails only as far as the individual fan wants it to.
This is plenty to keep the fandom happy for a LONG time. If the show makes it to 200, I trust we'll have something as special - and NOT BEFORE THEN. This was great as a one-off, but I don't want to suddenly have all our backgrounders suddenly taking larger roles on a regular basis. Back to cameo status you go..!
Mark
Welp.
When it comes to these threads, from back when I used to post in them more, I'm not used to being THE dissent voice. But, here I am.
"Slice of Life" was, to not beat around the bush, bloody awful.
An easy candidate for the worst episode of the entire series.
Why? NOT - I repeat, N.O.T. - because it was about background ponies, and didn't feature the Mane Six much. I have no problem with that. I loved TNGs "Lower Decks". Using some of the background ponies, taking bits of their personalities that have been established by the fandom, and then building a story around them? Having an episode that is still fundamentally an MLP:FiM episode in terms of tone, style, narrative, but featuring background ponies instead of the mane six? That's a wonderful idea.
I don't feel this episode DID that. With the exception of Lyra and BonBon, it just threw everything into a blender, hit puree, and then walked away. The unsurprising result was a big mess that didn't in any way feel like an actual episode of this show.
I decided to write down a more detailed breakdown of what I didn't like, but it's rather long, so I'm putting it in spoiler tags.
We'll see how things go in the coming episodes, but so far, season 5 has been a letdown for me overall. If things don't improve, this may be where I get off the train.
When it comes to these threads, from back when I used to post in them more, I'm not used to being THE dissent voice. But, here I am.
"Slice of Life" was, to not beat around the bush, bloody awful.
An easy candidate for the worst episode of the entire series. Why? NOT - I repeat, N.O.T. - because it was about background ponies, and didn't feature the Mane Six much. I have no problem with that. I loved TNGs "Lower Decks". Using some of the background ponies, taking bits of their personalities that have been established by the fandom, and then building a story around them? Having an episode that is still fundamentally an MLP:FiM episode in terms of tone, style, narrative, but featuring background ponies instead of the mane six? That's a wonderful idea.
I don't feel this episode DID that. With the exception of Lyra and BonBon, it just threw everything into a blender, hit puree, and then walked away. The unsurprising result was a big mess that didn't in any way feel like an actual episode of this show.
I decided to write down a more detailed breakdown of what I didn't like, but it's rather long, so I'm putting it in spoiler tags.
Really, there was no "narrative" to this episode - well, there was at first, with the donkeys and Derpy and the wedding plans getting messed up, but they threw that away in favor of shenanigans. It didn't use the background ponies so much as it just had them exist. Yes, Octavia has spoken for the first time - that's not in and of itself interesting beyond a MOMENTARY "oh wow she talked" feeling. Okay, and then..? Nothing.
And references to entirely unrelated properties (i.e. Doctor Who, The Big Lebowski) should not take up anywhere near that much time. You make a reference, you make a joke or a sight gag or whatever, and then you move on. You don't have almost half of the episode focus on characters and dialog and situations that have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO with the show.
And don't really fit in, either. If you are going to use purely referential characters this much, you've got to place them in the universe of the show with care, not just drop them in. The stuff with Doctor Hooves at the beginning did kind of work from that perspective, though it did go on way too long (and then we continued to focus on him when he went to the bowling alley). But The Dude just... shows up. Where's the reference? Where's the joke? Who is this character? It's not enough to have a referential element just EXIST. That's not inherently funny or interesting.
Especially if someone isn't familiar with the reference source. If someone hasn't seen the Big Lebowski or isn't a Who fan (raises hand on both points), it's just... I'm sitting there like what is even happening, who are these ponies and why should I care? Because there was nothing funny in the bowling alley scene except for the "man" joke. BL reference aside, that was a REALLY boring scene. Nothing much happened. It was lazy as fuck. It entirely relied ON the reference to drive it.
And later, the Doctor dons the scarf and shouts "Allons-y!" I had to ask a friend what both of those things meant. This, again, is the problem with devoting too much time to referencing things from other properties. A shout-out should be a brief little bit, like a line of dialog or two or a visual gag that's there and then it's gone. AND, it should also do one of the following:
1) be something that makes sense in context. Twilight saying "Winter is coming!" in "Tanks for the Memories" was clearly a Game of Thrones shout out. I hate Game of Thrones, I think it's an awful series, and yet I would say THAT'S how you do a good shout out. Because it was quick, it was just there, you chuckle, and then you move on. And it made sense in-universe as something she would say at that moment, given the situation.
or
2) be set-up to be funny. Yes, if you're a huge fan of Doctor Who, maybe you get a kick out of the simple existence of these shout-outs, but really, I have to wonder, even if you are a fan, is it really that funny to just have him say "Allons-y!" for no reason? "Hey viewers, we know what Doctor Who is and can quote it! Isn't that funny?" Again, where is the joke? He just randomly shouts a thing that has no meaning in Equestria and then runs into the town hall.
I don't feel that this episode succeeded at doing either of the above when it comes to the referential stuff.
Same with all the Brony fandom shoutouts and memes and whatnot. So ButtonMash APPEARED? So the TwiCane APPEARED? So what? Their very existence is... just nothing. So they exist. Okay? And? It barely even qualifies as a shout-out, especially in the context of the gigantic nonsensical mess that was the second half of this episode (with the... whatever that was Octavia and Vinyl were riding through town and everyone+everything ending up on it).
More than reminding me in any way of other episodes of FiM, "Slice of Life" reminded me of the abysmally fan-wankish "Double Rainboom".
The exception, as noted above, was Lyra and BonBon. The "friiiiieeeends yeah!" thing and BonBon's secret agent backstory were actually amusing... at first. But they pounded both of those jokes into the ground. Same with the Doctor and his adventures in time and space. Long before any of those bits had run their course, I basically was feeling like this.
That allows me to segue into another problem with this episode, and really, with the season as a whole. Four episodes in a row - "Bloom and Gloom", "Tanks for the Memories", "Appleoosa's Most Wanted", and "Make New Friends but Keep Discord", all suffered from this problem to varying degrees. Taking a joke, an idea, or a bit and just beating it to death. After the last of those four, we had Griffonstone, which was really cool and seemed like a return to form. Then there was this thing.
And references to entirely unrelated properties (i.e. Doctor Who, The Big Lebowski) should not take up anywhere near that much time. You make a reference, you make a joke or a sight gag or whatever, and then you move on. You don't have almost half of the episode focus on characters and dialog and situations that have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO with the show.
And don't really fit in, either. If you are going to use purely referential characters this much, you've got to place them in the universe of the show with care, not just drop them in. The stuff with Doctor Hooves at the beginning did kind of work from that perspective, though it did go on way too long (and then we continued to focus on him when he went to the bowling alley). But The Dude just... shows up. Where's the reference? Where's the joke? Who is this character? It's not enough to have a referential element just EXIST. That's not inherently funny or interesting.
Especially if someone isn't familiar with the reference source. If someone hasn't seen the Big Lebowski or isn't a Who fan (raises hand on both points), it's just... I'm sitting there like what is even happening, who are these ponies and why should I care? Because there was nothing funny in the bowling alley scene except for the "man" joke. BL reference aside, that was a REALLY boring scene. Nothing much happened. It was lazy as fuck. It entirely relied ON the reference to drive it.
And later, the Doctor dons the scarf and shouts "Allons-y!" I had to ask a friend what both of those things meant. This, again, is the problem with devoting too much time to referencing things from other properties. A shout-out should be a brief little bit, like a line of dialog or two or a visual gag that's there and then it's gone. AND, it should also do one of the following:
1) be something that makes sense in context. Twilight saying "Winter is coming!" in "Tanks for the Memories" was clearly a Game of Thrones shout out. I hate Game of Thrones, I think it's an awful series, and yet I would say THAT'S how you do a good shout out. Because it was quick, it was just there, you chuckle, and then you move on. And it made sense in-universe as something she would say at that moment, given the situation.
or
2) be set-up to be funny. Yes, if you're a huge fan of Doctor Who, maybe you get a kick out of the simple existence of these shout-outs, but really, I have to wonder, even if you are a fan, is it really that funny to just have him say "Allons-y!" for no reason? "Hey viewers, we know what Doctor Who is and can quote it! Isn't that funny?" Again, where is the joke? He just randomly shouts a thing that has no meaning in Equestria and then runs into the town hall.
I don't feel that this episode succeeded at doing either of the above when it comes to the referential stuff.
Same with all the Brony fandom shoutouts and memes and whatnot. So ButtonMash APPEARED? So the TwiCane APPEARED? So what? Their very existence is... just nothing. So they exist. Okay? And? It barely even qualifies as a shout-out, especially in the context of the gigantic nonsensical mess that was the second half of this episode (with the... whatever that was Octavia and Vinyl were riding through town and everyone+everything ending up on it).
More than reminding me in any way of other episodes of FiM, "Slice of Life" reminded me of the abysmally fan-wankish "Double Rainboom".
The exception, as noted above, was Lyra and BonBon. The "friiiiieeeends yeah!" thing and BonBon's secret agent backstory were actually amusing... at first. But they pounded both of those jokes into the ground. Same with the Doctor and his adventures in time and space. Long before any of those bits had run their course, I basically was feeling like this.
That allows me to segue into another problem with this episode, and really, with the season as a whole. Four episodes in a row - "Bloom and Gloom", "Tanks for the Memories", "Appleoosa's Most Wanted", and "Make New Friends but Keep Discord", all suffered from this problem to varying degrees. Taking a joke, an idea, or a bit and just beating it to death. After the last of those four, we had Griffonstone, which was really cool and seemed like a return to form. Then there was this thing.
We'll see how things go in the coming episodes, but so far, season 5 has been a letdown for me overall. If things don't improve, this may be where I get off the train.
A
Amaris
Guest
*lights torch*
Nah, I'm kidding. I get what you're saying. It is loud, it is messy, but for some reason I still just love it to pieces. I see it as a piece of chocolate cake, and I'm a one year old: I'm going in face first, and I'm going to cackle with glee as the chocolate, and sprinkles, and icing just get all over everything. From what I'm reading, the chocolate cake with extra sprinkles and icing is fine, you just don't want it going all over the place.
Nah, I'm kidding. I get what you're saying. It is loud, it is messy, but for some reason I still just love it to pieces. I see it as a piece of chocolate cake, and I'm a one year old: I'm going in face first, and I'm going to cackle with glee as the chocolate, and sprinkles, and icing just get all over everything. From what I'm reading, the chocolate cake with extra sprinkles and icing is fine, you just don't want it going all over the place.
I can understand that. A LOT of the time when I've seen someone rate it positively, it's been that kind of sentiment: it's crazy and ridiculous and really doesn't make any sense and it's great. It just works for some, but not for me.
something like that! That may not be a bad way to put it. I really think they would have been much better off pairing it down to basically an "alt six" (pick six background ponies and use them as the main characters for the episode), keeping the purely referential bits to very short shout-out moments, and conducting things like they were making a normal episode of MLP but for the "alternate" cast. Buuuuuut that's just my take.
I'll take your word for it, since I haven't payed much attention to the fandom in quite some time. I thought seasons 3 and (especially) 4 were both excellent - rough spots here and there, sure, but no more so than seasons 1 and 2. Among all four I'd have difficulty picking a favorite season.
Season 5 on the other hand has had 4 episodes in a row that I didn't care for, then one really good one, then this wacky thing I also didn't care for. The show has never done that to me before, so we'll see.
*slowly puts down shovel... eyes warily* hmm
But all joking aside, no pitchforks necessary, haha. I won't shy away from articulating why I didn't care for an episode if I feel like writing my thoughts out, as I did in this case, but if everyone else likes it, hey, who am I to tell you all not to? Not gonna be all STOP HAVING FUN GUYS about it.
You'll get no argument from me that, as a narrative or even a joke delivery vehicle, the episode was an abject failure. I just don't think it matters. It wasn't aiming to be that. It was a 22-minute, audiovisual catalogue of all the influence the fans have had on the show and the showrunners. It was a big, stupid celebration of this silly horse show making it farther than it had any right to. And consider this: of all the ponies in the episode, the one who got the closest to being the central character and having an arc and everything was Derpy Frigging Hooves. A year ago - heck, even a few months ago – that was the absolute, #1, post-Derpygate, at the top of the list of never-gonna-happen-in-a-million-years item. We got a fucking Derpy episode. In light of that, trivialities like it not happening to be any good seem unimportant.
And finally, this:
And finally, this:
Fan sentiment is one thing, but Hasbro could only let it go this far for one rea$on...
It doesn't at all hurt that we in the Brony community are buying the toys and DVDs and movie tickets, but if the core audience of little girls haven't been making their parents (myself included) do it for them, FiM would have ended either after its first season, or more likely the original 65 episode commitment shows like this usually last. Granted, one thing DOES tie into the other, but if fan zeal was the only factor, we'd be on our third Firefly movie by now (sic).
I'm damn happy we've gotten this far. Hasbro has said that MLP will be part of its core strategy for another few years at least, and while we've done our part, if all that merch wasn't moving, we wouldn't be here right now.
Mark
It doesn't at all hurt that we in the Brony community are buying the toys and DVDs and movie tickets, but if the core audience of little girls haven't been making their parents (myself included) do it for them, FiM would have ended either after its first season, or more likely the original 65 episode commitment shows like this usually last. Granted, one thing DOES tie into the other, but if fan zeal was the only factor, we'd be on our third Firefly movie by now (sic).
I'm damn happy we've gotten this far. Hasbro has said that MLP will be part of its core strategy for another few years at least, and while we've done our part, if all that merch wasn't moving, we wouldn't be here right now.
Mark