The final writer roster for S4 is out. M.A. Larson is off the show because he sold a book & movie adaptation that took up most of his time for the past year, and is being replaced by 4 (!) new writers. Rogers replaces Morrow. Fullerton is back for one episode. Everything else is unchanged.
Wow 4 new writers, that can only mean more awkward episodes I feel as the new writers try to engage with the already deep set characterizations of the mane 6. From what I remember seeing, their resumes do not really have anything noteworthy...hopefully the pull it off ok.
Wow 4 new writers, that can only mean more awkward episodes I feel as the new writers try to engage with the already deep set characterizations of the mane 6. From what I remember seeing, their resumes do not really have anything noteworthy...hopefully the pull it off ok.
It'll probably be a mix. The two first episodes from post-S1 new writers were MMDW and Sleepless in Ponyville, which is a pretty wide variance. If I'm trying to be optimistic, apparently everyone is really high on Huber's Rarity episode; it's come up in multiple panels. Also Valentine did more stuff than shown there, including Sesame Street & Doc McStuffins (which is about as good as it gets for the 2-4 age bracket.) Sonnenberg did some old Beavis & Butthead episodes. And Levinger's been a well-regarded improv fixture for the last decade in LA and has a pretty clever twitter feed.
But yeah I'd rather just have Larson around. I guess you could look at it as Rogers replacing Larson, which isn't bad, and Morrow's S3 episodes were pretty far from my favorites. I'd rather see Williams gone, but what can you do.
This shit is done.
Maybe. The S4 preview looked better than I was expecting. Good song and the first clip suggests Hasbro is going to let them do some things I thought they wouldn't. If it's going to fall apart, I'd rather it go ahead and collapse rather than dragging things out.
I believe it is because of the short run time of 13 episodes. Two of my favourite episodes in the series came from season 3, Sleepless in Ponyville where they developed scootaloo and showed Rainbow Dash's character growth over 2 seasons, and Wonderbolt's Academy. Comparing this to season 1 and 2, where there was probably 2 excellent episodes per 8 of them in a total of 26 episodes, season 3 didnt fare that badly honestly.
Here let me think of the ones I found excellent and tally them to season 3, all my opinion of course
Season 1: Ticket Master, Suited for Success, Sonic Rainboom, A Dog and Pony Show, Green Isnt Your Color, Cutie Mark Chronicles, Party of One. Total tally 7
Season 2: Lesson Zero, May the Best Pet Win, Sweet and Elite, The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000, Hurricane Fluttershy, MMMystery on the Friendship Express. Total tally 6
Season 3: Sleepless In Ponyville, Wonderbolts Academy, Magical Mystery Cure (which I really liked personally, though I can agree on its faults). Total Tally 3, but could easily be 6 had the season carried on the full 26 episods, and had many of the other episodes not felt rushed due to the transitory nature of the season.
Having seen the animatics for season 4 at the comicon panel, I am hyped for season 4 based on the snippets they had shown. They seem to be addressing long standing character issues more deeply (eg scootaloo), as well as more world building with Celestia and Luna's past.
I am curious to know what the other regulars who post here think of season 3 and what their own tally is
Of course Equestria Girls is just something I cannot agree with. I watched the pony segments in the Crystal Empire, the ending of the whole High School Fiasco to see how they resolved the plot, and then the last pony segment, did not even bother sitting through the film in one go.
I did a post-S3 ranking of all 65 episodes individually over on another site (roundstable). S3 on average only scored a point or two worse than S2 or S1 to me (and for many scored as well or better), which surprised me a bit. The overall impression is not as good, I think, because it has multiple rounds of toy inserts crammed in and is shorter. Both of these things made the overall S3 narrative not work all that well, but I'm in the camp of still being glad that it has one compared to most of S2, which felt a bit aimless. I liked Sleepless in Ponyville, Magic Duel, and MMC the best. I notice people who "digested" MMC and now like it despite some obvious flaws - clearly a fairly popular opinion if you look at how well it's repeatedly done on Youtube before being taken down this summer - are generally moderately optimistic going into S4.
At this point, I honestly wonder to what extent the constraints placed on season 3 - the length, the toys, and the need to somewhat wrap up plot points in case the show was cancelled - resulted in a few episodes that missed the mark narratively, and which were unfortunately clustered later in the season. Because of course it's also very possible that inexperience and/or relative lack of skill on the part of the remaining staff caused the problems as well, and we really won't know which of those it is until S4. At the very least, I thought it was promising that the preview showed Hasbro was letting the staff do the storylines they seemed to be doing; along with how they're handling the comics, it suggests that the show isn't going to turn into some completely generic toyfest overnight, which was a definite concern after S3 and EqG. By the way, as we're looking at the new writers, the new S4 song is apparently written by Levinger.
As for Equestria Girls, it was mediocre to bad, and it's bothersome that most of the fans outside of a few sites don't seem to realize that, but I don't think it's guaranteed to ruin the whole franchise. I understand why it happened, and I'm less concerned about it because of where the show seems to be going in S4. It still had some good humor and a lot of the most awful stuff could (although maybe not should) be chalked up to mandates. Hopefully the sales bomb and that's the end of it. As I said at the time, let us never speak of it again.
Overall, I'm going into S4 with an open mind but I'm not counting on it to be amazing. There's a good chance the inexperienced staff gets their legs under them, Hasbro backs off a little bit, and everything is solid. But there's a chance that doesn't happen; oh well, there are lots of other good shows out there and the comics are still (mostly) good for now.
Comments
But yeah I'd rather just have Larson around. I guess you could look at it as Rogers replacing Larson, which isn't bad, and Morrow's S3 episodes were pretty far from my favorites. I'd rather see Williams gone, but what can you do. Maybe. The S4 preview looked better than I was expecting. Good song and the first clip suggests Hasbro is going to let them do some things I thought they wouldn't. If it's going to fall apart, I'd rather it go ahead and collapse rather than dragging things out.
I believe it is because of the short run time of 13 episodes. Two of my favourite episodes in the series came from season 3, Sleepless in Ponyville where they developed scootaloo and showed Rainbow Dash's character growth over 2 seasons, and Wonderbolt's Academy. Comparing this to season 1 and 2, where there was probably 2 excellent episodes per 8 of them in a total of 26 episodes, season 3 didnt fare that badly honestly.
Here let me think of the ones I found excellent and tally them to season 3, all my opinion of course
Season 1: Ticket Master, Suited for Success, Sonic Rainboom, A Dog and Pony Show, Green Isnt Your Color, Cutie Mark Chronicles, Party of One. Total tally 7
Season 2: Lesson Zero, May the Best Pet Win, Sweet and Elite, The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000, Hurricane Fluttershy, MMMystery on the Friendship Express. Total tally 6
Season 3: Sleepless In Ponyville, Wonderbolts Academy, Magical Mystery Cure (which I really liked personally, though I can agree on its faults). Total Tally 3, but could easily be 6 had the season carried on the full 26 episods, and had many of the other episodes not felt rushed due to the transitory nature of the season.
Having seen the animatics for season 4 at the comicon panel, I am hyped for season 4 based on the snippets they had shown. They seem to be addressing long standing character issues more deeply (eg scootaloo), as well as more world building with Celestia and Luna's past.
I am curious to know what the other regulars who post here think of season 3 and what their own tally is
Of course Equestria Girls is just something I cannot agree with. I watched the pony segments in the Crystal Empire, the ending of the whole High School Fiasco to see how they resolved the plot, and then the last pony segment, did not even bother sitting through the film in one go.
At this point, I honestly wonder to what extent the constraints placed on season 3 - the length, the toys, and the need to somewhat wrap up plot points in case the show was cancelled - resulted in a few episodes that missed the mark narratively, and which were unfortunately clustered later in the season. Because of course it's also very possible that inexperience and/or relative lack of skill on the part of the remaining staff caused the problems as well, and we really won't know which of those it is until S4. At the very least, I thought it was promising that the preview showed Hasbro was letting the staff do the storylines they seemed to be doing; along with how they're handling the comics, it suggests that the show isn't going to turn into some completely generic toyfest overnight, which was a definite concern after S3 and EqG. By the way, as we're looking at the new writers, the new S4 song is apparently written by Levinger.
As for Equestria Girls, it was mediocre to bad, and it's bothersome that most of the fans outside of a few sites don't seem to realize that, but I don't think it's guaranteed to ruin the whole franchise. I understand why it happened, and I'm less concerned about it because of where the show seems to be going in S4. It still had some good humor and a lot of the most awful stuff could (although maybe not should) be chalked up to mandates. Hopefully the sales bomb and that's the end of it. As I said at the time, let us never speak of it again.
Overall, I'm going into S4 with an open mind but I'm not counting on it to be amazing. There's a good chance the inexperienced staff gets their legs under them, Hasbro backs off a little bit, and everything is solid. But there's a chance that doesn't happen; oh well, there are lots of other good shows out there and the comics are still (mostly) good for now.
Also, the Vinyl Scratch tapes are back:
Im loving the slew of animations that have been announced or are coming out since Children of the Night.
BELIEVE IT!
http://www.equestriadaily.com/2013/08/all-cards-from-mlp-ccg-event-at-gencon.html#more
It is imperative that Rym and Scott get a set of these to review when it comes out :P