MLP:FIM Season 3 ending

[Triumph]

I just have to say: awwww! It was cute, heartwarming, tear-jerking even! It had a surprising twist. For a show that appears in 20-minute bits and is marketed to rather young children, I think they've done a truly nice job of showing character growth and development. This episode was lovely.

 

Anyone else care to express their enjoyment of this?

 

(Note: I am assuming that since I'm not Sylae, I'm allowed to start a thread about MLP. )

[keira]

I'm forbidden from starting mlp threads?

 

I must say, going into it, that I was very pessimistic. Even with M.A. Larson at the help, I was worried that the Alicorn Situation was going to ruin everything. Thankfully, however, this proved not to be the case, and it was a pretty good episode.

 

However, whether because of seven songs in one episode (apparently the real writer of the ep was Daniel Ingram ), or because of the shortened season, it felt way to rushed. In fact, the whole season has. It's pretty obvious that the season got shortened partway through production, which is sad. I mean, there's a ton of stuff left unaddressed, such as the ten-second screentime of the season opener villain, the hidden spellbook in the library, origins of the Alicorn Amulet, etc., that I hope gets addressed in s4 (which will presumably be the other half of s3). I'd also like to see where the Equestria Games were going, that was pretty clearly going to be something as well. McCarthy has also said that the s3 finale is only the first part of a three-part arc, so that's good as well.

 

Among the draconian cluster that Hasbro has been doing lately with the community (Mane6 C&D, FiW, etc), it's nice to see the show production team still has their poop in a group, even if they have to deal with Hasbro's mandates.

 

Now we just have the long wait before season 4 *sigh*

 

EDIT: have some feels.

Edited February 17, 2013 by sylae
The tv movie should be good though if it's under the main show team's control, although I prolly won't be touching the spinoff humanized show with a ten-foot pole.

[Triumph]

So...was I just totally oblivious to foreshadowing, or was Twilight's transformation quite out of the blue? I mean, her character development is obviously one of major long-term arcs of the whole show, but this particular twist surprised me. Did I miss clues somewhere? You speak of that "alicorn situation" as if it was obvious what was happening?

 

Yeah, the season as a whole definitely felt abbreviated and lacked some of the depth and fitted-together-ness that the first two seasons had, but overall I still enjoyed it.

[Rosalyn]

It was "foreshadowed" in the sense that Hasbro couldn't keep their mouths shut about it and most fans knew about the change in advance. Beyond that, there were a few subtle cues, mainly Celestia talking to Luna and stuff like that in some of the early season episodes, but they mention she was going to be transformed into an alicorn specifically, no.

[keira]

Well, the hub/hasbro doesn't know how to do surprises, it was publicly released on 29 January to ET, although rumors had been floating around for months before that.

 

The whole brony community (at least the parts I frequent) have been explosive over the last few weeks, a lot of things happened at once (an overview can be seen here).

[Triumph]

WOW. That's sad. So much drama for such a little show. The irony of people who work on or are fans of a show about people growing up / learning to be kind/caring/mature engaging in so much bickering....bleh.

[keira]

Well, you're going to have drama wherever you go, and bronies are no exception.

 

Personally, I don't find much of it to be a big deal, except for the rounds of C&Ds after so long. Mane6 poured blood, sweat, and tears into FiM for over a year, and to get slapped with a C&D now (when, let's be honest, Hasbro had to know about it before then). Not to mention all the other stuff at once.

 

i dunno

[Trenton.]

The whole Episode WAS rushed.

 

Main problem expressed and solved in the first half of the episode, and then the rest is the other ponies basking in the glow that is the awesomeness that is Twilight.

 

Also, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Season 3 Episode 13, The musical.

 

 

 

[media]

[/media]

- What my Cutie Mark is Telling Me

 

[media]

[/media]

- I've Got to Find a Way

 

[media]

[/media]

- A True, True Friend

 

[media]

[/media]

- Celestia's Ballad

 

Plus about seventeen more.

 

Also:

 

Season 1-4 is currently listing as 91 episodes total across all of them. A bit of simple math will clue you in on how many episodes are remaining when the first three are added up. Looks like season 4 will be the full 26 episode deal!

 

Also, welcome to the forums Rosalyn! Leave your sanity by the door.

 

 

I'm throwing one of those out, because this is the best thing ever.

 

[Tyranicus]

I really liked it, although I agree that it felt rushed. The songs were great, especially "A True, True Friend". I was apprehensive about the transformation, but they did it well.

[Dikiyoba]

So...was I just totally oblivious to foreshadowing, or was Twilight's transformation quite out of the blue?

It was a bit sudden, but not too bad. The series relies on episodic plots, none of the characters have much knowledge of alicorns/princesses, and it's well within Princess Celestia to not tell Twilight Sparkle anything until she feels like it. It was sudden but much less out of the blue than Twilight's brother or even the Crystal Empire.

 

But that, unfortunately, was one of the few things the episode got right. The plot frame was not only rushed by just plain wrong. The episode should have started with Twilight recieving the incomplete spell and proceeded chronologically, rather than opening with the discovery of the switched cutie marks and then revealing the incomplete spell through flashback. Twilight's plan for fixing the cutie marks felt rushed, mainly because she thought up the solution to it the very first time. And then Twilight's transformation was flat and cheesy. No one wants to watch five minutes of "YAY PRINCESS AWESOME!!!" It's boring. There should have been some negative consequences, real or perceived, to Twilight's transformation. After all, being promoted from student to major leader is going to bring about a lot of changes, and Twilight tends to be neurotic. The negative consequences wouldn't have had to be a big part of the episode, just hinted at or perhaps revealed at the end as a cliffhanger.

 

Also, cutie marks are still friggin' creepy.

 

Dikiyoba.

[Sudanna]

Diki, why do you continue to watch and extensively analyze this show if you have only ever expressed distaste for it.

[Dikiyoba]

Because the show does enough things right that it has potential, because pointing out when a show makes mistakes is the only way to get better shows that don't make those mistakes, because I'm surrounded by fans of the show who want to talk about it extensively anyway, and, most importantly, because extensively analyzing things is fun (and also informative).

 

Now, why do you care what Dikiyoba does with Dikiyoba's spare time?

[Trenton.]

We don't. Unless Dikiyoba is a carnivore that likes to eat peoples faces off.

 

 

Can you charge an intelligent Fyora like Dinosaur with attempted murder and consumption?

 

Rogue!

 

If not, you're fine.

[keira]

most importantly, because extensively analyzing things is fun

[Sudanna]

Because the show does enough things right that it has potential, because pointing out when a show makes mistakes is the only way to get better shows that don't make those mistakes, because I'm surrounded by fans of the show who want to talk about it extensively anyway, and, most importantly, because extensively analyzing things is fun (and also informative).

 

Now, why do you care what Dikiyoba does with Dikiyoba's spare time?

 

Because for me, my distaste of the show heavily overrides any enjoyment or fulfillment given by those activities and I'm wondering how you work.

[Triumph]

... because pointing out when a show makes mistakes is the only way to get better shows that don't make those mistakes...

 

I'm now curious just who Dikiyoba thinks we are. I never would have pegged any Spiderweb users as the sort with the power to influence future television programming. Or does Diki submit these posts to producers and executives as well as us?

Edited February 18, 2013 by Triumph
Also: Awww, it's Slarty!

[Trenton.]

Nah. Jeff is secretly Lauren Faust.

 

DUN DUN DUN!

[Student of Trinity]

I keep catching myself thinking that if I can only be articulate enough, I can actually influence the collective unconscious, and get the Zeitgeist to sieh things my way. Slowly I'm beginning to suspect that it doesn't really work that way. Poop.

[Alorael at Large]

You don't get there by being articulate, SoT. You get there by having the most powerful unconscious. Accumulate a full panoply of urges, shames, and other stresses intolerable to the ego, repress anything and everything, and categorically avoid all psychoanalysis. You can be the biggest fish in the deep, dark waters!

 

—Alorael, who understands being heavily critical of something that could be great but isn't. Something that's just inherently okay is okay, but when something could surpass what it is but doesn't manage to sometimes you just have to vent about it.

[Lauren CW]

I was very worried about the change, and I am still not sure how I feel about it yet.

But I would have loved it if they made some mention of the fact that Alicorns are in fact immortal, and none of the other mane6 are alicorns. What happens in 40 years?

[Sudanna]

I somehow doubt that the show will last for forty years. The theme of an immortal watching the world age and wither and die is a bit much for a kids' show anyways. They'd have to make everyone an alicorn.

[Student of Trinity]

40 years is a long time. The pony might learn to sing.

[Little Fyora]

.....extensively analyzing things is fun (and also informative).

my distaste of the show heavily overrides any enjoyment or fulfillment given by those activities and I'm wondering how you work.

 

INTPs/INTJs analyze stuff because that is what INTPs/INTJs do. It is in fact a common trait of all NT 'rationals'.

[Dikiyoba]

That assumes that Dikiyoba is an NT while Nalyd is not and, more importantly, that the Meyers-Briggs test is a scientifically valid way of describing personalities, which it is not.

[keira]

Personally, I'm a fan of the five-factor thing that Slarty linked some time back

 

this thing.

[Little Fyora]

Litttle Fyora knows Dikiyoba is a rational coz Dikiyoba had mentioned Dikiyoba's type in Dikiyoba's own thread a while ago.

 

I was just hoping to provide clarity. It was Nalyd's post about 'wondering how you work' that got me thinking about personalities in the first place. The MBTI is my choice of reference for almost everything related to the behaviour of people.

[Sudanna]

I don't get anything close to consistent results from that test. The only consistent letter is the I.

[nikki.]

I don't get anything close to consistent results from that test. The only consistent letter is the I.

 

Ah, yes, but even the "I" isn't consistent; the "I" that's taking the test isn't the same "I" that took the last one. The only constant is inconsistency,

[Dikiyoba]

The MBTI is my choice of reference for almost everything related to the behaviour of people.

Again, Meyers-Briggs is not a useful tool for figuring out people's behavior. It turns up occasional insights and generalizations, but it's not something you want to take seriously. It has too many exceptions and too little scientific evidence to back it up.

 

Also, in the SW MBTI test prior to the one Dikiyoba created, Dikiyobs scored as a ST, not an NT.

[Alorael at Large]

MBTI is fun but not terribly meaningful. As I've said before, if you tell the test what you're like it turns around and spits out a narrative about you that's about one part simple reflection and two parts guesses based on correlation of traits. It can be surprisingly interesting to learn what clusters together, and I do think it does a good job there, but it's not highly descriptive of individual people.

 

—Alorael, who has analyzed MBTI because he is an INTJ. However, after his first test he became so enamored of INTJ that his scores are now hilariously high in all categories. The test has lost all meaning for him.

[Triumph]

And the moral of the story is that if you magically transform and get wings, you might need to retake the Meyers-Briggs test because your answers could change.

[keira]

You think you are topic-drifting away from ponies, but you're not.

[Triumph]

It's My Little Forum: Topic-drift is Magic!

[keira]

SOON.

[Triumph]

SOON.

 

Woah! Is that is a piece of Slartysian foreshadowing of some Great Project soon to be unleashed upon the Spiderweb world?

[Callie]

Woah! Is that is a piece of Slartysian foreshadowing of some Great Project soon to be initiated and subsequently abandoned three days later?

FYT

[nikki.]

Woah! Is that is a piece of Slartysian foreshadowing of some Great Project soon to be unleashed upon the Spiderweb world?

 

one would certainly hope not

[keira]

one would certainly hope not

I should go into the mod panel and enable disliking, just so I can dislike this post

[nikki.]

I should go into the mod panel and enable disliking, just so I can dislike this post

 

I liked that post, just to show that non-MLP fans are much more welcoming, friendly, and ultimately accepting than actual "fans".

[Lilith]

 

I should go into the mod panel and enable disliking, just so I can dislike this post

 

wait is disliking posts really a thing that can be enabled

 

if you dislike a post does everyone see that you dislike it the way they can with likes

 

i could go in there and check but i'd rather increase my post count

 

but seriously if that's possible and it works the way liking posts does then it seems like the most passive-aggressive thing on Earth

[Dikiyoba]

wait is disliking posts really a thing that can be enabled

 

if you dislike a post does everyone see that you dislike it the way they can with likes

 

i could go in there and check but i'd rather increase my post count

Yes, no, and you are a terrible, terrible spammer.

 

Dikiyoba.

[Triumph]

Proof that Topic-drift Is Magic: my milestone (read: spam opportunity) thread generated only 14 replies. The thread I started for an actual discussion (this one) has generated vastly more spam. It's like some threads (mane ones?) go through a maturation process that culminates in a transformation into a winged spam-icorn (a transformation brought about by the interaction of more powerful beings posters), enabling the discussion to fly off in all sorts of unexpected directions.

 

The question now is why none of the threads on here suddenly burst in song.

 

I'm also contemplating attaching topic tags to all my posts, to serve as creepy cutie-mark analogues for Dikiyoba.

Edited February 24, 2013 by Triumph
The article

[Trenton.]

The question now is why none of the threads on here suddenly burst in song.

 

The Exile Trilogy sings in the shower, if that counts.

[Goldengirl]

The question now is why none of the threads on here suddenly burst in song.

 

Hmm. You clearly need to have your implants adjusted. Don't worry, we have sent someone to fix that for you next Thursday.

[Aran]

Woah! Is that is a piece of Slartysian foreshadowing of some Great Project soon to be unleashed upon the Spiderweb world?

 

Sy's plotting to take over the forum and turn us all into ponies. But everyone knew that already, right?

[keira]

[Triumph]

The important question is who will get wings!

[Tyranicus]

[Rowen]

I've enjoyed ponies since 1996.

[Trenton.]

I've enjoyed ponies since 1996.