Human Pony Spin-off - From the Toy Fair

[Lerian]

Perhaps my biggest fear....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Svy0NevEw

[PonyzRulz]

cute monster cool exploson cool dragon-thing

[FrankT]

We've had it coming! We've been humanizing the ponies, we've got no-one to blame but ourselves!

[elsporko]

But when the fans do it the results are usually a little less hideous

[Deadpool]

You know say what you want about fanboy rages, but roughly 60% of the time they are justified.

Look at my buddy Peter Parker, he's dead, and got replaced by Doc Ock, it stinks worse than a 6000 year old mummy... fied turd... that was the result of a Extra large bean burrito.

You know who predicted it would be that terrible? THE FANS!

And we can't forget the DMC reboot, while it was a DECENT game, by Devil May Cry standards, it was only half the game it should have been. Not to mention the famous dialogue between "Dante" and the Secret ingredient. (Note: The dialogue is just them cussing at eachother, and sorry for the quotes if you liked the new Dante, but I refuse to even consider that character to be Dante)

[SunsetSombra]

So there's this too...

http://www.equestriadaily.com/2013/03/rumor-spike-dog-in-equestria-girls.html

Not really sure how I'm supposed to react to that, to be honest.

[Cadabra]

So there's this too...

http://www.equestriadaily.com/2013/03/rumor-spike-dog-in-equestria-girls.html

Not really sure how I'm supposed to react to that, to be honest.

I assume they are trying to get into the Littlest Petshop demographic with this marketing decision.

[tacobob]

Dwaah. Out of all the horrible stuff we've been seeing..Spike actually looks cute. I really thought him as more of a child/son than a pet or brother to Twilight....

[Lerian]

But...but... Rari-spike...

'Beautiful...'

'Not the decor, her!'

'How are my spines? Are they straight?'

Although it wouldn't be the first 'overtones' involving Rarity and dogs I suppose....

[tacobob]

And there's now a web site..

http://www.hasbro.com/equestriagirls/en_us/

Looks like they ditched the cutie marks on the faces..But they're still bleh designs...

[Starfox64x]

I dont know how i feel about this... It's ads seem to teeter on the girly stereotype, although the regular MLP usually does too.... I think the fact that they have the same skin colour as their pony version makes it seem a little too off... too far into the uncanny valley... But, i'll withhold judgement until some REAL info comes out.

[Sparkleheart]

Yeah, I'm not holding out hope for this movie being good. Though I think it could potentially spawn some great MST3K-type edits.

[Rosewind]

I think this will release to limited appeal and quietly fade into obscurity in a "let us never speak of this again" sort of way.

[tacobob]

I'm going to end up watching it..Once it's on Dah Hub....I will be a positive pony on this..My expectations will be very low..As in very very low. I don't like the idea.. I REALLY don't like the character designs. I mean, Positive. Yay., Happy.

[Motion Paradox]

Hmm, for me I'm fine with the premise, the main issue I take with it is that some of it seems a bit....fan work-y

Namely the fact that they made the girls high school students despite the original show referring to them as adults; they mention themselves being mares multiple times indicating that they are at the age of adulthood and the comment from Canterlot Wedding shows that they age at a rate fairly similar to humans. Not to mention that half of the Mane 6 Ponies own their own homes and since original worlds often borrow from the culture of the region they're made in they would have to be in their early twenties since that's the age they would be able to enter into a contract, then Applejack & Twilight also live in their place of business but Sweet Apple Acres was built by Applejack's great grand parents so it either belongs to Granny Smith or was given to her while the Library seems to be set up so the Librarian can choose to live there.

I also don't care for the fact that they didn't completely humanise them; the fact that they retain their pony ears is a bit odd as is the "tail hair". And of course the fact that they weren't given human colouring, I can understand why they did it; it would have been difficult to make it work since they either would have had to make the cast relatively diverse (and let's face it, some ethnicities simply do not suit certain characters) or they would have had to follow the Ponies are Caucasian, Ponies with Asian features are Asian, Zebras are African etc., which I personally would not have minded since I follow that rule myself but I know a number of people would have probably objected to having nearly every character in the series be of European decent, even if they made them "European Diverse" and had them all be different types of European (and if you recall Hearths Warming Eve, all of the three tribes were based on European cultures so they could make it work). But still, just because I understand why they did it doesn't mean that I have to like it.

On that note I actually like that they didn't put horns on the Unicorn girls, I do agree that they should have some sort of indicator but I would rather have a mark like Lady Amalthia in "The Last Unicorn" since a Human with a horn on her head looks a bit odd to me. Still they'll probably have a magic wand or something along those lines. I also admit that I'm actually completely fine with their build, I know that a number of people have said that they don't like how thin they are claiming that they look annorexic, but then again Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls are similarly thin and nobody objected to their designs, it's stylised and even if you point out that a little girl may not realise this, they will realise that most Humans aren't bright pastel colours either so (really give little girls a bit more credit, having been one myself I speak from experience when I say we aren't all little sheep who will pursue any ideal waved in front of our faces. I can also say that we aren't as aware of out lack of figures as you may assume and by making a huge issue of it you're creating the very problem you're trying to avoid). Granted I am slim so I may be a bit biased but if they're slim because their active and not because of dieting having thinner Human characters would be a good example, with obesity being so common these we shouldn't be telling children that it's fine if you're 50 pounds over weight (because really, it's not healthy for anyone) and it can be done in a positive way so that people don't feel that they're defective because they're over weight but realise that there's room for improvement and that they don't have go in the opposite direction and deticate every moment of their lives to achieving physical perfection (because really, as a toy collector some of the reactions I've seen are odd, namely one that implied that it's only acceptable to be active if you have aspirations to become a professional athelete, not for the sake of self improvement which is probably message that could cause more problems for society). A lot of people have hidden behind the "alternate beauty" movement when their bodies aren't really meant to be as heavy as they are and claiming "I'm my own person, I don't need to fit some cookie cutter mold" and ignore that they're also damaging their health.

Not to mention it's a bit unfair to rain on somebody for being thin, even in these days it isn't easy having any sort of perceivable advantage, including a smaller build; when you have a disadvantage if somebody teases you you're allowed to snap back at them, but when you have an advantage you aren't allowed to do that and people are less sympathetic and view complaining about being needled for it the same way that most would perceive somebody from a wealthy family complaining that the car they got for their birthday wasn't the model they wanted (Even I have experienced this to a degree and I was home schooled). For example if somebody isn't academically skilled and is teased for it they can then snap back at them and call them an "egg head" or something to that effect, but if a gifted person is mocked for their ability they would be given all sorts of grief if they snapped at the person antagonising them and called them stupid. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it's silly to hate a character's design because they're slim and to assume that they will be vapid and shallow because of it, especially since people have been alright with similarly built characters in the past, even looking back you never see somebody shaking their head at a slim character from the past the way you see people doing with, for example, "The Chinese Baby Jell-o Ad"

But moving along I also don't understand why so many people seem to object to the fact that they wear skirts, really if they behave the same way they always do what difference does it make if they choose to wear skirts or not? Their skirts are loose so they won't impede their ability to move freely, and looking at how the characters are built they'll cover well enough so we aren't constantly seeing their bloomers. It's silly to assume that they will all be 2 dimensional girly stereo types just because they wear skirts it doesn't even happen in real life; I don't even own a pair of pants, and while I do have a number of typical girl hobbies like collecting dolls, but I'm also skilled in math, have learnt a second language, enjoy video games (especially puzzle ones), watch action movies (including those without a romantic subplot) and during an incident once when the my house's alarm went off and we thought it was an intruder I had my kali sticks when neither my dad nor the son of my mum's friend who had to stay with us at the time (note said friend was in the army and his son plays football for his school) did anything to deal with it beyond phoning the police (in the end it turned out that it was just the back door being blown open). But I take equal amounts of pride in my more typically girly traits as I do with the traits that are less so

Remember the lesson from Dog & Pony Show, there's a difference between being feminine and being a girly stereo type; just because you give feminine traits to a female character does not mean that you're being sexist or that the character is automatically inferior to, for example (doubly so when these girly traits are superficial), a purely tomboy character (in fact you could argue that this line of thinking is sexist as it basically says that you think a girl cannot achieve her full potential if she embraces anything girly, even if that's not your intention. It's also similarly biased to say that a male should not like something associated with females, often doing things that put you in a position of perceive inferiority is frowned upon while doing something that raises you above your current positioned is applauded; think of the message that sends when a person is supporting a girl liking masculine things but shunning a boy who likes feminine things).

Actually, when I think I about I don't think I've seen females rejecting girly things be as common place in any other part of the world as it is in Canada and the United states, I'm going to bring up Pokemon for a bit because I think that this part of the issue is similar to the reaction I saw from some when the female trainer from Heart Gold & Soul Silver was first announced. There was some disapointment that they did not reuse the female trainer from Pokemon Crystal, especially since the female trainer in the first generation remake games was the unused female trainer that had been planned for the original but couldn't be included due to limited technology but somebody actually went so far as to start a topic about how much they hated the female trainer's design and that she would have to choose the boy trainer to avoid having to use a pink and white set of Pokegear (which ended up being a moot point since you choose the colour) and considered both the pink Pokegear and the female character's design to be sexist. According to this person and some of the others who replied to their post the new girl trainer was too girly and while the original female trainer "looked like she could take care of herself" the designs had become progressively more girly with each generation and that this one "looked like she would start crying if she tripped and fell or broke a nail" and that female trainers in general have been reduced to eye candy. I could understand being upset if choosing the female changed the game so that the story became simpler or the game were significantly easier, but in every game the female trainer goes against gym leaders and the elite trainers, captures Pokemon most people never even see (provided you don't botch up and faint it), takes down a crime syndicate and saves the world just like the male trainer, even if she wears a puffy hat with a giant bow on it or carries a pink Pokegear. Not to mention that generation has Whitney, the Gym Leader who not only uses cute Pokemon exclusively but models her gym to resemble one, and yes she cries when you defeat her and loves cuteness, but she also has one of the most formidable teams of the Johto gym leaders with her Milktank only having one attack that you can completely block (Attract never gave me any trouble since most of my team is Female) and we see in the remakes that she feels a need to better herself.

I see the issue of everyone assuming that the girly designs used in Equestria Girls will make it into a shallow teen-girl feature as being similar to reactions some had to the girly trainer design; really, look at the designs for the Ponies as they normally are, they're cute. No matter what other adjectives you use for them they are cute, it all has an asthetic that does appeal to many girls, if the original design can be cute and have good depth then this can be....relatively cute and do the same? Colourful talking Ponies doesn't automatically mean tea parties and playing dress up, so why does having thin girls that wear skirts automatically mean having the depth of a coffee spoon and fawning over boys?

In short I don't especially like the asthetic, but I'm willing to give the rest of the content a chance, it's just one movie and the music is written by Danial Ingram, how bad could it possibly be?

Oh, and as for the issue of what Discord could be in that world, I could imagine him either being as he is now, or similar to The Phantom in the show Flying Rhino Junior High. For those who aren't familiar with the show the basic premise is that these four children have to use their knowledge of science and/or history to defeat a man who lives in the basement and uses his giant computer to change the school or something in it to fit the lesson taught at the beginning of the episode (The best analogy I can think of is what Magic School Bus could have been like if they gave magic to an antagonist)

[elsporko]

I think the reason people have focused on the skirts issue is that for Applejack and especially Rainbow Dash is that it doesn't really fit the character. Doing heavy farmwork is better suited for pants then skirts and Rainbow Dash is pretty adamant against doing girly things. And really the fact that they are wearing skirts isn't as much of a problem as the fact that it just looks like lazy designing for the purpose of making toys easier to produce

[Frost137]

Hopefully I didn't miss this in the convo (then Iook like an idiot), but did you guys see the trailer for Equestria Girls? Supposedly it's a movie?????

It looks ok. Comes out June 16.

But then this throws off my "Ponies Falling to Earth" RP cannon.

[QuickLime]

I think this will release to limited appeal and quietly fade into obscurity in a "let us never speak of this again" sort of way.

BIIIG LIPPED ALLIGATOR MOVIEE