Friendship is Magic Show (Revised) Notes

 

A few words for context:

 

Some might say the show's high quality was by complete accident, and being made at the right time by the right people. In 2009, a show was born out of many animation industry veterans, whom were big with works like the original PowerPuff Girls, Dexter's Laboratory, and Samurai Jack. It was about an expansive world filled with ponies and other creatures in this amazing, fantastical land, heavily inspired (perhaps unconsciously) by many European folktales and legends. 'Friendship is Magic' was a kid's show that taught lessons of friendship, trials and tribulations, standing up for yourself, growth, redemption, and struggles of being in a family. The first 2 seasons were universally acclaimed, and right around the turn of the internet, in a barren landscape trickling with subpar or inappropriate animation for kids, got a large cult following of adults that appreciated the show for it's passion, coming from artists that worked on shows they grew up with as kids. The lighthearted, yet deep messages resonated with people of all ages, and Hasbro soon found themselves with a cash cow out of nowhere. Unfortunately though, that magical dream only lasted for a few years, at least on the official side. The ride continues with millions of fan content being pumped out to this day, a lot rivaling the show's quality.

 

But what happened? Lauren Faust, creator/developer/show bible author, quit working in season 2, way back in 2012. Some believe she was pushed out by Hasbro executives and her lack of creative control, but only little is concrete. Think of it like the 'Zack Snyder's Justice League' situation. After the season 2 finale, the remaining veteran writers and directors were tasked with just continuing the show as long as they were allowed to by Hasbro Studios, the Hub, or whoever. Season 3 was believed to be the last since it was heading in to syndication at episode 65, and as so, the episode 13 finale was Twilight Sparkle becoming a princess, a decision which would have massive ramifications, given the new situation for the staff when the show was renewed. Meghan McCarthy and staff dubbed the next line of seasons to be MLP 2.0, as it entered fanon territory, past Faust's original bible rules. It's hotly debated if the show's decline started here, and as a matter of subjectivity, this is still open to interpretation, but what is agreed on almost universally is the show was never the same.

 

Season 4 introduced a more epic scope and a recurring "keys" arc to tie the premiere and finale, which cultivated in a 'Dragonball Z' style fight between Lord Tirek and Twilight Sparkle, some which call another 'jump the shark' moment. This was all happeneing at the same time 'Equestria Girls' was introduced, a human spin-off which ties in to the main series, a controversial move as it was seen as an attempt by Hasbro toymakers to ape off Mattel's 'Monster High.' Though as future viewership and toy sales proved, Equestria Girls became more successful. The golden age of the show was really done by this era. Online traction, convention attendance, and mainstream awareness of the series and it's bizarre fandom had reached a peak, and began a very slow decline in both fans and sales. However, most die-hards stayed and the numbers of the brony community evened out. This would eventually affect the box office of one particular movie. Jayson Thiessen, the show's main director outside Faust, was tasked with creating a theatrical film based on the show, after his success as director on the second Equestria Girls movie, Rainbow Rocks, a very musical heavy film that was praised for being far better than it's predecessor. This meant another veteran was taken away from the mainline show to be handed off to someone new. Jim Miller, one of the storyboard artists and animation directors on the show (and professional crybaby on Twitter), was then tasked to be the series' director. This coincided with a new writer taking stage on the staff.

 

Josh Haber started with Castle-Mania in 4, after being recommened to submit a draft from McCarthy, one of the series' earliest writers; he became a more frequent scriptwriter, and eventually, he would become the new show lead essentially. The noticeable odor arised with all these drastic changes; new scriptheads and leads often end up writing a show for themselves. Most possible stories for the Mane Six had been tried in one form or another, i.e. slice of life or dramatic development that brought each pony to a natural conclusion. What came with season 5 was the wrapping up of many loose threads established in early seasons, like the Cutie Mark Crusaders earning their cutie marks, Twilight getting her own castle/moving on from her tree home, and Rarity getting a boutique. You could actually stop watching the show here. It's the last set of scripts both Jayson Thiesson and M.A. Larson worked on, and still resembles the original canon enough (compared to what followed). The fifth finale that ends with the entire cast staring at the camera is a great note to end on (just to put that out there). It's also the first time a villain is submitted by not the power of deus ex machina or rainbow lasers, but by talking down. Starlight Glimmer wasn't reformed with just a shot of "friendship powers," but another pony convincing her to make a second chance at relationships. In a way, that's the peak. But I digress, as evidenced by posts online by writers Michael Vogel and Josh Haber, the goal was to "replace" the main cast with a new set of characters (mixed-species such as a dragon, yak, and pony) led by Glimmer, the reformed villain with an overarching story in season 5. But to add insult, Haber even stated, possibly as a joke, that there was no show bible when he came on. To add, Miller claimed they didn't read the bible or follow it as closely as others, they would check up on the fan wiki to fact check any "mistakes" in continuity and lore. This hands off approach, especially to guest writers, as documented by Gail Simone, led to many out of character moments and lore breaking retcons. Just a few examples, the origins of the Tree of Harmony, Scootaloo's parents, Cabalaron's backstory in 'Daring Do,' and Celestia and Luna's relationship as foals growing up. Add the atrocious season 7 finale with Starswirl the Bearded coming back from hibernation, and you get seasons 7 to 9, which fundamentally go against many of the established rules and world building from the early days. Twilight and her friends act like immature children who have lost all their development over the years, probably as a crux to prop up the new cast being slowly added. Mitch Larson, one of the most notorious and loved writers to work on the show, admitted in multiple panels and posts online he became frustrated with the work environment and attitude towards the writing of the show. After he was made to write a meta episode in 7 poking jabs at the fanbase, titled 'Fame and Misfortune,' he left writing for them to work on his book series, Pennyworth Academy. He knew it was a ship that had long since sailed since his co-workers had all gone by then. He loves the fans and even popped up in the /mlp/ 10th anniversary stream to talk to anonymous users about his unreleased work on the show.

 

The attention now was all on the theatrical film's performance, which had a relatively small budget. Unfortunately, the film did make 65+ million at the box office, but wasn't a smash hit like Hasbro was hoping for. In leaked internal e-mails obtained, a post-mortem slideshow conference was found to be talking about the performance, which leads to the beginning of the end. To make a long story short, a termination date for Friendship is Magic was set. In a send-off letter released by Jim Miller in 2019, he disclosed he knew he was being fired back in 2017, assumingly after the film's run. The staff was given two more seasons to wrap things up and then it was closing up shop for good. Not even animation house DHX survived, as it was shuttered and repurposed after the show was completed. As if the 'don't care' attitude wasn't bad enough for keeping everything in-line world wise before, knowing you're being terminated sure as shit won't make you care now. With Josh Haber being given free reign on the stories and arcs going forward, as he was also now head producer on the show and everyone else was gone, the show was now run souly by him, Nicole Dubac, Mike Vogel, and Jim Miller in the background. He would let shit writers like Neal Dusedau or Merryweather Williams lead, which he mostly did with Dubuc and whatever the boomer wine moms from Hasbro HQ wanted. They had the opportunity to make their own series with 52 episodes remaining and they would do just so. Even in joke e-mails sent internally by staff to each other talked about making the show 'Starlight & Friends,' another indication that the focus was shifted. Ironically, a number of the writers from season 1 to 3 jumped on to the Equestria Girls series and, still subject to debate, some considered that series to eclipse the mainline by season 6, which was just treading water.

 

What happened next could only be compared to HBO's Game of Thrones' final few episodes, just an array of baffling decisions. Anything you can think of was a-go, even if it didn't make sense or betrayed characters' core personalities. We only got about 12 or so good episodes out of the next 52. The rest were all tied to the Haberverse stuff that was made, with the glimpses coming from the last few "veteran" writers like G.M. Berrow. Anything good were basically happy accidents or coincidences. Rainbow Dash and Applejack squabble and bicker like any development they had throughout the show never happened, Buckball Season is turned in to a national sport as a crux for episode plots, Fluttershy (the animal expert) fails to understand the circle of life with predator and prey food chains, Scootaloo's parents magically come back out of nowhere after 8 seasons (killing all hints that Rainbow Dash's family would adopt Scootaloo), and generally the Mane Six being subjugated to menial labor as well as side plots to prop up new and less interesting characters. The reason why the shift doesn't seem as obvious to most was because the transition was VERY gradual, downright subtle. But just take any episode from season 1, comedic, simple, and innocent, and then watch a Student Six episode from season 9, and it's like night and day. When you benchwatch all seasons it becomes obvious and sad; but when it was coming out every week, you had so much time between seasons, you're just happy that you're getting ponies. The school of friendship shouldn't have even been a concept, it fundamentally goes against everything the show stands for, that you can't learn friendship from books, they have to be experienced. Not to mention the meme faces, unrealistic human movements for horses, and the world of Equestria generally feeling more cynical and less comforting. Don't even have to mention the thinly veiled attempts to modern day political commentary with segregation and bigotry, none of which is nuanced or interesting, but comes across as pandering or attempts at tokenism. You can find entire blogs deconstructing why Twilight becoming a giraffe alicorn at the end while her friends stay the same is horrendous and nightmare inducing. Twilight will outlive her friends and will have to watch them die as she lives for thousands of years. That's what's implied and even director Jim Miller fumbled answering about it in a Q&A after the show finished.

 

The honest truth is nobody cared anymore. By that point, it was a gravy train that new writers took advantage of, hoping it would jumpstart their careers, rather than investing the time and love to contribute to this vast world that people fell in love with. Ironically, Haber becoming producer hoping it would jump start his animation career left with no gigs afterwards, for two years no less. It's also worth noting no guest writers were made to watch the show before writing a new episode. You know, do your homework? They penned a draft and left, in short. Not a good recipe. I haven't even mentioned Hasbro's draconian approach to stopping fan works from happening, which led to many, including JanAnimations, leaving the circle to join other fandoms. Or Hasbro's inability to keep the attention on the series going, just handwaving the series' apparent "lack of success" due to just fatigue. The reality is the series could've stayed great to the end, if the same writers and directors were on board and/or they followed more of Faust's bible. That's not to say the series didn't have a good run, but it had a terrible ending.

 

So in the end, what is the point? Let's fix it. Whether or not you side on an episode level, it's universally agreed the show outstayed it's welcome and lost the plot very gradually over time. With constant changing writers and heads who didn't care, the magic didn't stay for a lot of people, only the extreme fans who could worship anything thrown at them. But in-between the school of friendship, Applejack and Rainbow Dash inappropriately fighting like it's still season 1, Discord almost causing all of Equestria to be destroyed by posing as Grogar, Rainbow Dash being hinted as a lesbian (which Lauren Faust was very much against), and a filly named Golly being imprisoned for eternity instead of being reformed, there is SOME good. Just enough to do a proper end. What if we could take the good episodes out of a terrible season, and make a short season that is pretty much all good? The custom season provided is 13 episodes, like season 3. My season 7 is about the end. It works better now since the remaining 13 episodes here are just about tying up some last loose ends, mostly themed around parental issues. In my opinion, the show blowing it's load trying to wrap up shit in one episode isn't fun, as done in the horrible series finale, 'The Last Problem.' Having each pony slowly achieve their life goals was much more fun, and by the time we reach season 7, we've seen it happen. Rarity has her own boutique in Canterlot, Twilight has her own student and comes full circle understanding the position Celestia was in when she sent her to Ponyville, Applejack's brother gets married, they come at peace with their parents' fate, Scootaloo is practically adopted by Rainbow Dash's family, Rainbow Dash becomes a Wonderbolt, and Fluttershy gets a sanctuary and becomes true best friends with Discord. Like, everything is wrapped. There isn't much more to do. Season 7 to 9 aren't the only seasons touched. Much of season 6 is replaced with episodes from 7, mostly having to do with themes of adventure and the beginnings of a family. Twilight comes full circle with Celestia's teachings and the rest of the mane six fulfill their dreams. That's where I want it to stop. Combining episodes from 6 to 9, 13 episodes are collected to wrap it all up on a higher note than what we got. Additionally, a hypothetical season 8 is attached that runs continuity wise around the end of my season 7. It incorporates the school of friendship element, but radically changes how it's presented to make it fit a little better in to this world. It kind of just exists, with 2 episodes to set up it's purpose as like an interactive school. So, head pony Neighsayer doesn't even exist as a character anymore, and his allegory for keeping "non-ponies" away from ponykind. Most of the Student 6 episodes have been left behind, with only absolute requirements left in, to connect events near the finale. Basically, the bare minimum to set up plot details while retaining a semblance of the old show. I don't even necessarily like the episodes in this season 8, but it's all that there is that works. Grogar's introduction, King Sombra taking over the Crystal Empire, getting the instructions on how to use the bell, and then some extra Mane Six episodes. Then, two fanfiction stories are put in to fill gaps and replace the wretched original finale. Now, Tirek, Golly, and Chrysalis are reformed; story courtesy of Zizi Tachyon. In total, 41 episodes have been deleted entirely. There may be one or two that have OOC moments, that's hard to avoid, but the general idea was, "How do we recapture the feeling of childlike innocence in the show?" You know, fun little adventures with the occassional lore building. Slumber parties, camps, festivals, and games that all help push forward Twilight and her friends' development, as well as teaching the audience. The show still keeps it's growing maturity, but most overly meta/fanwanking episodes have been excised. This is a show to teach valuable life lessons while going on a ride with cute ponies, not berate/propagandize the audience, demean the main characters, and twist as a vehicle for vanity projects. Humiliation and character breaking stories like 'It Isn't the Mane Thing About You,' 'Secrets and Pies,' 'The End in Friend,' 'Friendship University,' 'Horse Play,' 'Between Dark and Dawn,' and many more are gone entirely. There's also the world breaking ones like 'Applejack's Day Off' which features modern day washing machines, or 'Viva Las Pegasus' that shows arcade games i.e. Dance Dance Revolution. These are gone too as Jayson Thiessen, when he was on-board, was very strict about following Lauren's rule, that the culture in-universe was generally stuck in 1930's America. They were also just bad episodes anyways. What's left are the fun stories like 'Sounds of Silence,' 'Once Upon a Zeppelin,' 'The Last Laugh,' 'Discordant Harmony,' 'The Break Up Break Down,' and others. I hope you enjoy watching. A lot of thought was put in to this and I only did it out of respect for early fans of Friendship is Magic. The ride never ends.

 

 

Extra testimony from /mlp/ users:

 

I don't think the later seasons were total dumpster fires the way people rage that they are, but I can totally understand why they're pissed off. Looking at the way Haber responded to criticism, he reminds me a bit of Scott Gimple during the days of TWD and now FearTWD - acts like anyone who doesn't like everything is just a hater. FiM had a definitive bible for every race, location, and part of the world, explored and unexplored. To completely disregard it and just "wing it" is a slap in the face to those who saw the show's original vision, including Faust. I'm sure if she could, she would voice her disappointment with the direction the show went in compared to what she wanted. And I don't even entirely hate the direction the show went in, but it sure as hell could've been executed a lot better than it was. Everything had potential, and as the show went on, that potential was never realized. Like Grogar actually being Grogar instead of just Discord in disguise, or maybe the finale being extended to a 3-4 parter that would pace it all better instead of feeling rushed. But I would love to have Lauren Faust give her own definitive account of her vision of what everything after season 2 would've been. Going back to FearTWD, David Erickson after he was fired described what he would've had happen after the end of season 3 of Fear. I would like to see Faust talk about what she would've done in later seasons and what the end goal would've been for Twilight. Maybe Twilight would never have become a princess and the entire dynamic would change. And her giving her account would probably be a whole new heap of fanfiction material for the community to execute her vision. Because she would at least have a beginning, middle, and end instead of just "winging it" like Haber did. You never wing a story. That's not how it works.

 

Rich people, middle class, and common folk live in different realities. I cannot stress this enough, you have to live it to fully understand it. Executives are stuck in the Ninja Turtles craze of the late 80s/early 90s. As you are certain that the sky is blue, they are certain that a product is a drug and it's fans are hooked addicts. That like in the Turtle craze, if it has the brand name, you WILL buy it no matter how absurd or unrelated. Food, a music show, public transportation. From our point of view a show starts strong, then executive meddling ruins it. From their point of view, "the show has reached commercial maturity and is entering it's exploitation phase". Which translates to "the showrunner hooked people on a drug successfully and now it's time to deploy a professional fleecer". This mindset leads to "reaching out to other audiences". "Our current junkies are so hooked up, we can make a product for someone else entirely and they will keep injecting it". Hence why Star Wars became Black & Hole.

 

Thing is, we're not living in the 80s. We don't need to buy a pack of toilet paper to cut out and keep the picture of Raph on the wrapping. We don't need to buy complementary material to scratch the itch for new episodes. We save pics off the internet and contentfags produce new content. As I said, brand addiction is a law of reality for executives. So when a brand flops, it defies their reality and they cannot comprehend why it happened. Their only contact with the outside world is the upper middle class people they hire to showrun, who themselves also live in a bubble, and who will shift blame to save themselves.

>"Kennedy, our new cash cow that we entrusted you with up and died."

"I-It's not my fault! It's the nazi incels! They bombed our otherwise quality product with bad reviews and made the consummers jaded."

>"They sound like a crowd. Do you think we could tap them?"

"Absolutely not! They are just a small, organized group. The hacker known as 4chan. They pirate everything too."

>"Fine, carry on. This is clearly not your fault."

"Praise Moloch, my paycheck is safe. *Shlick shlick shlick*"

 

Keep in mind the higher ups only call vague shots and have only a vague idea about what their franchises are about. For example you may know that Power Rangers is based on Super Sentai, or about the beef between Tommy and Jason, or that Zordon looked totally different in the movie. The executive knows Power Rangers are like if Jackie Chan was dressed like Spiderman. At best the executive will know the basic names and premise from the show from the big planning meeting. As long as your show has a mentor called Zordon, 5-6 people in "spiderman" costumes and an evil witch called Rita, you can run wild and the higher up will be none the wiser.

 

Reboots nowadays suck because the showrunners treat their jobs as funding for their dream project. They keep the names and basic premise to get their show greenlit, they say yes to whatever toys marketing wants to put in the show, and then go wild. This is how you get a lesbian fapfiction with black, tranny and fatty representation made into a show. You name one character She-Ra, name the other one after a rank henchwoman, you blackwash the ginger and make a rank pretty woman a fatass. This is also how you get Pony Life. The exec thinks "these brawnies are addicted to our ponies, so let's make more". He then hires a showrunner and tells him to make a pony show with a Twilight, Fluttershy etc in it. The showrunner then thinks "I'll use le ebin beanmouth style like all the industry bigshots and base the script on TTG and The Loud House. Kids love these, right?". Then they serve us glittery dogshit and call us names when we won't eat it. tl;dr unless a social apocalypse happens, the only way to break the circle of liking something and seeing it raped to death and beyond is to crash a big meeting and spell things out to the higher ups at gunpoint.

 

At the top of companies like Toys R Us and Hasbro are a bunch of old men in suits sitting around a table talking about things like quarterly reports, investments and shareholders, without even knowing what it is the company does underneath them. Management fragments the business and adds obscurity by creating divisions within divisions, the people at the top hire managers to manage other managers who then manage the people that do everything that's actually important for the company. This is the American business model, still in use today. At the end of the day, graph goes up means profits doing gooder. Take Twilicorn for instance. Somewhere in the corporate ladder, some executive tried to increase revenue and that led to analyzing sales figures which then led to the decision of updating Twilight's design for the toyline. Maybe she wasn't selling well compared to Pinkie or Rainbow Dash. Give her wings and make her a princess, little girls love princesses. I'd bet this executive couldn't name a single character from FiM. It's not Larson's fault Twilicorn exists, someone above him told him they were turning Twilight into a princess for the toyline and he was told to execute it. See, corporate interests take priority over those of the writers, and there were no corporate interests by the time the show was dying, which is why no one interfered in the later seasons and Haber and his friends could do whatever the hell they wanted with the show until it was canceled, including using it as their mouthpiece. The nu-writers weren't put there to turn a profit, because how many toys exist of the Student 6? None, stores were selling pony toys to the end. Even though pony was big in 2011-2013, Hasbro still managed to ruin it.

 

Friendship is Magic's quality was a mistake in a corporation that never deserved it.