I will of course be returning to G4 soon, with my "Castle Mane-ia" rewatch and on Wednesday with Ponyfic Roundup, but G5 news has been coming so thick and fast recently that it's really impossible not to talk about it. As virtually everything I'm going to say will be to do with the new stuff, including discussion of the still and animated(!) visuals released yesterday, herewith a nice bold
SPOILERS BELOW
warning. That one was especially for iisaw. ;) Though "spoilers" here just means character names, synopsis and links (not embeds) to still pictures and a few seconds of backgroundless character animation.
So, now we know. G5 is a-comin'. We've got main character names (Sunny Starscout and Izzy Moonbow). One of whom appears to have a tennis ball impaled on her horn for whatever reason. We've seen that Sunny is basically a brony, too. Okay, maybe not, but she sure has a lot of G4 merch in her room! We know that the series, as well as the film, will be on Netflix. (Meh, but it's the way things are these days.)
We know the synopsis for the film, which confirms that it's set in a future Equestria where Friendship and Harmony have decayed and the various pony species (Hasbro's word, not mine!) no longer live in peace. From that synopsis we know there'll be songs, bad puns (Maretime Bay), an epic adventure, plus not-actually-plastic toys and a "robust portfolio of licensed products".
The thing that I wasn't expecting, though, was this short video. It's only eight seconds long with no background, but we get to see Sunny, Izzy and an unnamed male earth pony. And you know what? I like the animation style already. It looks sparky, fun and smooth, in all honesty better than I was expecting. The characters have, well, character. Right now I really am starting to get just a little bit hyped. :)
Yeah, everything's better once it's animated.
ReplyDeleteI've seen people saying that the show's actually going to be 3D, not 2D as some have suggested, though, which is slightly dismaying. D:
I thought I had seen the opposite, that the movie would be 3D but the series 2D. But what do I know.
DeleteMy understanding at this point is that they're both going to be 3D. I have some concerns about that, notably regarding the quality of 3D animation stretched over 26 (presumably) episodes on a TV budget -- even a Netflix TV budget. But we'll see.
DeleteThank you for the warning, Logan! (I'm going to ignore it this time.)
DeleteThe animation is bog-standard Cal Arts style, which is not a bad thing at all. It's formulaic, but it's full of character and... inoffensive... familiar?
It's also something that animators can crank out fairly quickly, so having the series be 3D as well is not a big deal. For an example, take a look at Tales of Arcadia on Netflix. It's Dreamworks, but they use the same Cal Arts style as Disney and Pixar. Full 3D and they kept to a tight schedule.
And honestly? I think these characters look much better in their 3D incarnations, if the bedsheets are anything to go by.
Oh yes, which I imagine must be down to the fact that 3D is their natural environment, so to speak -- allied, perhaps, to the bedsheets just not using particularly brilliant examples of G5 art in the first place.
Delete"Cal Arts style" is used so loosely by laypeople like me that I hadn't even thought of G5 that way until you mentioned it. If you'd said "Cal Arts style" to me out of context, I'd have thought of something like Steven Universe.
As you said the other day, though, if the writing's good enough (or bad enough!) then that will make or break the film anyway. I hope it's the former, of course.