The video embedded above is by YouTuber Cxcd and is called How G5 was ALMOST the Greatest Generation. It's about half an hour long and it's more than worth the time if you have really any interest at all either in G5 as such or in Hasbro's approach – or perhaps more accurately, approaches – to the My Little Pony franchise before and after the death of Brian Goldner in 2021.
I'm obviously simplifying a lot here, but in summary: the disappointing state of the G5 follow-ups when compared to the film isn't the case purely out of bad luck. It could and should have been done better. If you prefer to read rather than watch, then Equestria Daily has a very solid summary of the main points. Cxcd isn't just speculating here; he's done his homework properly.
So, for now at least, this is the most comprehensive and convincing explanation of what went wrong that we're likely to see in public. It's a real shame that Cxcd is going to cease making G5 content partly because of harassment for covering that generation at all. He can at least be sure that he's contributed more to our understanding of MLP history than those silly people have.
While I'm on the subject of the latest generation, you may also want to check out a little note about the "G5 Equestria Girls" that never was. A much shorter article, but also on EQD.
I'd instantly intended to point towards that article/video come my next Ponyfic Roundup or Movie Roundup, whichever came first. Of course, you have the guts to make a post purely to spread the news! As you should.
ReplyDeleteObviously there is a bit of simplification and some crossed facts in there. Goldner passed away on 11th October 2021, less than eight months before MYM premiered, and we know the first voice recordings for the show began back in November 2020 from Zipp's VA. The differing financial and creative direction taken with the series would have been well locked in by then (he worked up until a day before his passing). But there's only a little of that throughout, and even I learned a lot new. I think this video, or at least the stellar EqD summary (it's well written and properly formatted, a rarity for such things: clearly the writer there knew this info needed to get far) should reach as many people as possible.
It's certainly alarming to realise that the downfall of G5 wasn't even just that it lowered the quality bar to just sell toys to kids after the movie, but that the retrofitting of the different mission statement caused juxtapositions in the material (budgetary for making the show CG, and others) that could never be reconciled. Regardless, Goldner is one of those creative CEOs that it's hard to find a bad word against, so it's sad that his vision went topsy turvy so soon.
Much digital ink has been spent on how Hasbro has struggled outside of its tabletop/card game divisions once Chris Cocks moved from that to CEO, so I won't reiterate it, but here's a telling fact: I saw Transformers Onea little over a week ago, and a Hasbro logo at the start morphed between silhouettes of their signature characters & brands. Nothing MLP there, even though it had Peppa Pig, the Monopoly Man and Mr. Potato Head, of all things.
As for the video author, Cxcd (who is actually on Fimfiction) has done some well-informed videos before, if one is willing to parse for the moderate amount of rambling and building up to points. It's only moderate relative to some, so setting speed to 1.25 fixes that for me. Pity he's turning in from this, though he probably wouldn't have much more to say on G5 anyway, now this is it, unless a lot more info gets unearthed down the line. Less likely (Hasbro has clamped down hard on cyber security after the 2019 DHX leak, to the point when one employee asked another why it was so tight, he was told "f*****g Bronies"), but you never know.