Sure it wasn't my idea: but nopony else up and jumped to do it. So here's it is. Shiny and new.

Open discussion of the first season of FIM..



Edit: Brohoof to Zeel1 for plant'n this here thread idear seed in yours-truely's melon patch

I'll start off with my very first reaction to FIM:

I saw the pony invasion, and thought wow - I never new so many of these allsparkers were girls/women

and then I saw a few new Avatars for people I Knew were grown arse men... and I then began to question >_> what else I might not have known.

then I realized how that was such a stupid reaction to have, and because I was so embarrassed about that reaction. I sat down and watched the first episode on youtube.

O_O and then the second, and then the third ...4th, 5th ... eventually in the course of one sitting I had the entire first run of episodes watched... (except the finale, I got in just in time to see that first run [ish])

yep, a guy who's first reaction upon hearing that male friends of his watched this show was to question their (relative) heterosexuality - some of them I knew about already - and was instantly converted...

>_> to ponyism... down fellas LOL

the very next day I was Pony avatar'd up.. had a new pony signature image and I was holding my breath for the finale/premier of season 2...

what a ride it was. who else wants to share?


Even made a Pony version of my classic Ezspark Personal picture ... sadly Twilight has never gotten over the embarrassment,

All that in one sitting? Wow! Just...wow! I've already shared my first time, favorite pony and all in the "Welcome to the Herd" thread. One thing I will say, though. As much as I love the show, I always cringe when I see the intro. I live in an apartment and I'm always afraid someone's going to hear "My Little Pony" through the walls and then I'll walk out my door one day to bunch of strange looks.

Yeah, 10 eps later, I'm still in the closet. You gotta get into these things gradually ya know.

Did anyone else watch the first episode the day it was broadcast?

I got in relatively early, but not that early. I think Dragonshy had just aired when I started.

I wouldn't be surprised if only a rare few here could claim early adoption of fim.

and don't worry Caldwin, some of us still >> through the theme song.

sadly the point of doing that gets kinda lost a minute later when you're singing along with winter wrap up

Nope. I was inducted in time to catch "swarm of the century" new though. I did pretty much the same as destron, but I torrented instead of youtube. I also had much less to sit through in one go.

I like to use plenty of pictures in my episode commentaries if nobody minds.

I loved episode 1. I don't know why it doesn't have a better reputation. The opening was a great way to start both the episode itself and the show as a whole. It certainly sucked me right in. Note to writers: beginning your show by introducing an epic conflict is an easy way to get my attention.

The introduction of Twilight and Spike worked pretty well. I love the ominous mood that sets in right in this scene. Nightmare Moon is coming, and there's nothing that can be done to stop it. The sand is running out.



Twilight's attitude about going to Ponyville to make Friends is hilarious in hindsight given how similar many new fans felt about being asked to watch the episode. It's like this show was destined to amass this unlikely fandom. Skeptical newcomers can instantly relate with Twilight, which draws them in further. Before they know it, they'll find themselves caring about what happens next.

I already knew who the characters were when I watched the episode for the first time, so when I saw that the first pony Twilight met was going to be Pinkie Pie, I knew that was pretty much the worst case scenario. This was bound to end badly, and it did.

Ah Applejack. I don't have much to say about that scene. As usual, Applejack has a hard time standing out as her big scene was immediately overshadowed.

Rainbow Dash gets a very interesting entrance. She immediately stands out as a very colorful character, and not at all what most of us expected of a rainbow colored pony.

Ah Rarity. Who could have guessed from this introduction that she would become so popular? I didn't. This scene did no justice to the many layers she has to her personality, which is actually a good thing if you ask me. Characters should be introduced, not explained in their entirety all at once.

Fluttershy is instantly adorable, and just gets more adorable as the scene (and show) goes on.

Pinkie Pie finally gets a proper introduction, and drives Twilight to drink. And look, Derpy makes her first appearance.



And the ominous mood returns. I love it. Twilight knows disaster is about to strike and time s running out to do anything about it. She does manage to stay unusually calm given the circumstances, but it's clear that she's scared, perhaps more scared than she's ever been in her life.

And then we get the cliffhanger. Again, in hindsight it's amazing how well this episode works for skeptical first-time viewers. It's a show about technicolor ponies, and the episode ends with the apocalyptic return of a bitter goddess. Our hero failed to avert the disaster, the princess is in another castle, and the villain is laughing in complete victory.

Cue the happy credits music.

I got to see it long before the broadcast... but I guess I don't really count.

no not in this particular sense LOL.


and Fnu... I don't mind at all (wont speak for anyone else though) but I'd love it if you kept at it

saves me from doing it too LOL

yeah the first episode is great.

Hey, don't worry about that. My mom's the only one in my family that knows about it, and that's just because she walked in on it and I couldn't turn the channel. She didn't think it odd at all though, and let me use the living room TV every Saturday when the season was still going, so that worked out well... still wanna keep it far away from anyone else in real life, though.

And yeah, the intro theme was REALLY hard for me to get through for the first few episodes I watched, but it does kind of grow on you eventually.

Totally cool with that kind of review, Fnu. Yeah, Episode 1 was pretty perfect, it was the way Episode 2 ended that soured most people back on the forum I know on it. I think they weren't exactly comfortable enough with the show yet to handle a 'friendship triumphs all' ending, and thought that Luna was WAY too easily forgiven, which, yeah, they may have a point...

And Episodes 1 and 2 tend to get grouped together, so...

I think the "easily forgiven" thing would have bugged me if this where any other franchise. But going into it...I kinda figured MLP would probably be the "friendship triumphs all" kinda show...especially given the name "friendship is magic." I can't see why anyone wouldn't be expecting it from the very first moment they turn it on. It was one thing that added on to me expecting to hate it.

If fact...I watch it objectively...see it's sappy sweet "friendship triumphs all" motif...see all the brightly collored cuteness permeating everything...I know I should hate this. I should hate it with every fiber of my brooding, bitter being...and yet...I don't. I don't hate it. I actually do like it. I still haven't figured that one out.

Oh and Fnu Aw...by all means...pictures are pretty. Keep it up. And hey, if you want to help keep me up on the "Where's Derpy" sightings...that would be totally cool of you. I can never seem to catch them.

I don't think Luna was really in control though. She couldn't have been happier about losing her dark powers or being reunited with Celestia. Notice that Celestia is actually surprised by how happy Luna is about seeing her. I get the impression that Luna did not enjoy being Nightmare Moon.

HIGHLIGHT to view:
Also note the way Luna acts towards the mane 6 in Luna Eclipsed. Much has been made of her use of "thou", but if you watch the episode again you'll notice that she doesn't start using it until she meets Twilight. When she first addresses the townsponies she consistently uses the formal "you".


Once she meets Twilight she immediately starts using the informal "thou" and continues to use it with Fluttershy and Applejack.


However when she addresses the townsponies again she uses "you" again.


And she goes back to using "thou" when she meets Pinkie Pie.


This consistent use of "thou" around the mane 6 but not around the other townsponies tells us that Luna considers the mane 6 to be her friends. Considering that the only other time she met them was when they took away her dark powers, she must have really hated being Nightmare Moon. She is so grateful for being "saved" from being Nightmare Moon that she still addresses Pinkie Pie as a friend when Pinkie Pie was causing nothing but trouble for her that night. It's as if anything any of the mane 6 do is outweighed by what they did by freeing her from being Nightmare Moon.


I'm glad you guys like my review style. This is how I always did it elsewhere. I have loads to say about episodes and characters but I assume that nobody wants to see a wall of text.

Derpy's not actually in early episodes, atleast not as many. It wasn't intended as a "Where's Waldo" kind of game until about halfway through the first season, as they simply went in and derped her eyes in all of the episodes they hadn't shipped out yet or something like that, after she first got popular. It really gets going more in Season 2.

And I'm aware of the general thought that it wasn't really Luna's fault, but they don't necessarily know that. She never explained that to them as far as we know, and even if she did, don't you think they should be a little skeptical? "Yeah, see, that wasn't really ME that tried to plunge the world into an eternal nightmare of darkness and misery on two different occasions, it was just some... evil spirit thing, or dark manifestation of my jealousy, or some other fusion of Word of God and fanon that did it, that's all. It'll never happen again~ Lolz, so we're cool, right?"

Not a lot of people KNOW that "thou" is the second person (archaic) tense. The writers might be among them, or it could be coincidence, or the writers think she was trying harder to sound less archaic around the townsponies but was comfortable being herself around the Six.

---Dave

If most people nowadays don't know "thou", they're more ignorant than I thought.

Anyway, I don't think discussing and posting a bunch of pictures of something in season 2 is really a very nice thing to do in this thread, you know...

I'm probably one of the very few here that watched it the day FiM premiered on 10/10/10 when the Hub was just getting started. I watched every episode on the Hub all the way up until my cable provider decided to dump the Hub from my package along with a few other channels in late March *shakes fist at Comcast *. Now I have to catch them via live stream and YouTube.

Anyways, long story short, before FiM I had never been a part of or even followed a fandom (even though I've always been a fan of Transformers for over 25 years, I have never been a part of that fandom.) Back in early January of last year, FiM had just turned 3 months old. At that time, I was completely unaware of the quickly growing fanbase that was being generated around the show. I don't remember why now, but one day in early January of 2011 I was Google image searching some FiM pictures (this was before I discovered what rule 34 was) and came across one pic that perked my curiosity. I don't remember what the FiM pic was but what perked my curiosity about it was the URL that was displayed beneath it in the Google search. I was trying to figure out why the heck there was a MLP FiM picture posted on a Transformers forum. Curiosity got the better of me and so I clicked on that image and was brought here to the Allspark for the first time. Much to my surprise, I find a couple of pony threads dedicated to FiM on a Transformers forum. The threads weren't all that big yet, so I read through every post that was made. I kept up on those (as a lurker) and watched as the threads here got bigger, faster, and A LOT more active. Then in mid February 2011, I joined the Allspark and the pony fandom.

Unfortunately, those original threads (about 3 or 4 of them) got sent to the moon not long ago. They're not deleted, as far as I know. I think they are just hidden for now. Some of you newer members are missing out on some pretty good posts in those old threads.

A rule 34 pic of the ponies perked your cuiosity?
JK

But in all seriousness...I know about rule 34 and all. But ponies? Seriously? I mean, I may have a furry fetish myself every once in a while. But there's furry yiff...then there's boarderline beastiality! I find this even more disturbing than bright colors, unrelenting cuteness and Pinky Pie's random singing.

My bad. I'm going to have to keep reminding myself not to do that. This is probably the topic that gets me going the most. I strongly believe that the first two episodes are not given enough credit, and I would love to be able to change some minds about that. Luna's behavior leads me to believe that she was not in control as Nightmare Moon, and so she was not too easily forgiven. With this in mind, episode 2 becomes a lot better.

I also don't think it's too hard for the other characters to understand that Luna wasn't in control, though they didn't realize it at first. I think even Celestia might not have known at first. Again, look how surprised she is by how happy Luna is to see her. But once it's revealed (assuming it ever was) that she wasn't in control, I don't see any reason why they would have a hard time believing it. This is a world full of magic, and I'm sure some of it is pretty dark. It still could be somewhat her fault. The dark magic may have been created by her emotions, only for her to lose control of it. Think about how The Dark Side of The Force works. Users basically get drunk on it and their bodies begin to change.

Not quite. I saw a link to PensivePine's YouTube-ing of the very first episode within the week after it aired, and watched the first half of the first episode; it was posted in two parts. I liked the style and in particular, the expressiveness of the faces, but couldn't get into it, in part because the whole "planning a party with the princess" thing sort of dominated.

A day or two later, my curiosity about what they'd be doing with the intro story--I mean, Twilight must have been reading that book and generally freaking out for a reason, right--won out, and I watched the second part, and hit the NMM appearance cliffhanger. There was nothing more I could do, though for a while I'd skip past the theme song. A couple months later, thinking there'd be other people watching the show, a Google search gave me the original Allspark pony thread.

I still skip past the theme song.

I couldn't exactly watch on the first day, 'cause I'm in The Wrong Country, but I would've. I heard that MLP was being revived, and was going to ignore it, but then I heard that the woman doing it was associated with Genndy Tartakovsky (who I was already a fan of).

And then I realized that after watching Lucky Star, K-On!, Soranowoto, Chance Pop Session, and Geijutsuka Art Design Class, I really had no excuse.

(But then I've never really been as caught up in gender roles as most people are. I think it comes from being a reader when I was young; there is/was a certain age-range [around the late "Young Adult" demographic] where boys are apparently expected to lose all interest in reading [and get involved with sports]. If you're a boy who loves to read, at a certain age you have no choice but to start reading books by/about/for girls until you graduate to more gender-neutral adult novels.)

I had no idea this series had been revived until someone pointed out the show to me after the season 1 finale. I wouldn't have watched it from the beginning if I had known about it though.

Luckily, I had my Google safe search turned on back then, so I really didn't come across anything too disturbing. Though, it's still not a guarantee you won't run into something nasty. Soon after I joined the Allspark and the pony fans here, I was looking at another seemingly innocent pony pic during another Google image search. That pic was linked to....*shudders*.....4chan. Not knowing what 4chan was at the time, I clicked that innocent looking pic and was transported to that eye-burning site. The things I saw there right off the bat were things that NO MORTAL SHOULD EVER SEE! I quickly left that horrid website and never went there again. I was using eye-bleach for a week after that.

I do all my image searching through Deviant Art now. I still run into a few questionable pony pics once in a while, but it's still much safer than using a Google image search.



I had a heads up about the show's revival many months in advance. I was watching a YouTube video of Scott McNeil at one of his panels (don't remember if it was comic-con or Metrocon) where back then he mentioned that he had recently voiced a character for a MLP reboot. I didn't think too much about it back then, after the fiasco that was G2, G3, and G3.5. A few months later, I remember seeing commercials during the Discovery Kids/Hub transition of some interestingly designed ponies rolling on their backs laughing. Their new look in that few seconds long commercial instantly grabbed my attention. Then I watched the season premier when it originally aired and was instantly blown away by how good it was and still is. Though, I did almost cringe a bit when the first few seconds of the theme song started (I thought it was going to take after the old G1 theme), but was pleasantly surprised when it became more upbeat after that initial first couple of seconds.

Somehow I've managed to avoid all this R34 stuff, despite any Google image search now finding ponies. I think that needs to be added to the internet rules list. If something exists, looking it up on Google images will result in ponies.

When I first saw images of this show my only thought was "at least it's not cheap 3D animation with slow-motion mouth animations". I was happy to see good-looking animation, even if it wasn't anything I was interested in. I normally hate Flash animation, but I actually thought this wasn't Flash at first. I was very impressed with the clips I saw. Then I found some Fluttershy clips and it was a downhill slope from there.

Unfortunately, I got into the show in between seasons 1 and 2. It all started when I made a post on a forum where I declared that the first person to quote me would decide my avatar for a whole month.

The one who did chose the following.


Then eventually, it led to another friend linking me to the first episode on YouTube. Ironically, I was a massive hater of the franchise prior to it. Simply because, it's popular, therefore it sucks.

Unfortunately, I got into the show in between seasons 1 and 2. It all started when I made a post on a forum where I declared that the first person to quote me would decide my avatar for a whole month.

The one who did chose the following.


Then eventually, it led to another friend linking me to the first episode on YouTube. Ironically, I was a massive hater of the franchise prior to it. Simply because, it's popular, therefore it sucks.

I probably would have picked that one too.

I don't think I've ever even watched an episode of season 1 on TV.

I don't have the Hub, so I watch all the episodes online.

I get The Hub just not in my room.

Goddammit I want a cable box in my room.

I'm not sure I get any channels in my room at all. I only watch movies in there, so I never bothered getting a converter box.

At first I was actually a bit turned off by the style just seeing it in still images. Once I saw it moving, it was totally awesome. I was floored when I learned it was in flash. The animation alone got me into the show and the rest is history. Just last night one of my friends, who I had shown The Elements of Harmony parts one and two last year (he didn't like it at all), wanted to see The Return of the Elements of Harmony because of Discord and now likes ponies.

I think the first pony thing I ever saw was the classic Flutteryay clip.

yay

I remember when that was the top result for "yay" on YouTube. Good times.

I still do this too.

I have to draw the line somewhere.

so Episode 3: Ticket Master, do we all think this was the best episode to use as a follow up to the premier?

Considering the level of character development we get, with each of the ponies trying to out friend each other.

I think this was a perfect direction to go after the premier, as it shows us things we hadn't already seen. The premier introduced the characters and then plunged them into a nightmare. We got to see what they're like in a crisis. In The Ticket Master we get to see what they're like on normal days.



One of the strengths of this show is how naturally the characters seem when interacting with each other, especially in these simple moments when they can just be themselves. I don't know how this show's writers manage to do this so well. I'm really in awe of it. Such natural characterization is really rare.



Applejack tastes the rainbow again. This is the third time she's done it, and this is only the third episode.



The side story of Twilight just trying to get something to eat is one of my favorite things they did in these early episodes, and I have no doubt it played a role in hooking many fans as it's so surprisingly universal. This is a situation that guys can just as easily relate to it. I can relate to it right now actually. >_> Note to Hollywood: this is how you write female characters.



The ending works for me on a number of levels. First, what Twilight did was awesome. We know how much spending time with Celestia at the gala would mean to her, and she was willing to give it up. Second, the other characters learned a lesson. They screwed up, and they were forced to realize it. Third, we get to see that Celestia really is benevolent. She sent out an invitation, and it was declined. She had no obligation to do anything more, but when it was brought to her attention that she had accidentally created a problem she immediately corrected it. Fourth, everything works out for Spike in the end. That doesn't happen nearly enough. Sure the episode still gets one last laugh at his expense, but Applejack was at least nice enough not to say anything.

Without going too much into the future, I will say that I love the little Gala 'arc' they introduced in Ticket Master, twice using it for the premise of an episode. They built up a plot thread and personally got me interested as to how it would eventually turn out, whilst making them both work perfectly fine as standalone episodes. I remember being kind of surprised when it was brought up again several episodes later, I dunno I guess I just didn't expect that kind of thing.

But yes, a good way of following up the premiere - both in turns of spanning the foreshadowing across the season, and in showing some less than favorable traits of the Mane6 after the first two episodes put so much focus on why they're likable. Here all of Twilight's friends put her in a remarkably unenviable situation, completely obliviously. And indeed, the first sign that Celestia's quite the down-to-Earth princess, I do like that.

This was notably the only episode other than the first two-parter that Lauren Faust herself had a hand in writing, I believe.

Faust's hand is definitely felt in this one. Note the lack of chairs at the cafe. They have something soft to sit on, but no back support. Also Twilight nibbling the flower in desperation. I always liked the little reminders that they really are horses. It's part of the worldbuilding and shows creativity on the part of the humans making the show.

Also note the horse hug in episode 2.



I like stuff like this and wish there were more of it.

Back to episode 3.



This episode gave us a lot of classic moments. There's Fluttershy being ridiculously adorable.



"I was busy, napping."

"Oatmeal, are you crazy?"

I love that freeze frame
there is so much character in each of them.. I mean look at Fluttershy "jeezus Twilight bring it down a little... golly."
and then there's Rarity "I know right, drama queen much?"

Who was Pinkie Pie telling that story to anyway?

An imaginary friend, perhaps?

Speaking of which, TheOtakuAscended's Let's Watch of that episode brought my attention to the fact that with the naming conventions we see in this show, 'Oatmeal' could very well be the name of a pony. It's fun to think this is the case...

An even better question is, what sort of thing would make Pinkie Pie call a pony crazy?

Hmmmm... maybe Oatmeal is the real name of Screwball? /WildMassGuessing

Shh. This is the season 1 thread.

so, going buy this new found possibility who else is in the oat /meal family

Cinnamon oat, Oat Crunch, happy meal, corn meal, lol

So, I just finished "The Cutie Mark Chronicles." That leaves me with 3 more episodes then I'm finished with season 1. Great and all...but where the heck can I check out season 2? Seems Netflix hasn't gone that far yet and the only DVD sets I see (in store, Amazon or otherwise) are just random episodes. I can only hope Youtube has them all, I guess.

Yeah, if you don't want to start hitting shady download sites then Youtube is your best bet. Just get the episode titles off of Wikipedia or whatever and put them into Youtube, you should find them.