How would you rank the MLP gens, from best to worst?
Rank the MLP gens.
- Thread starter CastletonSnob
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G3: My absolute favorite. The chemistry between Minty and Pinky was perfect. The specials may take a while to get going, but they usually wound up being really good.
G5: I really love Izzy and Sunny. The G5 game is also much better than that mobile G4 game. I really wish I could say more good about it, but unfortunately it dropped right when my MLP burnout was at it's worst. I'm still burned out. But the movie alone rated really high if nothing else than because Izzy is such a great character.
G4: It was my introduction to MLP and changed my views quite a hit on "this is a girl franchise and this is a boy franchise." Honestly, as much as I praise G3, G4 could have been number 1. Unfortunately, it stayed way past its welcome and even now Hasbro and IDW just can't seem to get past it.
G1: It took me a while to warm up to it, and the music is still not my favorite part, but it really became one of my favorites. Fizzy is all kinds of awesome. I love that they weren't afraid to go dark with Tirek and Groger.
Tales: Just...no. No, no...no.
...
NO!
Edited because I forgot about G5
G5: I really love Izzy and Sunny. The G5 game is also much better than that mobile G4 game. I really wish I could say more good about it, but unfortunately it dropped right when my MLP burnout was at it's worst. I'm still burned out. But the movie alone rated really high if nothing else than because Izzy is such a great character.
G4: It was my introduction to MLP and changed my views quite a hit on "this is a girl franchise and this is a boy franchise." Honestly, as much as I praise G3, G4 could have been number 1. Unfortunately, it stayed way past its welcome and even now Hasbro and IDW just can't seem to get past it.
G1: It took me a while to warm up to it, and the music is still not my favorite part, but it really became one of my favorites. Fizzy is all kinds of awesome. I love that they weren't afraid to go dark with Tirek and Groger.
Tales: Just...no. No, no...no.
...
NO!
Edited because I forgot about G5
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From Worst to Best (just to end on a positive note):
G2 The Friendship Gardens Computer Game?: This is the only part of the franchise that I have NO connection to or love for. I have no real feelings for this entire generation. I only know that the toys have more real-life horse-like proportions. I don't know any of the characters. I don't care about any of them. I wish someone would do something with these guys just so I could form an opinion on them.
G3.7 Newborn Cuties: I mean...come on. The best you can say about this is that it was mercifully sort lived. The animation was bad, the characters were all babies, it was just not a good time.
G4.4 Hello Pinkie Pie: The characters sound wrong. The characters often do gross things. And the whole thing felt rather pointless.
G3.5 The Twinkle Wish Adventure and Others: This is basically what everyone THOUGHT G3 MLP was. Girly, shallow, brightly colored and little else. It still has moments of sweetness to it, but it's a lesser version of G3 proper.
G1.5 Tales: I don't hate it, but it is just a bunch of teenagers being terrible to each other most of the time. It has some memorable characters, though. The inclusion of UFOs and the first Alicorn is also something it contributed to MLP mythos.
G4.5 Pony Life: This was sometimes painful to watch. Seeing the characters we all know and love turned into Teen Titans Go characters with gross out humor and internet memes. But, it did have some ambition. They had multi-episode arcs and Season 2 has a season-long storyarc. Some new characters were introduced...though none of them were very memorable. They tried....I think they failed, but it WAS a stepping stone that lead to Tell Your Tale, which is legitimately good.
G4.3 The Stop Motion Shorts: These are just cute. Not much to them, but I liked them.
G3 Minty, Minty, Minty: This is surprisingly fun to watch. There's occasionally some good lines here and there. And it's kind of the prototype for G5, since it's storyline is all about reconnecting a bunch of tribes of ponies who got separated. Shame we never found out why. Minty's love of socks will be permanently burned into my brain. And I'm okay with that.
G1 Ponies and Friends: There's just something about 80s cartoons, you know? I'd actually put this on par with other 80s fantasy cartoons like Dungeons and Dragons, myself. It's darker than you might expect, at times. Emphasis on "at times", though. Because, it does have it's moments, but a good portion of the cartoon is filler, too. This is really the only generation with "real" humans, which makes it stand out, even though I'm not sure if Megan's two siblings were necessary. Some characters are really memorable, but it has such a rotating cast that you never know who you're going to get episode-to-episode. It's uneven, as a lot of 80s cartoons are.
G4.2 Equestria Girls: This series of movies and specials is...uneven, I think. It starts pretty strong, gets better, then kind of fluctuates for a while before just kind of stopping. I kind of wish we got some sort of conclusion to the story, somehow. As it stands...this is G4, but with characters who didn't really grow or change the same way that main G4 did. We did get Sunset, though. And that's worth a lot. It's fun...but, mainly as a spinoff of G4 rather than it's own thing.
G5 The New Generation: This is such a hard generation to place, right now. The original movie is probably the best Pony movie, easily. And we're actually getting a LOT of media. But, it also feels like this generation is having a slow start. The decision to make Make Your Mark a 3D cartoon on Netflix feels like it's wrapped a anchor around the neck of this franchise, even if I am enjoying most of it. Make Your Mark gave us Misty, who I'm liking so far. I think the comics have been okay, even if they are drawing out the Discord storyarc too long for my tastes. And Tell Your Tale, the free Youtube series, might just be the best of the bunch. TYT has some really great humor and characterization in 5-minute bites. I've grown to really like the characters. But, it's got a long way to go to dethrone the champion.
G4 Friendship is Magic: Yeah, this isn't even a fair fight. This is the generation that spawned a fandom. A generation that changed how people saw "girl's" cartoons. It's had FAR more impact than any other generation of My Little Pony. It's Hasbro's biggest success out of the Hub experiment. It got over 100 comic issues (probably closer to 200 if you include spinoffs). The characters are still showing up today. It's still getting fanart, maybe even moreso than the current generation. Did it go on for too long? Maybe. But, I'm still missing it more than any of the previous generations. I like most of the other generations, but I love this one. There really was a bit of magic in this show, and I don't think that will be replicated anytime soon.
G2 The Friendship Gardens Computer Game?: This is the only part of the franchise that I have NO connection to or love for. I have no real feelings for this entire generation. I only know that the toys have more real-life horse-like proportions. I don't know any of the characters. I don't care about any of them. I wish someone would do something with these guys just so I could form an opinion on them.
G3.7 Newborn Cuties: I mean...come on. The best you can say about this is that it was mercifully sort lived. The animation was bad, the characters were all babies, it was just not a good time.
G4.4 Hello Pinkie Pie: The characters sound wrong. The characters often do gross things. And the whole thing felt rather pointless.
G3.5 The Twinkle Wish Adventure and Others: This is basically what everyone THOUGHT G3 MLP was. Girly, shallow, brightly colored and little else. It still has moments of sweetness to it, but it's a lesser version of G3 proper.
G1.5 Tales: I don't hate it, but it is just a bunch of teenagers being terrible to each other most of the time. It has some memorable characters, though. The inclusion of UFOs and the first Alicorn is also something it contributed to MLP mythos.
G4.5 Pony Life: This was sometimes painful to watch. Seeing the characters we all know and love turned into Teen Titans Go characters with gross out humor and internet memes. But, it did have some ambition. They had multi-episode arcs and Season 2 has a season-long storyarc. Some new characters were introduced...though none of them were very memorable. They tried....I think they failed, but it WAS a stepping stone that lead to Tell Your Tale, which is legitimately good.
G4.3 The Stop Motion Shorts: These are just cute. Not much to them, but I liked them.
G3 Minty, Minty, Minty: This is surprisingly fun to watch. There's occasionally some good lines here and there. And it's kind of the prototype for G5, since it's storyline is all about reconnecting a bunch of tribes of ponies who got separated. Shame we never found out why. Minty's love of socks will be permanently burned into my brain. And I'm okay with that.
G1 Ponies and Friends: There's just something about 80s cartoons, you know? I'd actually put this on par with other 80s fantasy cartoons like Dungeons and Dragons, myself. It's darker than you might expect, at times. Emphasis on "at times", though. Because, it does have it's moments, but a good portion of the cartoon is filler, too. This is really the only generation with "real" humans, which makes it stand out, even though I'm not sure if Megan's two siblings were necessary. Some characters are really memorable, but it has such a rotating cast that you never know who you're going to get episode-to-episode. It's uneven, as a lot of 80s cartoons are.
G4.2 Equestria Girls: This series of movies and specials is...uneven, I think. It starts pretty strong, gets better, then kind of fluctuates for a while before just kind of stopping. I kind of wish we got some sort of conclusion to the story, somehow. As it stands...this is G4, but with characters who didn't really grow or change the same way that main G4 did. We did get Sunset, though. And that's worth a lot. It's fun...but, mainly as a spinoff of G4 rather than it's own thing.
G5 The New Generation: This is such a hard generation to place, right now. The original movie is probably the best Pony movie, easily. And we're actually getting a LOT of media. But, it also feels like this generation is having a slow start. The decision to make Make Your Mark a 3D cartoon on Netflix feels like it's wrapped a anchor around the neck of this franchise, even if I am enjoying most of it. Make Your Mark gave us Misty, who I'm liking so far. I think the comics have been okay, even if they are drawing out the Discord storyarc too long for my tastes. And Tell Your Tale, the free Youtube series, might just be the best of the bunch. TYT has some really great humor and characterization in 5-minute bites. I've grown to really like the characters. But, it's got a long way to go to dethrone the champion.
G4 Friendship is Magic: Yeah, this isn't even a fair fight. This is the generation that spawned a fandom. A generation that changed how people saw "girl's" cartoons. It's had FAR more impact than any other generation of My Little Pony. It's Hasbro's biggest success out of the Hub experiment. It got over 100 comic issues (probably closer to 200 if you include spinoffs). The characters are still showing up today. It's still getting fanart, maybe even moreso than the current generation. Did it go on for too long? Maybe. But, I'm still missing it more than any of the previous generations. I like most of the other generations, but I love this one. There really was a bit of magic in this show, and I don't think that will be replicated anytime soon.
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G1 - The best toys with the greatest variety. The ponies were released in sets (usually six or four ponies), which really adds to the collectible aspect. Also, very rare to see repeat characters. The best hair quality (nylon).
G3 - Great diversity of characters and color schemes. Some repeated characters (curse you Pinkie Pie), but still hundreds of individual characters. Some of the best playsets, honestly might be better than G1 in that regard. The magnet gimmick was a blast. Still had nylon hair.
G5 - I was ambivalent about whether G2 or G5 should come next because they both have significant good points and significant flaws. (Or, maybe not flaws, but at least aspects that I personally don't like.) G5 has switched to more of an action figure play mode, which I don't hate, but also it's a significant change from traditional MLP. But I'd rather have a good action figure than a brushable pony with bad hair. And the 6" ponies do have great quality hair. (Not sure if it's nylon but it's sooo silky and has a lot of body.) The biggest tick against it is they are really shilling the Mane 5 and not doing much else . . . but it's a very new line so I'm giving it a chance. The biggest reason it took 3rd place over G2 is I just don't like the G2 face molds very much.
G2 - Not a huge fan of the molds, but they did have a lot of good color schemes and the baby ponies are VERY cute. Hair is . . . okay? Biggest drawback: almost every symbol is monochrome. Also, no real pegasi. WTF.
G4 - I can't believe they used the same boring "standing static" mold for SIX YEARS. Also, too much Mane Six. But the worst aspect is the hair quality, which was truly abysmal by the end of the line. (The early toys had okay hair, but also had very bad head / body mismatches sooo . . . yeah.) I would like to specifically shoutout two of the worst sets: the 6" sea pony toys which had cheap, godawful locks and the 6" Mane Six with "show accurate" hair which was not only cheap but loaded with GLUE. Not hair gel. GLUE.
G4.5 - Not only do the 3" ponies have cheap hair, but their plastic is just unpleasant to the touch. The hair quality on the 6" ones is good. Too bad they are still ugly.
G3.5 - My negative reaction to these is visceral.
Newborn Cuties - These are not ponies.
Equestria Girls - Somehow even less pony than Newborn Cuties. I'm not here for it.
G3 - Great diversity of characters and color schemes. Some repeated characters (curse you Pinkie Pie), but still hundreds of individual characters. Some of the best playsets, honestly might be better than G1 in that regard. The magnet gimmick was a blast. Still had nylon hair.
G5 - I was ambivalent about whether G2 or G5 should come next because they both have significant good points and significant flaws. (Or, maybe not flaws, but at least aspects that I personally don't like.) G5 has switched to more of an action figure play mode, which I don't hate, but also it's a significant change from traditional MLP. But I'd rather have a good action figure than a brushable pony with bad hair. And the 6" ponies do have great quality hair. (Not sure if it's nylon but it's sooo silky and has a lot of body.) The biggest tick against it is they are really shilling the Mane 5 and not doing much else . . . but it's a very new line so I'm giving it a chance. The biggest reason it took 3rd place over G2 is I just don't like the G2 face molds very much.
G2 - Not a huge fan of the molds, but they did have a lot of good color schemes and the baby ponies are VERY cute. Hair is . . . okay? Biggest drawback: almost every symbol is monochrome. Also, no real pegasi. WTF.
G4 - I can't believe they used the same boring "standing static" mold for SIX YEARS. Also, too much Mane Six. But the worst aspect is the hair quality, which was truly abysmal by the end of the line. (The early toys had okay hair, but also had very bad head / body mismatches sooo . . . yeah.) I would like to specifically shoutout two of the worst sets: the 6" sea pony toys which had cheap, godawful locks and the 6" Mane Six with "show accurate" hair which was not only cheap but loaded with GLUE. Not hair gel. GLUE.
G4.5 - Not only do the 3" ponies have cheap hair, but their plastic is just unpleasant to the touch. The hair quality on the 6" ones is good. Too bad they are still ugly.
G3.5 - My negative reaction to these is visceral.
Newborn Cuties - These are not ponies.
Equestria Girls - Somehow even less pony than Newborn Cuties. I'm not here for it.
Also going from worst to best because I like ending on a positive note too.
Newborn Cuties: It wasn't even fun to make fun of.
Pony Life: Also not even fun to make fun of. In a vacuum maybe it shouldn't be this low on the list, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum and so it's not fair to put it in one. This is just not how the G4 characters deserved to go out. G5 refusing to let go of these characters is actually somewhat making up for this though.
G3.5: I can barely remember anything about this one.
G3: G3 is really hard to place because the format varies so wildly. Parts of it do not deserve to be this low. It has a good cast and some good moments. But some of the longer stuff can be a chore to get through. There was a point during one of them (the Spike one) where I wasn't really having fun. It was too slow, and the ending didn't do anything to make it worth it. That's the thing with G3. It's a waste of time. Sometimes a short and sweet waste of time. Sometimes a chore. I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it again.
Tales: This is going to be controversial. Tales is not better than G3 and it feels wrong to rank it higher. It has a great cast and at least tries not to be a waste of time, but almost everything about the execution is bad. I don't think there's a single episode I could recommend in good conscience. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a good time watching it with a group. Even at its worst it was fun to tear apart with a group. And at least it is mercifully short. I think that's the thing that bumps it above G3 for me, despite G3 having better production values on every possible level. I would rather rewatch an equivalent length of Tales than rewatch some of the longer G3 stuff. With Tales the experience would feel faster because it never grinds to a halt.
G1: I feel comfortable ranking G1 this high. We laugh at the 80sness of it, but it's not bad. It's D&D with horses. They hold things with their mouths. Sometimes the props are thoughtfully designed for horses. What more could you want? A more manageably sized cast? Fair enough, but I found that it got a lot easier to keep track once we noticed the home/away team structure. If I had time I wouldn't have any dread about rewatching the whole show just to track who's doing what. I did a rewatch binge during the roundup just to keep track of Whizzer. It was fun.
G5: I want to rank this one #1, but it's just not there yet. I am having a great time with it. It puts me in a good mood. The setting is comfy. The characters are fantastic. I think I've watched the movie enough times to confidently say it is much better than I gave it credit for on first viewing. It is the highest effort piece of Hasbro media in a long time. Make Your Mark got off to an unpolished start but the writing got better and the animation had a significant jump in quality. And it gave us Misty. Tell Your Tale is held back by the art style, but the writing mostly won me over and the animation at least isn't lazy. I have a good time with it every week. But... it's just too early. Time will tell if G5 will climb to the #1 spot but it still needs to earn it.
G4: I have to rank it #1 for the sheer phenomenon of it. It changed the internet. It changed Hasbro. It wasn't supposed to be the Hub's flagship show but ended up being its longest survivor. What an epic run. Maybe it lasted too long, but it deserved to last. It got there by having a good usual baseline of quality, and by doing some unusual things that held our attention when we gave it a chance. The way I once put it is that the characters are adults, with jobs, and aren't supposed to be morons. That sets it apart from disturbingly many cartoons. Compare it with G3, which seems to be a world run by children doing nothing important. G4 characters go on high adventures but also have to go to work tomorrow. They have relatable problems that aren't all of their own making. This show does not insult its audience. Even if that audience wasn't supposed to be watching in the first place.
G5: The ears.
Newborn Cuties: It wasn't even fun to make fun of.
Pony Life: Also not even fun to make fun of. In a vacuum maybe it shouldn't be this low on the list, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum and so it's not fair to put it in one. This is just not how the G4 characters deserved to go out. G5 refusing to let go of these characters is actually somewhat making up for this though.
G3.5: I can barely remember anything about this one.
G3: G3 is really hard to place because the format varies so wildly. Parts of it do not deserve to be this low. It has a good cast and some good moments. But some of the longer stuff can be a chore to get through. There was a point during one of them (the Spike one) where I wasn't really having fun. It was too slow, and the ending didn't do anything to make it worth it. That's the thing with G3. It's a waste of time. Sometimes a short and sweet waste of time. Sometimes a chore. I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it again.
Tales: This is going to be controversial. Tales is not better than G3 and it feels wrong to rank it higher. It has a great cast and at least tries not to be a waste of time, but almost everything about the execution is bad. I don't think there's a single episode I could recommend in good conscience. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a good time watching it with a group. Even at its worst it was fun to tear apart with a group. And at least it is mercifully short. I think that's the thing that bumps it above G3 for me, despite G3 having better production values on every possible level. I would rather rewatch an equivalent length of Tales than rewatch some of the longer G3 stuff. With Tales the experience would feel faster because it never grinds to a halt.
G1: I feel comfortable ranking G1 this high. We laugh at the 80sness of it, but it's not bad. It's D&D with horses. They hold things with their mouths. Sometimes the props are thoughtfully designed for horses. What more could you want? A more manageably sized cast? Fair enough, but I found that it got a lot easier to keep track once we noticed the home/away team structure. If I had time I wouldn't have any dread about rewatching the whole show just to track who's doing what. I did a rewatch binge during the roundup just to keep track of Whizzer. It was fun.
G4: I have to rank it #1 for the sheer phenomenon of it. It changed the internet. It changed Hasbro. It wasn't supposed to be the Hub's flagship show but ended up being its longest survivor. What an epic run. Maybe it lasted too long, but it deserved to last. It got there by having a good usual baseline of quality, and by doing some unusual things that held our attention when we gave it a chance. The way I once put it is that the characters are adults, with jobs, and aren't supposed to be morons. That sets it apart from disturbingly many cartoons. Compare it with G3, which seems to be a world run by children doing nothing important. G4 characters go on high adventures but also have to go to work tomorrow. They have relatable problems that aren't all of their own making. This show does not insult its audience. Even if that audience wasn't supposed to be watching in the first place.
G5: The ears.
G1 was good.