Fuzzy Necromancer wrote:I certainly appreciate SFDebris's take on the destruction of the library, but for me, well...it was about stakes.
This is a G_Rated show. They can't murder anybody. They can't show gore.
The destruction of the library was as close as they could get to killing off a character to prove things are serious. It let Tirek hurt Twilight Sparkle in a way that no amount of implied peril or things-are-bad-until-the-status-quo-is-restored could do. He took something from her, and she can never, ever get it back.
It'll almost certainly never happen, but part of me kind of wishes they'd kill off Granny Smith. Not that I dislike her. I like the whole Apple clan. But I just think it could make for a really moving episode if one day the younger Apples woke up for breakfast and found Granny didn't come down to eat, or Applebloom comes home from school and finds her slumped over in her rocker, and the three Apple siblings have to deal with the loss to old age of the grandmother that raised them.
Death of a grandparent is something most kids will have to deal with at some point. But the closest we'll ever get to this was likely in The Perfect Pear, where they all but outright said that the Apple parents are dead.
Fuzzy Necromancer wrote:I certainly appreciate SFDebris's take on the destruction of the library, but for me, well...it was about stakes.
This is a G_Rated show. They can't murder anybody. They can't show gore.
The destruction of the library was as close as they could get to killing off a character to prove things are serious. It let Tirek hurt Twilight Sparkle in a way that no amount of implied peril or things-are-bad-until-the-status-quo-is-restored could do. He took something from her, and she can never, ever get it back.
Interestingly enough, a mere 2-3 episodes prior Twilight concluded that all the old books in her library that she'd already read were still meaningful to her and worth holding on to because they made her who she was. Tirek's destruction of them, in fell swoop took that away. And given that it was the most reoccurring setting in the first four seasons, and was the home the audience saw most often, in its own way it was the 8th main character that was more or less killed off by the villain.
Guys, guys. You're reading to much into this, they destroyed the library because Hasbro wanted to market a new toy set. There is no deeper meaning, it was marketing. Not everything that happens during an MLP episode has a deeper meaning, sometimes it's just a thinly veiled toy commercial - ok, it's always a thinly veiled toy commercial, but sometimes the story does a great job hiding that; the destruction of the library was not one such time.
If Chuck or a mod reads this feel free do delete my account. I would do it myself but I don't seem to be able to find a delete account option. phpBB should have such an option but I guess this isn't stock phpBB.
Originally posted March 14 in the Transformers movie thread
RobbyB1982 wrote:
Of course, Chuck put in a joke about just knowing he's going to end up doing a Touch music video at some point. That's usually not the sort of thing that ends up in the script unless he's got something planned. I wonder where the inevitable video will be? ANd is it anything on this month's slate in order to make the joke really land? It won't be in a Trek episode, and probably not for the first episode of Orville... and I can't imagine it working in Empire. So... where?
I laughed long and uncontrollably at the end of today's video.
Of course it was here. And of course it was something that was secretly not on the schedule.
Last edited by RobbyB1982 on Wed Mar 21, 2018 11:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
No, AlucardNoir. The whole success of this incarnation is showing that "promotion for toy" and "well-written, compelling story with strong characters" do not have to be mutually exclusive.
"Believe me, there’s nothing so terrible that someone won’t support it."
— Un Lun Dun, China Mieville
They didn't HAVE to blow up her treehouse to give Twilight a castle playset. Those could have super easily been separate locations. Especially considering the related playsets look nothing like the ones on the show.
They wanted the loss and the permanent change. The show is actually pretty good about having actual development and growth rather than a perpetual status quo.
The rainbow colored power ups however were a forced toy push... but the writers didn't really do it again after the requisite show off Hasbro has toy requests, but the writers get to decide how to incorporate it and how often.
How much do you want to bet the Hasbro mandate was to destroy or remove the library from the show? let's now forget how they treated Optimus in the Transformers movie [the good one]. Hasbro isn't run by people who watch the shows they put out, it's run by middle managers that are more interested in tax rebates then the led content of their toys.
Story wise they didn't have to destroy the library, marketing wise they did. Marketing doesn't do stories, marketing doesn't do subtle. Marketing does WWII era propaganda and calls it advertising.
If Chuck or a mod reads this feel free do delete my account. I would do it myself but I don't seem to be able to find a delete account option. phpBB should have such an option but I guess this isn't stock phpBB.
Loved his look, and whether marketing decision or not, his read on the library destruction did work for this story.
And yes, "The Touch" for Twilight vs. Tirek was great.
Now the question is which is more likely next for the Pony reviews: major changes other than Twilight (CMC getting marks, Dash being Wonderbolt, etc.) or a look at Starlight Glimmer's growth.
"You're only given a little spark of madness. And if you lose that, you're nothing."
Robin Williams
1978 HBO Special
AlucardNoir wrote:How much do you want to bet the Hasbro mandate was to destroy or remove the library from the show? let's now forget how they treated Optimus in the Transformers movie [the good one]. Hasbro isn't run by people who watch the shows they put out, it's run by middle managers that are more interested in tax rebates then the led content of their toys.
Story wise they didn't have to destroy the library, marketing wise they did. Marketing doesn't do stories, marketing doesn't do subtle. Marketing does WWII era propaganda and calls it advertising.
Well, seeing as how the Hasbro website has neither the library nor the castle playset for sale, I'm not quite so confident in your assertion that this was merchandise driven. There are exactly four playsets on the website: two are tie-ins to the movie, one is for the crystal empire, and one is for Equestria girls.
Dammit, now that's going to be in my search history, thank you very much.
Steal magic, flight, and strength from ponies across Equestria, and Twilight will hide as she was told to. Blow up her books, on the other hand, and she'll go full super saiyan.
