@Derpy Whooves  
Okay!  
I’ve really enjoyed the discussion here, and would enjoy more,  
so I decided to make a comment about G1 compared to the new movie,  
but a new thread could be made instead.

@Ihhh  
@CatsTuxedo  
@CMC Scootaloo  
Meta conversations like this should be on the forums, not on an advertisement for the movie. Please take it to PMs or the forums.

@CatsTuxedo  
Here’s a hypothetical for you. Say someone took a fantastic script intended for a live action movie and decided to animate it instead. Would that somehow make the film a worse overall film?

@CMC Scootaloo  
If animation manages to be dramatic in its own unique way without resorting to aping melodramatic soap opera antics, then it is truly successful as dramatic animation. Fantasia and The Wall are the few examples I know of that’ve accomplished such a feat because their animated segments couldn’t have been satisfyingly executed any other way. Heck, I say Samurai Jack qualifies as well since its whole style and atmosphere surely wouldn’t have come across as well in live-action.
 
Uniquely dramatic animation is definitely not impossible to pull off. It’s just that more animators ought to work toward finding new, unexplored ways to create such a thing rather than copying what live-action works routinely do better.

@CatsTuxedo
 
So, in other words, no animation ever has or had dramatic value, no matter what it does/did. Because what you said there about crying applies to every animation that was ever created.  
Nevermind that I’ve yet to meet any pastel-colored horses with big eyes and wings on this planet…..
 
As I said, trolling at its finest.

@CMC Scootaloo  
Any live action actor can cry as can any animated character. It’s hardly at all impressive and has little to do with what kind of drama can be solely accomplished through animation. Even the drama being depicted here doesn’t much inherently benefit from the medium and rarely depends on the fact that these characters are magical pastel-colored horses; if this were a human-centric work, Scootaloo’s inability to fly could be substituted for an actual disability and it would function just as well. Imitating dramatic beats or emotions that are regularly portrayed in live-action isn’t going to cut it.

@CatsTuxedo  

 
Below, screenshots that show one of the reasons why I became a fan of MLP:FiM:
 

 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 

 
I missed such great emotions in the animation style of animated shows….. MLP:FiM brought them back.
 
 
My response to your claim MLP: FiM is merely comedy because the animation isn’t dramatic/doesn’t support the dramatic of the writing.  
I think, at this point, we can safely say you’re trolling.

@Ciaran  
I consider CGI to be more of a special effect than an effective means of creating life through animation. Compared to traditional 2D animation where you can make just about anything that comes to your head right off the bat, CGI is restricted by rigs and programs, and on top of that, most characters created in CGI fall into the categories of “creepy humanoid mannequin” or “marketable plastic toy to be sold in Happy Meals”. So to answer your query, true, the Giant itself could only really be a CGI effect because an attempt to depict it in any other medium would’ve come off as impractical and clunky. It’s every single other visual aspect of the movie that could’ve been done in live-action because it doesn’t see any extra benefit from the animation medium.

@CatsTuxedo  
Fair enough. I myself prefer to judge a work on all of it’s merits, regardless of whether or not it takes advantage of the medium it is made in. For example, I judge films like the iron giant based on how well written and acted they are and how good the cinematography and editing is. I am fully aware that those aspects apply just as much to live action as they do to animation, but in my mind, it shouldn’t matter as long as they’re done well. It’s not as if an animated film can’t have good writing, good performances, and be well edited and shot just because it doesn’t do anything that doesn’t work in live action, and it’s not as if those merits should be ignored. Not all art needs to be formalistic.

@CatsTuxedo  
You go on John K’s blog a lot, i’m guessing?

@CatsTuxedo  
A live action film can’t show horses talking or flying without using CGI. There - by your definition, MLP is the best damned movie ever made. Now please explain how Iron Giant could have been made in the utter absence of any form of animation, computer or otherwise?

@Ihhh  
An animated film squandering the potential of its medium doesn’t necessarily make it a bad film, just a subpar animated film. Many animated films that might impress some people don’t necessarily impress me because as an artist who enjoys animation and takes the medium quite seriously, I’d prefer to see the art form being used in ways that only it is capable of.

@CatsTuxedo  
You did not answer my question. How does being animated detract from those movies, and how does it cause them to fail as films just because they could have been made in live action?

@Ihhh  
As I brought up before, animation has a potential to convey sequences and effects that live-action alone couldn’t effectively manage, so when an animated work squanders the medium and fails to take advantage of its potential in any way, shape or form, it renders the work’s animated status utterly pointless and superfluous. I think people who like that kind of stuff anyway should at least just admit that they don’t really care about its animation or even about the fact that it’s animated at all.

@CatsTuxedo  
I understand where you’re coming from, but unless being animated actively detracts from the film, I fail to see the problem. For example, perhaps the iron giant could have been made in live action, but I fail to see how being animated detracts from it, and thus cannot understand how you can say it fails as a film just because it could, in theory, have been made in live action.

@Ciaran  
I brought up Fantasia and The Wall as examples of drama in animation done right because both films used animation in a dramatic way that could only be viably executed through the animation medium. Had the animated parts in those movies been attempted through live-action means, it wouldn’t have looked right.
 
I actually do wish people could find more ways to use animation on a dramatic level that are impossible to pull off in live-action. Unfortunately, when most animators think of making dramatic animation, they much much more often than not just copy what live-action movies have already done and are doing, like sad staging or sad music or what have you. They don’t actually use the medium to its upmost potential and so miss the point of animation being a means to visually depict what is impossible to portray in live action. I could look at crap like Iron Giant and think to myself “Why is this animated? How does this benefit from the medium? This could just as well have been done in live-action, so why didn’t they do that?” Heck, even Lion King is just Hamlet on a story basis, so there was really no reason to make the characters cartoon animals in the first place. Whether comedic or dramatic, an animated work that fails to use the medium’s potential enough to justify its format fails as an animated work.

@saturnstar14  
It’s fine that you don’t agree that animation can be a dramatic and effective story telling medium.
 
But discounting what someone says out of hand like that is a little rude.
 
@CatsTuxedo  
You don’t consider works like “The Wall” or “Kill Bill” dramatic works? Or Coraline or Spirited Away or Grave of the Fireflies or even Treasure Planet?
 
Not even the Secret Of NIHM? Or Watership Down? Or UP? Don’t those fit into any kind of definition of “dramatic” in your view?
 
Were they all “unimportant” because they were “entertaining”?

@CatsTuxedo  
It’s indeed a futile discussion with this guy… There is obsessing over a cartoon show and then there’s him… Wouldn’t surprise me if he sees ponies everywhere he looks.
 
MLPFIM is indeed pure entertainment and it has been a nice way to help people make friends and such over a common subject. But it’s still a children’s cartoon.

@CMC Scootaloo 
Stop putting words in people’s mouths.

@CatsTuxedo
 
MLP: FiM may not be important to you, but it is important to a lot of people (and that goes for entertainment in general, as well), including me. 
Not everyone has such a superficial view of it like you do. Have fun with your RL stuff.

@CMC Scootaloo 
MLP is a fictional TV show. It is entertainment and is therefore unimportant. By definition, TV shows, movies and video games as a whole are equally unimportant and are only of use to anyone who enjoys the occasional amusing distraction, myself included. To put any of the things in those categories up on a pedestal in a bid to proclaim how much smarter one is than other people is just pompous and insecure.
 
Since you obviously won’t budge from seeing what ultimately amounts to an amusing cartoon show as this ridiculous lofty paragon of “grimdark epicness”, I see no point in continuing this futile discussion.

@CatsTuxedo  
@CMC Scootaloo  
“Why can’t we be friends, why can’t we be friends?”

@CatsTuxedo
 
Defining a TV show as what it really is, rather than what you perceive it as, is something very important. The ignorance you talked about (and show) begets of a very high amount of disrespect for the actual nature of MLP: FiM.  
Pointing out this ignorance and clarifying the actual nature of MLP: FiM is a very important subject matter, as it might get someone to understand it better, which can only be to its benefits.  
It is worthwhile to attempt getting someone to understand what kind of show it actually is, no matter how massive of a textwall this might need, even if such an attempt will sometimes fall on deaf ears (something you effectively demonstrate right now).  
This could only be seen as “pretentiousness” by those who are ignorant towards it in the first place, which brings me back to my observation, that you ignore everything about MLP: FiM that isn’t humor and that you don’t accept it as more than that, because nothing beyond humor is valuable for you in cartoons.
 
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic already is more functional at drama than at humor and cuteness, your preconceived idea that cartoons are only good for humor is why you can’t see this and why you only perceive the humor and think of scenes/episodes as humorous that aren’t humorous at all.  
Your general expectations of cartoons are blocking you from seeing MLP: FiM’s real worth here.  
Regardless if we speak about the writing or the animations, MLP: FiM isn’t any more a comedy show than other drama shows that have some occasional humor, to lighten the mood here and there, are.  
It needs being open to the fact that a cartoon can be more than comedy to see this, though.

@CMC Scootaloo 
The amount of works that effectively use animation as a dramatic tool is far too little for me to consider the animation medium by default as anything more than simple entertainment. As long as the attempts at comedy are more functional than the attempts at drama, characters and humor or cuteness are my priority when it comes to watching cartoons.
 
By the way, people “missing the point” or simply not caring about it is not pretentiousness, it’s mere apathy or ignorance. Pretentiousness is spouting off long-winded spiels under the impression that the subject matter is more important than it actually is, i.e. droning on and on about how My Little Pony is a “serious epic drama”. Please look the word up sometime.

@CatsTuxedo
 
I think you should really go and broaden your horizon, by opening yourself up to the fact that cartoons, at least in this time and age, are much more than humor and comedy. Then you would see that MLP: FiM does, except for Pinkie’s occasional antics (and even she tones herself down a lot if it gets really dramatic and serious), not contain any of the over-the-top humor you mentioned, unless an episode is specifically written with a focus on humor in mind.  
For me, the times were I saw cartoons as nothing more than humor and slapstick were over when I was still a young child. I’ve grown out of this view at this age because of finding cartoons that were much more than that and since then, I can see when a cartoon show is more than just humor, something you could see about MLP: FiM, too, if you wouldn’t narrow down your view of cartoons to humor.  
You remind me, a little, on certain annoying people in cinemas who laugh at scenes that aren’t even supposed to be funny, particularly sad scenes, because they miss the point about the meaning of the scene or because they don’t care about the actual meaning (which is the reason why I don’t really like to go into cinemas anymore, since this behavior is ruining the mood) and that is actual pretentiousness.
 
In short, you’re only viewing MLP: FiM as not really dramatic or serious, and instead mostly humorous, because you never really grew out of the expectation of a cartoon having to be comedic and because you never learned that a cartoon can be so much more than that.  
That’s something that can be seen quite clearly when following your argumentation here.