@Background Pony #E88A  
i think the more sapient bipedal or humanoid beings and creatures of Equestria might be advanced or smart enough to make fire arms to compensate for magic , which the ponies have . I mean the minataurs equestria were shown driving bull dozers !

@Background Pony #E88A  
Well, G1 had The Grundles, though it was more like “ugly is not evil”.

@FrustrationInExcelsis  
I don’t know, one of the great things about FIM at first was it going with a whole “dark is not evil” route with luna and her guard being batwinged ponies.  
One reason I love this pic so much  

@AppleSnow
 
That they are. I wouldn’t mind seeing these designs used for a new batch of villains in the future, I have to say. Probably not gonna happen, true, but we can dream, we can dream.

@FrustrationInExcelsis  
Either way. Both designs are awesome.

@AppleSnow
 
The idea, as I gather, was that the pirates were originally supposed to play a more strictly villainous role – these designs are from that period in the movie’s development – but the writers later decided to make them more sympathetic, hence the design change.
 
These designs look very good, I completely agree, but they’re very good villain designs: they wouldn’t have worked as well for sympathetic characters as they would have for bad guys and robbers.

They replaced these designs for the current designs in the movie?  
These designs are AWESOME!!

@Background Pony #E88A  
They better keep these designs for a rainy day. Steampunk Skeksis are too f||EFF!||ing cool to be canned.

@FrustrationInExcelsis  
According to the Art of the book, yeah, they were pure villains at first, then they got reworked gradually to be more heroic, and then made pure heroes at the end (Forcing the redesign)

Judging from these designs, I’m guessing the bird pirates were probably meant for a more villainous role in early drafts.

I personally prefer to use the term “Kenku” (bird-like creatures from D&D based on the Tengu of Japanese myth) to name the race these parrot-pirates belong to, since it’s a more accurate description than “Harpy” (harpies have functional wings, while these guys just have claw-hands).
 
Also, as a lifetime paleontology fan, I can confirm that all birds are dinosaurs by definition, but not all dinosaurs were birds (for a Venn Diagram, imagine a large circle labeled “Dinosaurs” with a much smaller circle labeled “Birds” completely inside it).

@Siegfried  
That’s what he said. A cross between dinosaur and bird. Meaning a dinosaur, but whatever. XD

@PonyPon  
No my friend those are raptors! It was found out a bit before the second Jurassic Park movie that dinosaur where feathered (partialy at least) and that the velociraptor really looked like a big turkey with teeth.

OMG This looks awesome!

Cool, actual beastly dinos mid-way to being birds.

@Background Pony #B32E  
Honestly there’s no reason for guns to NOT be canon; their tech level is easily up there for renneissaince ones. Just there’s not much of a reason for them to be used in slice of life episodes, they’re kind of unwieldy for ponies to use so they’d be uncommon, and hasbro probably will veto any use of them in the show (like how disney said the pirates of the carribean in Kingdom hearts couldn’t use guns in the game and had crossbows instead).
 
Toywise, capper has a gun in his toy, though I doubt he’ll ever use one in the movie.

@Background Pony #7608  
I looked at the trailer, the only things the pirates had as weapons were spoons, pots, and whats-her-face with the sword.
 
@Background Pony #BC58  
That might be true, but let’s not forget Dash’s line “I need something real fast like a bullet to keep up with me!” from May the Best Pet Win. Sure, it’s just a single reference to firearms, in a song no less, but not only are other ballistic weapons (or variants such as the party cannon/howitzer) found in MLP, but we also know songs happen in-universe, and not just to the fourth wall. Sure, they wouldn’t fit in the movie, but chances are more likely than not that guns exist in MLP to some extent.
 
I just typed up a paragraph about guns in MLP. I feel… edgy somehow.

@Background Pony #7608  
When? I dont remember that.

@Background Pony #BC58  
There was a gun held by one of the birds in the trailer

skeksis

@Background Pony #B32E  
That’s just artists spit-balling pirates, later all the parts that don’t fit with MLP:FiM lore were removed.

Sooo…are firearms canon now?  
I am not sure what to think about this

I dig the one dual wielding pistols

@MadVillan  
The original designs for the pirates. They were originaly going to be pure villans.

@The Toaster Repair Pony  
And mated with the Chozo!
 
Might as well bring out as many bird-people refs we can!