My Little Pony A New Generation, My Little Pony Make Your Mark and My Little Pony Tell Your Tale make up the main continuity of My Little Pony’s fifth generation, with tie in material such as the comics or video games forming connected yet separate continuities. A New Generation was the introduction to this new generation, Make Your Mark was the initial flagship series and Tell Your Tale is the current flagship series following MYM’s conclusion. At this point it’s fair to say that G5 has become successful in its own right, (this group wouldn’t exist and be as big as it was if that wasn’t the case) but I also think it’s fair to say that ANG is a bit different from its two sequels.

Now, some of the changes that occurred between the movie and the shows are a matter of behind the scenes factors, such as the voice cast and animation. The movie had a much larger budget and could afford the all star cast. Additionally since MYM and TYT are Canadian productions apparently they are required by law to have a certain amount of the voice cast be Canadian. And on the animation side of things both shows are being overseen by a different production team than the one who worked on the movie and who are also working with a smaller budget so they can’t be expected to perfectly recreate the movie’s sharp animation style (I’m looking at you, Star Strike). But some of the other changes seem a bit.. bizarre. For example, despite the cast change most of the characters are the same from the movie to the show. I say most because something must have happened to Hitch during the time jump between the movie and the special. The previously mostly serious sheriff with a hidden fun loving side suddenly became so goofy that TYT basically made him the comic relief member of the group. Heck, he even puts on a ‘mock serious’ tone during a conversation with Zipp in chapter one. Then there’s the fact that the whole ‘sequel to G4’ angle was largely dropped after the movie (which some theorise to be because of behind the scenes rights issues between Hasbro and Discovery Family) and the change that immediately caught my attention, the sudden focus on and importance of Cutie Marks, especially after they served no roll in the plot of the movie.

At first I thought all these changes were a result of it being a different production team, but then during his most recent live stream one of my favourite brony YouTubers Silver Quill was talking about G5 and said that apparently MYM was in production at the same time as ANG and that the two teams weren’t communicating with each other very much. I haven’t seen anything about this anywhere else so can someone confirm if this is the case or not. Because if so, then wow was that a bad idea. There’s a reason they say poor communication kills.

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I'm gonna suppose here, alright?

I think that the MYM production team at the very least had a paper with the characters' personalities and the movie's script so they could reference it now and then (like Sunny's broken lantern in Chapter 1, or the mentions to Sunny's Lighthouse getting destroyed in Chapters 3, 4 and 5). Maybe that's why Hitch's personality feels kinda off in MYM.

Also, not the entire staff was changed. I don't know who, but I'm pretty sure some people that worked in ANG are working now in both TYT and MYM alike. In the exact same areas than in ANG? Maybe they do, maybe they don't, we can't tell unless we sit to read ALL the credits in G5 to find out for real. Also, saying that the ANG and MYM teams were not communicated sounds, and pardon me for saying it this way, stupid. I would totally believe that TYT and MYM teams are not communicating, or maybe they did but way too later or early sometimes, but ANG and MYM? It just doesn't sounds logical to me, but that's just MY personal stance on the matter.

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I have a source that claims that one of the writers from the movie also has a writing credit on the MYM special, though said source has proven to be less than reliable, especially when it comes to G5.

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Additionally since MYM and TYT are Canadian productions apparently they are required by law to have a certain amount of the voice cast be Canadian.

Think it's basically that they have to have that percentage of staff be Canadian to make it a Canadian production, and therefore get subsidies and tax breaks and such...

--Sweetie Belle