Anyway, so yesterday I decided to be brave and take a little dip into the world of G3. Yep, the old sickly era! I just had to try "A Very Minty Christmas" on Christmas Day
As you can see this reply is really, really late, but I have been meaning to reply to this for ages, because let it be known, I love G3! I love every generation of My Little Pony

Being G3, it can be ludicrously sugary with a lot of fixed smiles and the VAs doing the "smiling and laughing while talking" thing. It initially made me think that old familiar "oh god why am I watching this" and at first I may have wanted to vomit a little I like sweet and happy more than most people, but it hit me with more saccharine than even I can easily stomach. BUT I got used to it though, and as the story set in some of the sugar and smiles were put on hold for the character to reflect on her own flaws (yay! They do have them!) and resolve a problem.
To be honest, I never minded the sugaryness to it, and found it quite close to G4 if I'm honest, but then I am a fan of it in general so it didn't take me that long to get used to it, but I'm pleased you managed to see past it and enjoy the movie. And yes, the G3's do have flaws and personality.

also wouldn't seem too spoileriffic to mention that the premise involves Christmas and Santa, which I find odd concepts considering both involve humans, and G3 (as far as I know) doesn't have them just like G4 doesn't. Maybe they have pony versions of Christ and Santa or something, it just seemed odd, and I can see why with G4 they went with a fantasy allegory instead.
No, G3 doesn't have any humans in it ever. Only G1 does that. I get what you mean though, it is a little strange how they did it in a sense, but it doesn't distract too much. I think the only correction I would have made if I had made it was, like you said had a pony Santa or something, or made a fantasy that actually resembled Christmas (I'm still on the fence as to whether Hearth's Warming Eve was supposed to be Christmas or not)

But is it bad? Heck no! Not by a long shot - in the end I absolutely loved it!
Fluttershy Voice: "Yay!"

(SPOILER)
I'd rather let people have the chance to experience it for themselves than elaborate, but basically don't go thinkin' the spirit of the show you know and love wasn't around in 2005. Oh it really was

Friendship is Magic" is clearly not a new concept to MLP, nor is that of the general moral of the story being that friendship is the no. 1 important thing in life.
Exactly, as much as I love G4 - it wasn't the first MLP generation to do what it does that makes it so awesome; which makes sense as it was made by a fan of the previous generations.

the fact that in the end, after all the fussing poor Minty did (oh how I wanted to hug her at times!) over restoring the more materialistic aspects of the day that she thought she'd ruined, that's not what's important - the important thing is she stopped up all night and went out of her way to give away her most prized possessions (I love that it's socks XD Sock ponies are canon!) to try and restore what she saw as her friends' happiness in the near future, and then also basically risked her life to see Santa and let him know what happened - leading to the other ponies immediately turning their attention to her safety, being completely understanding about her mistake and recognising that the acts of kindness and true friendship are the true spirit of Christmas.
I know right? The whole thing was just so heart-warming, and beautiful. You really hit it dead on with your review here. And yeah, Pony's in Socks will always, first and foremost, be a G3 thing for me.

Rainbow Dash, oh goodness poor Rainbow Dash... she's Rarity! XD In fact I'd say she darling well overuses the word darling, darling.
Actually, Darling, I never really saw a link between G3 Rainbow Dash and Rarity (and even if there was, is acting like my 3rd favorite of the Mane Six really a bad thing?). Either way, G3 Rainbow Dash is still awesome in her own way, and trust me, the more you watch, you get used to her obsession with the word darling (I actually find it endearing), and hey, it's not like the other ponies don't playfully troll her for it sometimes.

The equivalent of Celestia (same coat and mane, same sort of "slightly bigger and maybe older/wiser" appearance) is called Star catcher and has a catchphrase of "Consider it done". Interesting...
While this isn't exactly important, she's actually my second favorite G3 pony (Minty's first).

A smidge to the left, maybe a smiiiidge to the right says Minty. I remember Pinkie saying this during Winter Wrap Up, now I know it was probably a reference!
Very likely, like I say FIM was made by a fan of My Little Pony, so there's likely to be shout outs here, and there.

Don't know about the idea of a whistling pony (Thistlewhistle), it was kind of annoying, but I like the idea of a pegasus who is scared of clouds, interesting concept, it could make a good G4 character if fleshed out a bit.
And there's my third - I just find her adorable for some reason. ^_^. I would like to see how her fear could be handled in G4 though, like you say.

Sorry this is really late, but I had various projects to work on, and I had to reply at some point. I'm really pleased to see some G3 appreciation.

/)!