I mentioned during the stream it would be fitting for a reindeer to have a Scandinavian accent of some sort, or at the very least some Nordic variant. Not sure if I was the only one.

Stream is over! Crowdfund made it past 50% funded! We can make this happen, guys!

As others said, originally was Fighting is Magic, Hasbro got salty and slapped them with Cease & Desist in 2013, Lauren Faust swooped in to help them develop a whole new universe around the game they were already making, and the Skull Girls developers gave Mane6 the game engine to make the new game because the Fighter Maker 2k engine they were using to make Fighting is Magic kind of sucked but was free.

Would have introduced an additional plot line that would interfere with SciTwi and would not be neatly resolved within the running time of the movie. See: the mish-mash of plot lines (and resulting plot holes) crammed into the first movie.

Agreed that I can see why it was cut. While it would have made an interesting parallel between the two characters IF they did more with this motive for Sunset, I could see it getting very wishy-washy and losing focus. Friendship Games was a much tighter, better-put-together movie than the previous two, and that additional plot line probably wouldn't have been handled well and would have detracted from the one they went with. They learned their lessons from the previous two films not to try to go in too many directions at once, and this was all the better for it.

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He does a good Indian accent too for Sunil Nevla the mongoose in Littlest Pet Shop. You would never be able to tell he was Big Mac.

I'm not sure what character would have been suited to Tara's range of voices without overlapping too much with Twilight. You've got the boy voice (Timmy Turner, Dill Pickles, Ben Tennison, Omi), the little girl voice (Bubbles), the goth voice (Raven), and the mature girl voice (Twilight Sparkle, Lollipop Chainsaw, Harley Quinn, and many, many minor character voices in many shows). Also, production-wise, I'm sure she not only gets paid more, but she records at home in California rather than in the studio in Canada with the rest of the voice performers. Sunset Shimmer's VA (and Twi's singing voice) is even Twilight's stand-in during voice recording sessions for the sake of production.

I fear Weseluck as Octavia would have sounded too much like Spike or Mayor with a British accent. I think it would have stretched her vocal talent quite thin. The only other option I think would have been to lean towards Buttercream (Littleset Pet Shop) but a voice like that wouldn't fit Octavia at all. Besides, Mayor got a huge speaking role at the end, that's enough for Weseluck.

There doesn't need to be anything wrong with something to have an excuse for its use. A birthday is a good excuse to have cake. A promotion is a good excuse to crack open a bottle of champagne (or pour a couple fingers of whiskey). You could do those things once in a while without needing an excuse, but they feel more special when there's a reason to do the. A special occasion is a perfect excuse to do something out of the ordinary for the purpose of celebration.

This was the show's 100th episode, so it deserves to be marked by something the creators otherwise wouldn't really have a reason to do, and that makes this episode stand out as something celebratory rather than passing through with nary a nod to the occasion.

Because what's the point of a birthday if you can't use it as an excuse to celebrate?

Re: Monster attack being pointless
As a slice of life episode, the point is to put the focus on every day life in Ponyville. Monster attacks and the Mane 6 dealing with said monster attacks is so common as to be trivial, and thus an important part of everyday life in Ponyville. It completes the episode by showing, not telling, what the Mane 6 are up to; having them being off on a friendship mission would actually feel cheaper because it would be explained away in Sweeite Belle's 5 seconds of exposition and would never be seen again until the end of the episode with no other reason for the Mane 6 to show up than for the resolution. Also, dealing with a monster attacking the town is a much better excuse for Pinkie Pie and Rarity to be too busy to fulfill their obligations to Matilda and Doc respectively than just "Sorry, something came up out of town that is more important." It's the only way to preoccupy the Mane 6 without having them look self-important and above the common pony.

Re: Vinyl being mute
I've arrived at the conclusion that Vinyl was originally made mute in canon for two reasons:
1. They can't have Nowacking voice Vinyl Scratch – it's bad form to hire someone directly from the fandom for the same work they did as a fan.
2. They can't not have Nowacking voice Vinyl Scratch – I don't think anyone could imagine anyone other than Nowacking in the role, since she's owned it so well in fan works.

Ergo, the solution is for Vinyl not to have a voice at all.