Every state whose flag is just the state seal over a blue or white background should be forced to change their flag. The concept is offensively boring.

• The whole point of a Minnesota flag is to have an easy way to display you’re Minnesotan. Literally half of the state flags look the exact same as ours if there isn’t a wind blowing, and genuinely that number doesn’t go down much even WITH a breeze.
• If we have something more iconic, noticeable at a glance, it’s marketable. Think about Britain’s flag on all their tourist merch. Think about the MOA star on everything to do with the mall, think “I <3 NYU” mugs, shirts, hats.

Visual aesthetics aside, in the Seal of Minnesota (the busy bit in the center, which has official uses besides the flag), the native on horseback is riding off into the sunset (westward, the 1983 edit notwithstanding) in the most gerenous interpretation or being driven off by the settler in a less charitable one (see rifle in the foreground). Regardless, the message is one of displacement of the native peoples by the mostly European-heritage settlers for the sake of “civilization”. It’s not something we should display proudly as an embodiment of our state’s core values, and for that reason has been contentious for years.

Some reading if anyone is more interested in the history: #1 and #2

Because it’s ugly

Beats me, its got five star-cocks surrounding the seal.