First Thoughts on EQG Movie · 6:36pm Sep 25th, 2016
Well, just got done watching the Legend of the Everfree and...
Oh let me just do this real quick.
SPOILERS!
Even though I'll try and keep it as vague as possible.
And Overall, I thought it was okay, not great or anything near Rainbow Rocks, but...okay.
No, I can't say it was okay. When it comes down to it, this movie was the worst of the lot.
I'll say this is mostly due to my Sunset Shimmer bias. What can I say, as a character, she is the best of the bunch.
But first off, the good...
More than anything, this movie shows Sunset Shimmer as the group's mentor/leader/only one with her head on straight. When all the other girls just want to basically ignore the freaky crap because they're tired of magic, she's the only one that takes the mature stance and tells them the magical things that are going on need to be addressed, even if she folds in the beginning due to peer pressure. She also shows herself to be kind, compassionate, understanding, and pretty much...well, pony-Celestia-level when it comes to being the one that gets them all to not only accept what's going on, but embrace it and use it for everyone's benefit.
The second was Twilight Sparkle and her guilt. It's nice to see a character deal with the emotional repercussions of her actions.
And as for the bad...it's threefold.
First off, there's Twilight Sparkle and her guilt. Yeah, it's good to see a character deal with emotional repercussions of her actions, but...it's the contrast between what Sunset went through in RR, and how Sci-Twi acts in this movie. Sunset moving forward despite everyone trying to keep her down while Twilight gets bogged down by one thing she was half-forced into doing while everyone else is standing around trying to help her, but it just kind of falls flat. Having a character feel guilty is one thing, but having her do it to the point Twilight was while everyone is there to help her out just makes her come off as emo, or one of those kids that tries to be a downer all the time because all they want to do is consider the glass half-empty.
The second thing is, the magical powers of the girls.
Or rather, Sunset's lack of magical power. Everyone in the team gets an actual power like force field generation, super speed, super strength, animal mind control, telekinesis and Gambit mutant powers that let Pinkie turn anything she touches into a bomb. Sunset gets the ability to hear someone's thoughts when she touches them, and the amazing power to see flashbacks. No teleportation or the hundreds of other things she could have done as a unicorn that would have really been useful, she just gets something to move the plot along.
And the final bad point...the finale when Twilight Sparkle's other magic power is revealed: she gets wings.
Yeah, the little girl that nearly destroyed reality is ponied up into an alicorn, and Sunset isn't. Not only that, but she can apparently overpower the villain that beat the other five girls easily all on her own. No rainbow, no harmony cannon, just Twilight flying up and using her magic to beat the villain all on her own. That probably the biggest letdown of the movie. Despite how good or bad each of the EG movies was, the finale was always Epic with a capital E, which always managed to let even the worst of them end on a high note. But this movie is a contrast, it manages to start out perfectly and is good for the first half, but just gets worse and worse as we get closer to the end.
So, overall, it was a nice showing for Sunset. She's grown even more since the last movie into not just a leader, but a mentor. Someone who can guide another person in their personal development to bring out the best in him or her, not just the girl with her head on straight that can take charge in a crisis. If anything, she's become more like Celestia in this movie.
But, as for everything else...it's just more of a reason for Sunset to move back home where she belongs.
Even if they do set up yet another movie at the end of this one.
True there... Sunset needs to go home IMO
This movie basically set up the EG universe to be standalone and have as many movies about whatever they want.
Also, the final battle was meh, but at least in the end we had a reason for the villain, even if it was "the crystals drove her crazy".
Actually it showed me exactly why Sunset isn't "home."
THESE girls have a special connection kind of in the same way the ones in Equestria do -- and that includes Shimmer.
They have SEVEN elements not six.
Celestia was trying to train Shimmer to be the element of magic -- but that isn't her element. Hers is an element of empathy. This is why that never worked.
Shimmer's is a supporting element, just like Loyalty or Kindness.
I'd hazard to guess that if Shimmer took the element of empathy into Equestria, it would do very bad things there.
I am kind of surprised that this story didn't essentially end with them giving their elements back to that stump of a tree and the tree growing into a healthy tree of harmony like there is in Equestria.
As it stands now, they get to keep the McGuffin unlike their Equestrian counterparts.
I am jealous.
I'm hopping that they are still planing to get Sunset ascended and are just waiting to do it in a conflict against a more threatening villain.... A villain with a dimension crossing city perhaps that could threaten both the human and pony words and has a weird fascination for bells?
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As Twilight getting her wings here it could be the pony ups is their magic connecting with their counter parts so since Pony Twi is an alicorn Human Twi is channeling her alcorn magic.
*sigh* I think I'm done with Equestria Girls. Unless the sirens come back, I'll stick to the fanfics.
Haaaa......
At least Sunny, Gloriosa, and Rarity were entertaining. And magic seems to be everywhere in EQG now.
Honestly, I liked it. Maybe that was because I went into it with extremely low expectations but, aside from the occasional nitpick, there was very little that I outright hated which is in sharp contrast to the last one.
Regarding your animosity toward human Twilight's conflict and self doubt though, that was one of my favorite parts of the movie, and the similar character growth in Sunset is now consistently my favorite part of the series. We rarely get to see this in the show, and when we do it's rushed and poorly done. Here, however, the writers are able to flex their muscles a little more and we get to see some real character growth.
More importantly, I was able to connect with Twilight more than you apparently could. While I can't say that I've ever been in a similar position as her during the climax, I can definitely say that I understood her hesitation: knowing the potential consequences of unleashing her true power, she was reluctant to use it in fear of hurting her friends. That's way deeper than most regular MLP episodes go and I liked it a lot.
Really, I found everyone's characters and the plot as a whole particularly well flushed out for the most part, a nice change from the usual. Along with several plot twists that I didn't see coming and an intriguing story as a whole, it was pretty good. I agree with your other two complaints, although I would consider those nitpicks if anything. Of course, that's just my initial reaction. I might find more negatives through further analysis (I finished it an hour ago) but, at least for now, I have been pleasantly surprised by Hasbro.
I completely agree with almost everything you said. The only thing I disagree with is your rankings of the movies. I think this was probably my second-favorite movie. Rainbow Rocks is still the best by a longshot, but I thought this one was okay enough to beat out the other two.
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Honestly, Rarity was one of the worst parts of the movie for me. Her dock/runway joke wasn't very funny the first time, and she just kept making it over and over. There is more to her character than "fashion all the things," isn't there?
4228749 I don't know... but yeah the writers needs to expand Rarity, maybe explore her taste for refine things ( Except clothes)
I'm just quite disappointed that EQG decides to place ANOTHER Twilight on its center. I mean... Twilight already has the series, why not give the EQG verse to Sunset!
I don't have anything against Twilight , heck I even ship Sunny and Twily but I don't want this to become like the main series. We need a break from all the purple and replace it with Beacon... hmm, tasty beacon.
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How is the EQG setting revolving around (Sci)Twilight? Yes she is the most "powerful" in a direct sense (well if Rainbow was less clumsy Super Speed is a pretty sick power to have too) but she is anything but the leader of the team. Sunset is the leader of the EQG team, she is the one who answers the problems or directs the others to do so. It's not even clear if Twilight's power at the end is all hers or if she's being "boosted" (ala Rainbow Power) by the others since we did get that imagery in her mind.
Why not take the good you can get from this and hug it close? The fact that Sunset Shimmer has what is effectively a 7th Element of Harmony (as those are clearly what the shards represent) is huge and awesome! What does she represent? Sunset has also been part of the Rainbow of Light (from Rainbow Rocks) and is basically already an Alicorn (My Past Is Not Today/Friendship Games)... There's a lot to like there.
Twilight Sparkle beign overcritical of a mistake is something I could see her pony self doing and I think her power comes from the fact the presence of midnight sparkle within her before has given her body a much larger capacity for magic.