Thoughts and impressions: Equestria Girls · 3:16am Aug 18th, 2013
So a while back, there was this MLP movie that came out or something. I was busy getting married at the time. But like most things, it's made its way to YouTube, and since I had some time today, I decided to watch it. And since we won't get any new episodes for a few months and I'm tired of thinking about "Mystery Cure," I decided to review "Equestria Girls" instead.
I should probably let you know that, life being what it is, this is a bit of a pick-up review for me. I've got a new job in a new place to support a new marriage, I've been sick-ish all week, and I only watched the movie once, so this might be a bit rougher than other things I've done. I'd normally rewatch it to double-check lines, events, and so forth, but I've decided this time I'll do more of a reaction type thing than an analysis/review. Apparently it's non-canon anyway, so extensive analysis wouldn't help me beyond this review anyway.
Let's start with the summary. Twi and the gang head to the Crystal Empire for reasons I'm fairly certain weren't really explained (some kind of princess thing or something). Twi brings her crown (the Element of Magic), and after meeting with the other princesses, the gang goes to bed. During the night, a mysterious unicorn enters Twi's room, steals the crown, and escapes into another world through a magic mirror.
Celestia informs Twilight that the intruder was Sunset Shimmer, Celestia's former student who grew impatient with her studies and (apparently) went to this other dimension 30 [units of time] ago. I thought it was years at first, but they keep saying moons later, so let's just go with "a long time ago." Celestia and Luna inform Twilight that the must retrieve the Element of Magic within three days' time, or the magic mirror will close for another 30 [units of time.] They also tell her her friends can't go with her for some vaguely explained reason, though why Celestia is worried about it is a bit beyond me, since she seems to admit she knows next to nothing about this alternate universe.
Anywho, Twi and Spike go through the portal and reach what I guess is supposed to be Hasbro's version of Doug. Spike turns into a dog, and Twi becomes human and promptly freaks out/embarrasses herself because she has no idea how humans behave. She mistakes the local high school for a castle and goes in and soon meets a human named Fluttershy, who is exactly the same as pony Fluttershy, only human and in high school. There might be a song in there somewhere.
Twi saves Flutters from a bully, who turns out to be Sunset Shimmer, the evil overlord of the school in the same way Sharpay Evans might be called the evil overlord of High School Musical's East High. Flutters apparently found the Element of Magic by having it randomly thrown at her head (why this happened is never explained, as far as I can remember) and gave it to Principal Celestia. Twi visits Celestia and is told the crown will be given to whoever is crowned Fall Formal Princess (or some such similar thing). Twi considers telling Celestia what the crown really is and where she's from, but decides against it, worried that Celestia will think she's crazy.
Twi then seeks out human Pinkie, who's in charge of organizing the party, so she can sign up to run for Fall Formal Queen. While there, she meets human Applejack and (I think) finds out there's a rift between AJ and Pinks. Twi then goes to the library to learn about how human culture works so she can win the crown. Meanwhile, Sunset tells Snips and Snails to follow Twi and take embarrassing videos/photos on their phones. The two find plenty of material to work with because Twi keeps doing pony stuff. Twi comes across a picture of the human versions of her friends in a yearbook and goes to sleep.
The next day, Twi heads out to campaign but finds everyone laughing at her. Rarity pulls her aside, and the gang (sans RD) show her the video footage Snips and Snails put online. The gang starts to bicker, and Twi suggests Sunset was the one who split them up. After a bit of talking, they realize all their disagreements were really misunderstandings and decide Twi must have been right. They go find Dash who, after beating Twi at soccer, agrees to help in Twi's campaign. Rarity proposes a "school spirit" campaign, I guess, and after a song-and-dance number at lunch, it appears Twi's campaign is back on track.
Meanwhile, Sunset has Snips and Snails destroy the party room and frame Twi, but Random Love Interest (or RLI; not his actual name, but I can't recall what it was) proves Twi's innocence. Vice Principal Luna says the dance will have to be delayed a day for redecoration, but Twi and gang gets the entire school to fix everything, thus putting the dance back on schedule. Twi wins the crown by a landslide, and it looks like everything is going well.
Unfortunately, Snips and Snails kidnap Spike, and Sunset threatens to smash the portal to Equestria if Twi refuses to turn over the crown. Twi refuses to turn it over, saying that Equestria can find a way to survive without her or the crown, but that the high school won't survive if Sunset gets the crown. Sunset decides not to smash the portal, but after a brief scuffle gets the crown anyway. The crown turns her into some kind of winged demon thing, and she uses its magic to brainwash the school before decided to blast Twi into a crisp.
However, the gang pulls together and activates the magic of friendship, which instantly turns the human Mane Six into human-pony hybrids, complete with wings and pony ears. They create a Swirly Rainbow Vortex, which turns Sunset back into a human and frees the school from her mind control. Sunset climbs out of the resulting crater and tearfully says she doesn't know how to make friends, only tear them apart. Twi replies that the rest of the human Six can help with that. She dances with RLI and heads back to Equestria.
Whew.
So one of the big concerns I remember people having leading up to "Equestria Girls" was that it would be a generic, stereotyped high school drama. And... it does have some of those elements--the all-important popularity contest deciding everything and RLI, for example. But to her credit, McCarthy was able to avoid the full-out cliches, in my opinion. The circumstances make the all-important popularity contest actually important, and RLI is just a subplot that barely factors into anything.
Another concern I remember hearing a lot had to do with the human character designs. Art and design aren't really my thing, so while the super-long legs and huge shoes bugged me, I don't have a lot to say about the subject. They did end up using the pony-human hybrid designs, but it's only at the end, so it's not too bad.
Or is it?
I mean, sure. It's "My Little Pony." It's supposed to appeal to younger girls and whatever. But is there a reason Twi and gang's transformation into human-pony hybrids gets no reaction from anyone, not even the gang? McCarthy even bases a joke on this. A bystander hears Spike talk and comments that its weird, to which Spike replies, "The talking dog is the weird part of all this?" Stranger things might happen in this Hasbro-Doug world, but we never really see it in the movie.
But I'm getting sidetracked. While McCarthy did dodge some cliches, I'm having a hard time figuring out what the point of the whole thing one. Which is a problem, since it's between three and four times as long as a regular episode. I've talked about McCarthy's time management before, and I think it's worth revisiting some of the things I said then. In both "Canterlot Wedding" and "Crystal Empire," I felt like McCarthy was trying to do too much, not leaving enough time for new elements to be explained. In "Girls," we have the human world, Sunset Shimmer, and the Mane Six rift, and while the first doesn't need much explaining, the second and third really don't get much attention.
Let me explain. Sunset Shimmer is Celestia's former student. Celestia says Sunset grew impatient with the slow pace of her studies and left. Sunset steals the Element of Magic in order to activate her magic ability in the human world (magic doesn't work there, by the way) so she can enslave the human race (or high school) and then use those slaves to take over Equestria. While I think Sunset gets much better development than King GRRCrystals Sombra, where does this plan come from? Beyond getting the crown, we don't really know why she does anything. Her reasons for leaving Celestia and Equestria (impatience, pride) are about as well-explained as Luna's reasons for becoming Nightmare Moon (jealousy), but it doesn't really work in the same way Luna/Nightmare Moon does. Her reasons for wanting to take over Equestria are never really explained either, as far as I remember.
Then there's the rift among the human Mane Six. When Twi first meets the gang, it's clear they're all mad at each other for something. It turns out Sunset drove them apart (because she's evil or something) through a series of miscommunications, and they've been upset ever since. This, of course, would be a great opportunity for Twi to teach them the friendship lessons she's learned. Except the problem kind of gets solved without her help. Sure, she suggests Sunset might have been behind it, but mending the rift takes place over a few short conversations.
I find this particularly annoying because the rift had been built up to be a challenge the group would have to overcome, and while this is an improvement over, say, jogging their memories with magic, I really think McCarthy missed an opportunity to show how relationships can be mended without magic. This seemed to be the theme the movie was building up to, as the group had agreed Twi would need to gain support across all the school's social groups--nerds, jocks, etc.--to win. Learning to resolve disagreements and reach past differences for a common cause is a good--and important--lesson. But that kind of thing takes work. It means listening and compromise and sometimes admitting you're wrong. With Twi and gang, it just kind of happens. Sure, the gang talks a little, and AJ and Dash do have a conversation. But it didn't really seem believable with how angry they all seemed, and uniting the school just requires a school spirit song.
I guess the point might be that friendship has power in a human world too, but is that really a lesson that needs a movie to teach? I kind of always took that for granted, but Twi takes (imo) entirely too much time toward the end explaining this to Sunset Shimmer.
I was also a bit annoyed at how many plot points got recycled or went nowhere. "Girls" rehashes some character introductions from episode 1 and elements of the Grand Galloping Gala storyline from season 1. The RLI subplot doesn't seem to serve much of a purpose, and Sunset's plan to get Twi disqualified by blaming her for wrecking the decorations is more of a time-filling diversion than actual problem.
Overall, while I don't think the writing is terrible, it seemed to suffer from a lot of the same problems I have with McCarthy's longer episodes. Characters lacked some development, some plot points were rushed or brushed over, and others didn't really go anywhere.
I can't really remember any of the songs, and I felt like a lot of them were stacked up at the end. I've already discussed at length how I feel about song stacking. They end up drowning each other out and just being way too much.
The animation was decent as far as I could tell, though it was a bit weird during some sequences. I'll talk about "Time to Come Together" (I had to look up the title) as an example, since it's the only one I have any clear memories of. I'm pretty sure this is the school spirit song the human Mane Six sing to get everyone on Twi's side. The six basically start banging out a simple beat in the lunchroom while putting on horse ears and tails (it's a school mascot thing), then stand up and do a dance-and-song number in the middle of the lunchroom. While I kind of liked the whole flash mob vibe, some of their movements just came off as awkward. I can't really explain which ones, but that's how I felt.
Overall, I guess I found "Equestria Girls" to be pretty bland. Not good or bad, just meh. If you saw it, what do you think?
~Scribs
I just liked it because Sunset Shimmer. Her demon form and stuff just knocked the crap out of me. Didn't like it as much because of... Brad...
I found it enjoyable, but, as you said, 'meh' quality-wise.
1292444 I also enjoyed Sunset as a character, at least more than I usually enjoy evil high school overlords. I also liked a lot of her schemes to get Twi out of the running, even if some of them (ruining the gym) ended up feeling like pointless diversions. I didn't notice her lack of overall motivation until I was thinking about it later, so I guess that's something. Although I'm pretty sure I subconsciously knew something was missing, since the end really bugged me when I was watching it.
1292628 Yeah. I mean, I guess I'm glad I saw it once, just to see it, but I probably won't watch it again.
I only recently saw it, and it made my heart melt. And I'm not personally willing to make the leap from "fanboy enjoying myself tremendously" to "picky writing critic", so, my final and considered opinion is that I love it.
I recently saw it for the first time, and I feel like I'm about to really blow the minds of anyone who knows/knew me from before this summer (so you might wanna sit down or something), but I actually really enjoyed it!
I mean, yes, I agree with basically everything you said. The plot was rushed at times, forced other times, and just oddly prioritized in the end. The songs were ultimately forgettable, and even now I can remember some of the music hooks and none of the words. The ending was wtf-inducing, the unexplained nature of the dual-world characters was perplexing, Celestia and Luna somehow managed to look even worse than they did at the end of the S3 finale (a fricking pantsuit?! Ye gods, Tia...), and many other points besides.
I went into it fully expecting to be ranting and drunk by the end, but something weird happened. The first scene started to play, and the sight of ponies just set something off. I felt a glee, a warm joy welling up. And then Twilight blushed from one of Rarity's remarks, and I was hooked.
Twi's adorkable level was well over 9000, the CMC as humans were some of the cutest things I've seen in a while, and Cheerilee had the best non-verbal acting the show's seen yet. The plot was cheesy, but the acting was heartwarming, and the overall feel of the movie was fluffy. Indistinct and vague, but it made me feel good.
Maybe there's a bit of backlash due to the very extended hiatus between a disappointing season and the promise of new, wonderful episodes; or maybe reading so many godawful fanfictions where the characters are butchered or the story (while maybe good) just violates the feel of the show with a rusty knife; but the movie just made me love ponies again. That's no small feat, I suppose.
At any rate, I won't be looking for song remixes or anything like that, because it wasn't memorable enough. And I'll definitely keep it in my archive (and maybe even watch it again a few times in the future, who knows?).
Overall Score: 3.5/5 Pinkies
1293490 And I respect that.
1294041 Hey, nice to see you again!
I realized after I posted this that I forgot to mention the parts I really liked, and I think you've pretty much summed it up. I guess I'd give it 3/5 if I had to score it, not that I'm really into scores.
Fluttershy getting nailed with the crown isn't directly explained, but it went sailing out of sunset's hooves and through the portal when Twi tried to stop her from escaping. Fluttershy was standing on the other side, it apparently daytime there, passing out fliers. That's also why Sunset is picking on her. She's mad Fluttershy was so nice and turned in the lost crown to the principal.
1295239 Oh yeah. I forgot that part. Thanks!