So I just saw Equestria Girls *spoilers, obviously*. Plus: Jessica Rarity. · 10:38am Aug 20th, 2013
Finally, after putting it off for far too long, I sat down and watched the entirety of Equestria Girls. The verdict?
It was pretty okay. Not amazing, but not terrible, either. For all of my doubts, I thought they did a good job with the story. Watching Twilight try to get used to having hands and walk bipedal was pretty funny, and I kinda liked Spike as a dog more than I like him as a dragon. The humanized character designs have really grown on me since the initial concepts, mostly due to not having cutie marks below their eyes, which was a dumb idea to begin with. The final look is cute and simple, and I really can't complain. Applejack in particular had a good design, as did Pinkie Pie. And let us not forget THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRRRRIXIE...who got some peanut butter crackers, and had, for my money, the best character design with that hoodie of hers. And Derpy at the end of the credits! Hooray Derpy!
Hmmm...what else. Well, I thought the music was good, especially the cafeteria song. Better than any of the S3 songs for my money. Super catchy. Oh, and those ears and tails everyone put on. I expect to see a lot of those at the various Cons now.
Also, this happened:
Oh, Tabitha. You are still the best VA on the show. And Rarity was still just as fabulous in human form.
I also quite liked Sunset Shimmer, which is to say I hated her, but in a good way. She was a grade-A, unapologetic bitch, and I couldn't stand seeing her try to ruin Twilight's plans. For my money, that makes her a good villain. She wasn't as, say, entertaining as Discord, but she was pretty evil. If you genuinely hate the villain, then they're probably well-written and/or well-acted. So, props to Sunset's VA.
Speaking of Sunset Shimmer, I thought she looked familiar...
I'M JUST SAYIN'.
So, what did I not particularly like about Equestria Girls? It's a surprisingly small list, but let's go over it.
First of all, and probably my biggest problem with the whole film, was Flash Sentry. Before I saw EQG I was wondering why everyone was hating on him, but now I see why; he was just there, and didn't contribute anything to the plot. He felt like he was thrown in as Twilight's love interest purely for the sake of being a love interest, with no discernible personality or character development other than "look dreamy". Ooooh, he's a bad boy rocker who plays guitar, but he also has a heart of gold and pretty-boy looks and a sports car and yadda yadda yadda. Meh. "Waifu stealer" indeed. Man, I bet hardcore Twilight fans were pissed. I wouldn't have minded him as much if they'd just done something -- anything -- with him besides having him show up and be like "Yeah, I'm here for a few encouraging words" before slipping away again. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he was forced into the movie by Hasbro to help appeal to the teenage girl demographic (which is a weird thing to say, considering it's a show about, you know...ponies).
I also felt like the ending was rushed. The whole movie clocked in at around an hour and ten minutes, which means they had twenty minutes of wasted potential time. Sunset gets the Big Crown Thingy™ and turns into Sunset Satan or whatever, and turns the students into zombies. Then, basically out of nowhere, the girls develop a magical forcefield of FRIENDSHIP! and Twilight waxes poetic for a moment before they do the whole "taste the rainbow, motherfucker" thing and Sunset is defeated in one go. Well shit, if you didn't even need the other elements of harmony, then why does everyone wear them in Equestria? Why don't you just lug around the Big Crown Thingy™ and call it a day? Obviously it was still enough!
Oh, and then Sunset broke down into a crying mess and was suddenly super-duper apologetic because...reasons. Okay, so you just stole a magical thingamajigger from Twilight, turned the population of the school (who apparently have no parents and/or anyone to be concerned about them) into mind-controlled zombies, tore up part of the school with evil magic, and tried to conquer Equestria, but all of a sudden you're pining for friendship with streaming tears? Come on. There has to be a middle ground somewhere! Even Discord had a middle ground, and I didn't think his redemption episode was all that great.
There were also a few nitpicks that kept bugging me. Like...why does everyone seem to be so devoid of oversight? There wasn't a single parent around, and Celestia and Luna did basically nothing the entire time. Also, how, exactly, did Twilight sleep in the school library? Didn't Scruffy (the janitor) come by and ask her what she was doing there or something? Why wasn't everyone more surprised to find out that their new friend was A MAGICAL PONY PRINCESS FROM ANOTHER UNIVERSE? I would think that would warrant at least a gasp!
And Human Pinkie Pie mentioned that Twilight looks just like someone in the city, with the same name and the same dog. That means that Human Twilight already exists. She's going to be very, very confused if she meets anyone from that school at any point.
Since everyone has a version of themselves in both worlds, then it should follow that Sunset Shimmer has a human version of herself there, too, since she was Celestia's former student, and thus a pony before a human. I dunno. I can overlook those details, since it's a cartoon movie about pony princesses, but still, I wonder about these things.
So yeah...overall, I thought it was a decent flick. Not great, but not terrible, with some catchy songs, fun moments, and neat character designs. If you haven't seen it yet, I'd suggest checking it out. It's worth a view. Especially for Rarity's continued fabulousness.
Speaking of which, Razzashi (who also made that Cashmere pic) cooked up this little number, inspired by the red dress Rarity wore during the last chapter.
Dat everything. Just awesome. Much love, Razz.
I tried watching it and founds myself physically unable to, save for the pony bits at the beginning and the end. And even then I only got a chuckle from Rarity being Rarity, Twilight not being the best flier when the power of song is not behind her, and problems with wingboners which are no doubt going to inspire even more fanfiction.
To me it just seems to be going against exactly what Lauren set out to avoid with FiM in the first place: a bunch of cliche bullshit, and the clips I've seen do nothing to suggest they avoid this. I could probably rant about this more but I'll spare you that.
The biggest pile of shit in S3 in my opinion, which is hilarious when you consider I took my avatar from it. Yes, even beating out that. Such a waste of an awesome and sadistic villain. If you're going to do something shit, at least do it right damnit. Pacing? What the hell is that?
I remember watching it with a friend and being amazed at the ending which appeared out of no where in about 20 seconds. "Oh yeah, I'm good now because the script says so. ROLL THE CREDITS".
Ugh, just thinking about it makes me want to punch something. At least EQG is supposedly non-canon.
Edit: And that resemblance is a pretty amazing coincidence. Hey, got any tips for the lottery this week, or stock investments?
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See, there's "kid
showmovie herp derp" writing, there's goddamned lazy writing, and there's "written by marketing". This is particularly bad for #1, and I know the writers can do better than #2, so I'm guessing this is an example of #3. (I've only seen the clip summaries of the movie, though.)Is it just me, or are the marketing-based episodes getting less and less well paced? The wedding was one "dafuq?!" after another, but it's not bad after you get past that. This season, we got the alicornification, which was a Disney movie's worth of songs without the rest of the movie, and then the meh-with-a-half-assed-ending non-pony pony movie.
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I think it's fair to say that the corporate influence is having a more and more detrimental effect on the show, and I don't buy the writers' claims that stuff like Twicorn didn't come down from the top. What, it's a complete coincidence that it happened to coincide with a brand new toy line and was the perfect material for it? Please.
It's bullshit and we know it. We know it because the entire purpose of the show is to sell toys. We know this because Lauren has confirmed that they got asked to put stuff in the show to sell toys (e.g. the designs of buildings), though they were good at incorporating the demands without making it too obvious. And I'm fairly sure Lauren has alluded to her leaving the show due to the increasing demands after its success took off, and the fighting to maintain her creative vision took its toll (and she wanted to work on other projects).
The sad thing is that I don't inherently have a problem with the idea. The show beats you over the head with the idea that Twilight is special, not forgetting the thematic naming, and the suggestions that Celestia is grooming her for some position (which Lauren confirmed the plan was originally for Twilight to replace Celestia). If I had to choose how to end the show, it would be with Twilight (and possibly her friends) ascending and ushering in a brave new world as the curtain closes.
Instead we got it halfway through the show, and with Larson having to perform the impossible task of writing two episodes in one, when you could easily argue that both plots could have been two-parters on their own. It's also a huge waste of a very fun idea of having a mark swapped.
The wedding part struck me as surprisingly well incorporated (aside from two brand new characters inexplicably being introduced from nowhere. I can handle Shiny just about but at least give me the original unicorn Cadence damnit). My main problem was that it felt like two different episodes had been bolted together, and the Idiot Ball was being juggled around to keep the plot going.
The funny thing is, Discord's return struck me as being almost exclusively because of the older fans' appreciation for the character, and because of the character's power that limits you to Villain of the Week, or redemption. We got the latter. What should have happened is neither: keep the character as a memorable one-off. As much as I admire John's talent, and like the character, sometimes it's better not to try and fit them in due to their unexpected popularity.
I also think Lauren's lack of influence definitely showed in S3, and it makes me nervous at how S4 will go. Not forgetting that the show now has to deal with that.
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Unfortunately, no. Unless the lottery is pony-based. Which it should be.
Yeah...Discord doesn't strike me as the type to give up all that delicious chaos for just any old reason. Having him become 'good' because he wouldn't have Fluttershy as a friend was...lame. I can appreciate that they brought back John DeLancie to reprise a fan-favorite role, and I do think it would have been entirely possible to make the episode good, but the abrupt "LOL I'M GOOD NOW" ending was pretty bad.
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I actually really liked the wedding episodes. I thought they were well-done, with a good villain and interesting new characters (even if they came outta nowhere), good songs, and an epic battle for Canterlot. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I remember everyone was freaking out about Cadence, because she was gonna be a pink princess. All the hateful things said before she even appeared promptly vanished after that. BIG SURPRISE. Reactionary assholes everywhere, I swear.
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I'd tend to agree. MLP blew up in a way no one was expecting, but now that it has, Hasbro has reared its ugly head and forced toy tie-ins down the throats of the show's creators. I'm pretty sure that's the entire reason Equestria Girls exists, not to mention Twilicorn appearing so abruptly. Yes, Lauren had it planned for Twilight to take over for Celestia, or at least join her, but I think the build-up should have been more gradual. Season 3's finale was meant to be a book-end for the show, before they knew it would be continued. I don't know how long the gap is between production and airing, but it would seem to me that it was pretty obvious MLP was gonna go past 3 seasons even before Season 2 ended. They really could have expanded on that S3 finale. Hell, the whole "swapped cutie marks" thing had the potential to be a great episode on its own! Why not do that?
Call me an optimist, but I have high hopes for Season 4. From the animatics they've shown, it looks like there's lots of potential, especially with that bit where Luna flips her shit and starts proclaiming she's going to be THE ONE, TRUE PRINCESS and such. That'll be fun to watch.
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It's not just chaos, but a very sadistic streak. He breaks the Mane 6 -- some particularly brutally -- terrorises them, and he loves every step of it. Celestia openly refers to his rule being horrific, but no that immediately gets retconned into just being a chaos-obsessed oddball when he reappears because screw continuity and keeping your character traits consistent.
It's also filled with some pretty disturbing implications like "if you can use someone, then it doesn't matter what they've done" or "you should always try to reform evil people". Hell, all they would need to do is throw in a "he's not evil, just misunderstood" and "I can change him" to complete the list.
Hah, I think even half the internet is aware of this. Given the intelligence of the average internet user, this is quite impressive.
Easily the most disappointing thing in the season for me. Discord's episode was exactly as bad as I predicted, but this idea was a gold mine waiting to be explored. We got about 5 minutes of it through song and will never see it again. A tragic waste.
I haven't bothered to look any information up about it other than the release date (though I also love my spoilers so that's all good). For me, the potential isn't the issue at all; the show still has tons of it regardless of what missteps have been made. The question is how will that translate, and the highly variable trend set by S3 makes it very difficult to judge.
Obviously some ideas have more scope for potential than others, but for someone sufficiently creative you can take almost any idea and do a lot with it. This sort of goes back to your question from a few days ago on what we'd like to see. You obviously know what I had to say, but the fact is that almost anything you come up with will have a lot of potential.
My personal thoughts was that Sunset Shimmer didn't expect herself to transform into that demon thing she turned into and she wasn't in full control of that persona (the same way Luna was with Nightmare Moon). She probably thought she would simply be magically more powerful than Twilight Sparkle (which is a reasonable expectation).
In a world where envy and jealousy can turn a powerful princess into an entity that wants simply nothing but eternal night, Sunset Shimmer's transformation into a demon due her own ruthless ambition and pride taking over was not farfetched but certainly not expected by Sunset Shimmer herself (due to her own blindness from ironically, her own pride).
Sunset Shimmer was more "Holy crap what have I gotten into/done?" than "redeemed" and "How can I run as far away from whatever that was as fast as possible and never repeat it again". When all your ambitions and desire for more [magical] power turns you into a monster you have barely any control over, you'd probably turn around and run away from that as fast as possible as well.
Well anyway, this is just my simple analysis (and opinion).
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But she was unapologetically evil for the entire film. From the moment we see her she's trying to steal Twilight's crown, which we find out later would basically let her rule over everything. She had world domination as her goal from the very beginning. Even if she did lose herself after getting the crown, it's exactly the sort of thing she wanted. I'm not buying it that she didn't know what she was doing, it was her plan all along.
Sometimes a bitch is just a bitch.
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I'm basing it off the IDW Comic canon I've heard so far and the fact that Sunset Shimmer was crying during her transformation.
So even if I buy her plan of using a bunch of teenagers to conquer Equestria (it's a silly plan anyway) was her plan all along, she certainly did not expect to turn into a demon and losing herself.Okay, I've read the comic now and I think the point still stands. She certainly plans to be the most powerful unicorn and possibly become an alicorn by using the Element of Magic and plans to take over Equestria but she certainly did not expect to turn into a demon and having the superpowered evil side taking over.
Yes, it was exactly what she planned but not exactly how she thought it would turn out for herself and I think that was enough to "scare her straight". Basically, she thought she would become an alicorn but turned into a demon instead. If that wasn't her Heel Face Turning immediately, she was at least questioning her methods and wondering what went wrong in her plans (and open to Twilight offering a counter-plan).
Well, it's way past my bedtime now. So I'm off to bed. =x
Dude I just pointed out that Sunset Shimmer looked like Cashmere to the drawing artist, then went to Tv tropes and saw that you wrote this blog. Oh the coincidences!