Snowpiercer AKA The Anniversary of Wank

I managed to see Snowpiercer yesterday at a much closer theater to my house, and despite all the backlash it’s getting from the general audiences (much of which is founded), I still very much enjoyed the movie. The action, when it was there, was thrilling, the visuals were beautiful, especially near the end, the characters were superbly written and performed masterfully by their chosen actors, and most of the scenes were just written outstandingly (especially Chris Evans’s monologue and the scene between Evans and the train’s conductor near the film’s end).

But like I said, the film has numerous plotholes, inconsistences, and a horrifically stupid and pointless ending that are preventing many people, such as myself, from calling it a great film (and in some people’s cases, a good one).

Also, today marks the one year anniversary of my viewing of what I considered to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life: Equestria Girls. I have already written a blog about all that is wrong with the movie, so feel free to go crazy.

However, many of you who have red my EqG review might be thinking, “MovieMaster, you’re such a hypocrite! Equestria Girls also had a lot of plotholes and things that were stupid and didn’t make sense. What makes this movie suddenly any better?”

There are a few things actually. First things first,

1. The Characters

Each of the characters in Snowpiercer were all very well written, and they were both entertaining and relatable. Equestria Girls, on the other hand, consisted solely of stupid, one-dimensional dipshits while the supposed canon characters we’ve come to know and love are rendered down to even bigger dipshits all for the sake of plot contrivance.

Unlike EqG, I was actually invested in the survival of Snowpiercer’s characters because they felt like real people that I cared about, thanks to their personalities and their connection to each other.

2. The Visuals/World

Not only is the animation style in EqG equal to the quality in the TV show, but it takes its fantastical setting of Equestria and instead throws us into a boring high school setting with nothing about it to make it stick out from any other high school setting we’ve seen before.

Snowpiercer takes full advantage of its premise and creates a truly dystopian setting with very claustrophobic photography that sucked you into the narrative, along with some gripping visuals that help compliment the action on screen. The avalanche scene was just breathtaking to watch and experience.

3. The Script

Plotholes and contreivances aside, Snowpiercer was blessed with having excellently written and original scenes that delve into the throes and conflicts of each of the characters and the world they inhabit, and it’s written in a way that feels kind of odd, but it holds your attention and it becomes more disturbing the more you mull over what is actually being said (“I know that babies taste best.”).

Equestria Girls seems content with using its characters, now reduced to character archetypes, and makes them spew “dialogue” that sounds like everything a character from their archetype has ever said in any story that they’ve ever been a part of. The situations and scenes are all recycled from high school movies just as cliche and uninteresting as this one. Nothing feels new, different, or risky, and it all comes off as boring and listless.

And while Snowpiercer does have some plotholes in its narrative, at least its narrative isn’t only supported by them like Equestria Girls is.

4. (and most importantly) The Tone

I might not see eye-to-eye with many people on this one, but I thought there was a lot of tongue-and-cheek and dark humor in this movie that allowed it to have a lot of fun with itself, so it was much easier to forgive and forget the holes in this movie. This can be clearly seen in the classroom scene, as well as Tilda Swinton’s entire character.

On the other hand, Equestria Girls takes itself way too damned seriously as if all of its shit is quality writing. We’re expected to treat Sunset Shimmer as a threatening and intelligent villain even though she’s not. We’re expected to get behind the romance between Flash Sentry and Twilight, even though there is none. We’re expected to treat the songs as MLP classics, when they all sound like tossed song drafts to a Disney Channel original movie soundtrack.

Nothing in EqG works because it thinks way too highly of itself.

If you want to see something that’s a bit messy in translation, but still different, original, and stunning, I highly recommend finding a theater playing Snowpiercer as soon as you can. It’s better than anything else Hasbro is putting out recently…

Comments

[Azrael the alicorn]

You know, the points you made are so right and work on so many other movies.
Many times i've heard people bashing Chicken Little, Robots or Home Range for every little problem (Not that they are flawless movies, especcially the first and the third), but then i think that at least those had at least something that EQG does not have.