Rainbow Rocks Pre-Release Reviews! · 10:43pm Sep 15th, 2014
Well... apparently it’s easier to ger through these books when I don’t have to be clever about every chapter.
So, Rainbow Rocks comes out the 27th, so in honor of that, I’m going to review some of the supplemental materials. So let’s get cracking!
My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: Through the Mirror
The novelization of the first movie. I normally don’t go for these, since they’re usually just cash grabs, but I wanted to complete my MLP collection. This book is also written by Berrow, like the regular chapter books.
Well, most of the book is okay. It gets bonus points for getting rid of all the Cringe Comedy, minus the plot relevant YouTube video. However, some of the pacing isn’t that great.
Also, I didn’t think it was possible, but there’s another thing wrong with the story with the way Berrow writes it. In this version, Sunset is in the office when Luna confronts Twilight. Then, after Flash clears her, Sunset walks out... and Luna apparently lets her, not thinking the girl that gave her the pictures might have forged them. In fact, she pretty much disappears after Twilight is cleared.
The Shorts
In honor of the movie, eight shorts were released for the film. They include:
Music to My Ears: Something starring Vinyl Scratch. I wasn’t sure there was anything it was setting up, but after seeing more pre-release stuff, I wonder: given the way the environment reacts to her music, maybe they’re simply showing the magic music possesses in the EG-verse.
I have something to say about Vinyl herself, but that will wait until the second book.
Guitar Centered: The first of five shorts showing off which instrument each of them will play. It’s cute, and I do like the ending, even if it is a bit predictable. And I love how no one reacts to Rainbow Dash growing horse ears and wings except Trixie.
Also, those are electric guitars right? But they’re not plugged into anything. And a friend in my Brony Meet-up Group confirms that there isn’t a wireless guitar yey...
Hamstocalypse Now: Sadly, Rarity left more an impression on me than Fluttershy did, despite it being the latter’s short. Also, do most bands actually have tambourine players?
Pinkie on the One: Well, it’s Pinkie being Pinkie. I don’t even mind her being an instant expert on the drums, given that... it’s Pinkie.
Player Piano: This one scares me. Not because of anything that actually happens in it, but because I’m worried about that’s going to happen to Rarity when the Diamond Dog Boys realize that she’s leading them on. Actually, the internet being what it is, there’s probably already a rule 34 of it somewhere.
A Case for the Bass: Don’t you just love how Flim and Flam always get away with being jerks?
Shake Your Tail: And now... a music video! What, expecting Twilight? Nope! In fact, the Twilight in this movie is going to be the mane Twilight. And that bothers me. I mean, really, I was hoping Equestria Girls could be its own thing now.
Whatever. The songs okay.
Perfect Day For Fun: Another music video. The song is, once again, okay, but the visuals sell it, like Spike winning the ring the bell game, Fluttershy casually walking out of a haunted house, and Pinkie in front of the mirror.
Speaking of Spike, is his counterpart sentient? Is this like Littlest Pet Shop, where animals are all intelligent?
My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks
Nope, not the movie, the novelization... of the shorts. The novelization of the movie will be called My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks: The Mane Event Yes, that’s the full title. Why not just call it Rainbow Rocks and the second book something else? Beats me.
Anyway, this isn’t written by Berrow, but by Perdita Finn. I’m not sure the reason for the change. I searched her bibliography, and it’s mostly licensed books for the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies and Monster High.
I heard this one adds some more details, but not as many as I hoped. It’s mostly an adaptation of the shorts, and it works mostly. They even give a better ending to Case for the Bass showing that working for the brothers wasn’t so bad.
But... okay, most shorts are adapted into two chapters. A little stretched out, but fine. But Pinkie’s, which has the least amount of story, takes three.
Okay, two things I want to note. First off, Fluttershy doesn’t seem to have her pony self’s stagefright.
Second, and more importantly, Vinyl Scratch is apparently a mute. She never speaks throughout the book, communicating instead exclusively via text messaging. Now that’s interesting to my. Vinyl is something the fans made big, but I’ve always seen her portrayed as a talkative snarker. Here, she’s more a silent observer. I kind of wish I hadn’t had her talk in the Nuptialverse.
The Album
Yes, iTunes released the album for the movie, the third MLP album they’ve offered. Ten tracks. Shake Your Tail and Music to My Ears are tracks 5 and 10, respectively. No Perfect Day for Fun, oddly enough.
So... maybe spoilers if you download it.
Rainbow Rocks is okay. Better Than Ever too, though I find it pretty forgettable.
The next two are excellent, and no surprise: they’re Villain Songs! The Dazzlers get Under Our Spell, while Trixie gets Tricks up My Sleeve. The former got me more pumped for them was villains than anything else, which isn’t saying much, since I refuse to watch any preview clips. The latter... gets me thinking about Trixie’s role in this movie. This Trixie is antagonistic, certainly, but just how far?
Welcome to the Show is the longest track by far, and given the lyrics I’m guessing this will be the climax.
Awesome as I Want to Be... sounded as braggy as Trixie’s. I’m wondering if her narcissism is going to be a plot point.
Let’s Have a Battle (Of the Bands) is another by the Dazzlers and... it’s kind of creepy. Has me looking forward to the movie.
Shine Like Rainbows is diabetes.
There. I’ve reviewed all the Rainbow Rocks pre-release stuff. I’m seeing the movie the 27th, but I’ll give a full review when I get the DVD in late October.
My Little Pony: friendship is Magic #22 will be my next review.
I assume Fluttershy is there to give the band that coveted "Earth, Wind and Fire" vibe that today's tweens demand.
Yeesh, talk about Colon Cancer...
Yes, there is, assuming you're thinking what I think you're thinking. It managed to come up in one of my Google searches when I was looking for a cover pic for my story Chrysalis' Love Hotel.
It bothers me too.
I'm really upset about that as well. There should be no reason to make the ponies carry the weight of their spin off series. If EG can't stand on its own, then don't try to throw ponies into the mix and think that will magically make everything better.
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Re.: Hamsterpocalypse Now - It's the weakest of the shorts and foreshadows that Fluttershy seems to have the weakest position in the band. This is despite the fact that Filli Vanilli has already explicitly demonstrated that she should be the lead vocalist.
No, 'tambourine player' isn't a thing. The tambourine player is usually either someone who is important in a non-musical context (a backer or agent) who insists on being in the line-up or is the secondary instrument for someone who uses a narrow, specialist instrument that is only useful in a narrow set of songs like the flute, harp or violin.
IMHO, Fluttershy should be the lead singer and Twilight should have the tambourine. This is because her real contribution is magic and, maybe, some music from the other side of the mirror that no-one has ever heard the like of before. (Oh, and I can see her bringing an unusual Equestrian instrument to the party for the climactic number.)
Of course, because Twilight is the main character, she has to be the lead singer, taking away Fluttershy's only reasonable contribution and reducing her to Zeppo status. Bad writing, poor imagination and a waste of the character's acknowledged, canon musical abilities.
2458852 I wouldn't completely say bad writing, but you're right about how Fluttershy gets screwed because she's not the main character.
2458054
2458852
Bad writing is also implied by the fact that unless they're going to age up the characters, this seriously contradicts what's already been established about the mirror portal; namely, that it only opens once every 30 moons. Which pretty clearly implies thirty months, or 2.5 years, which would mean that the events of season 4 took place over a couple of years, which clearly can't be the case since the CMC and the rest of the foals in Cheerilee's class are self-evidently not two years older at the end of S4. (Some have tried to handwave it as "thirty moonrises", i.e. thirty nights, but that doesn't mesh well with the Princesses' dire warnings to Twilight before she went through the first time. Being stuck on the other side of the mirror for a month would be an inconvenience, but hardly The Worst Possible Thing.) Unless there's a "Year Inside, Hour Outside" thing going on, where time passes differently in the two worlds, but that didn't seem to be the case either.
Either way, I agree – EqG needs to stand on its own, not keep riding on FiM's coattails.
2458852
In the novelization, Fluttershy being the vocalist was brought up, but dismissed by Fluttershy herself. As I noted, this Fluttershy doesn't seem to have her pony self's stage fright (at least, not to the same degree) so maybe she also doesn't have her singing ability. Or maybe she isn't willing to be on the forefront, even without stage fright.
2459378
The Theatrical Trailer shows that Twilight has done something to the Mirror involving what look like Van de Graf generators or possibly Tesla Coils. I'm thinking she's found out a way to override the '30 moons' limitation.
I always thought that the '30 moons' thing was just a plot device to create an artificial sense of urgency for the first movie. As I suspected, they've written it out as expeditiously and as decisively as they could.
2459378
Really? I thought it was pretty clear time passed differently between the two worlds. We know Sunset had gotten the crown three times in the time it took Twilight to meet Celestia, grow up, meet her friends, and become a Princess. Either ponies age much faster, or there's a time difference.
2462536
Hm. I must have missed that part, then. I've only subjected myself to that... thing... once, and I didn't find it particularly memorable or enjoyable, so I probably either wasn't paying that close attention to the details, or have managed to expunge most of them from my memory by now.
2462536
The "crown thingie" didn't even exist until Twilight's confrontation with Nightmare Moon; during the time Twilight was growing up in Canterlot under Celestia's tutelage, five of the six Elements were stone balls lying forgotten in the old castle in the heart of the Everfree Forest, and the Element of Magic had no physical form at all. So Sunset Shimmer couldn't have gotten her hooves on the crown even once, much less three times...
Y'know, the more I think about it, the less sense that makes.
Plus, if Sunset Shimmer ran away to the mirror world, but has come back to steal the Element (or try to) three times before, that would imply that either she:
(a) ran away to the mirror world when she was still a schoolfilly (three attempts, times 30 months between attempts, is 7.5 years, so if she's a 17-year-old high-school senior, she was ten years old when she entered the mirror, assuming that her first attempt was just before she escaped through the mirror); or
(b) if she was a high school-aged teenager when she went through the mirror the first time, and is still a high-school teenager when she comes back in EqG, that would mean time passes faster in Equestria proper than it does in the mirror world – but that would also mean that when Twilight went into the mirror and came back a couple of days later from her own point of view, she would have been gone for weeks or months from the point of view of everypony waiting for her back in Equestria, and I don't recall her friends or the Princesses acting as though she'd been gone for nearly that long...
Ugh. Let's face it, no matter how you slice it, EqG is nonsense.
Even by cartoon standards, the whole plot has holes big enough to drive a herd of buffalo through.
2463272
Uh, wait. I meant Sunset won the Fall Formal Crown three years running. The one the Element got mixed up as. Sorry I wasn't clear enough.
As for your second point... eh, guess time flow becomes the same when the portal opens.
Even if I'm getting to this a week late, the reason for a different author on the Rainbow Rocks book was due to G.M. Berrow writing all the other books so quickly and close together, taking up most of her time. Straight from the author's mouth at the Grand Brony Gala.