Tranquil Refrain · 11:05pm Feb 10th, 2017
So. There's been a bit of news regarding the MLP movie. Specifically voice actor announcements and character design reveals. If you don't mind spoilers and haven't seen them yet, you can see them on EQD here and here.
I'll give you a minute. Note that that second link will take you to a fifth image. More after the break.
Now, I won't deny that I feel a little trepidation with a few of these design choices. However, I've been in this fandom a long time. This isn't the first time a glimpse of the future has given me some unease. So I say to you all what I have said time and time again.
I said it when one half of the new royal couple turned into an alicorn and the other turned out to be Twilight Sparkle's older brother who she totally had the entire time.
I said it when Twilight was slated to sprout wings of her own.
I said it when they announced a movie set in, of all places, a human high school.
I said it when we first glimpsed the Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Marketing.
I may say it in the near future, depending on what they deign to show us of the Season 7 premiere.
Wait and see.
We are working with very little information here. Just five images. We cannot affect what will happen. We cannot predict what will happen. Whining, complaining, and rending of garments will do nothing more than wear out your throat, your keyboard, and your wardrobe. This sort of thing has surprised us before, and it's been pleasant more often than not.
Obviously, I don't expect this to stop the drama in its tracks, but I do hope it keeps people from jumping to the most dire conclusions they can reach.
Is that a bipedal griffon wearing human clothing?
Ah, I hadn't seen the last one. I for one am quite excited to see what this will be.
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and I know this because I happen to be reading the Aeneid and recognized the name Celaeno (it was also the name of the harpy in The Last Unicorn).
That's a harpy
I think they all look freakin' cool. I'm just worried the movie will have too many people in it.
Hey, I've got nothing but good things to say about what dropped today. A little nervous about the cat, but we'll see.
That is the best name for Flurry Heart I have ever seen.
With the weird ass anthro designs I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some different Mirror action going down. It does go to many places, as I understand it. Freaky-Disney-Anthro-Land isn't off the table.
Honestly, the cat's the only one I'm nervous about.
Mostly because it hasn't been established that such things are possible.
I'm gonna put my money on an outlandish prediction and say they're gonna pull a Weatherlight and travel through multiple vastly different worlds before having their explosive climax on a space station of death that exists between realities.
4417307 I thought the cat might be one of the luvcats from the comics.
4417348 ...
Or, you know, that.
I'm not... frightened by what I've seen so far, just... wary. There's still quality to be had with the mlp franchise, so I won't join the neighsayers. I
expectthinkhope that we've learned to just wait and see what they'll hit us with before complaining. If we get hit with another Legend of the Everfree, though, I reserve the right to rend all of my clothing in despair.It's going to be the EQG movies all over again. People are going to hate this in advance with no actual details (though we may get another fake leak from 4chan), and go into the movie expecting it to be the worst possible thing (
). Big surprise when people hate something they expected to hate.
Sometimes the fandom makes me so tired.
The cat's what people are worrying about? I admit, his design is a little cartoonish (and maybe cause for concern if he's indicative of a change in art direction), but we already have anthro dogs on the show, existing alongside regular dogs no less, and two different varieties of sapient cats have already made appearances in the comics. In fact, there's an image of one in FOME's related blogs right now.
It's Tempest Shadow that makes me raise an eyebrow. Dark colours, armour, broken horn, scars, her name is Tempest Shadow. She looks like the edgiest of edgy OCs. Now, I'm trying not going to pre-judge because of that, since people said exactly the same thing about King Sombra when his design was first revealed, and we don't really have a problem with him now. But I'm going into this with a little more trepidation than I did then, because two things are different now.
The first, King Sombra was explicitly a villain, and was supposed to look threatening, so a little edginess compared to the rest of the characters and setting was excusable. But if this character is an ally (which is the impression I get from the concept art of her smiling at us), then I can't yet see the necessity in attempting to make her look badass and threatening. This isn't Berserk, so why is this character trying to be Guts? There probably is a justifiable reason for this, but at this time, I don't know what it could be.
And the second reason is, while Sombra's villain role mostly prevented him from being one by default, the main reason why I never feared Sombra being a bad-fanfic-tier Mary Sue was because I had more confidence in the show writers than that. Going by the first two seasons, I didn't expect FiM to ever turn out a Mary Sue character of any sort, much less a villainous one. But, now we have Starlight Glimmer, so all bets are off.
All that said, I'm still pretty hype for the movie, which I doubt a single character could ruin for me anyway even if Tempest is everything I fear. And I do really like the design of the Storm King. So far, he's the one I'm most interested in learning more about.
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And I do hope that Celaeno is indeed a harpy. Especially for the card potential. Legendary Creature — Harpy Pirate. Hell yes.
Heh. I'm honestly happy to see that I may have overreacted.
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Not the first time I've used it.
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Hey, if nothing else, we have several people here who aren't rushing to judgement.
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And yes, Tempest Shadow does raise a number of concerning flags. Personally, I'm hoping her dark and edgy design is intentional, and they plan on poking fun at it. With any luck, she's an overenthusiastic changeling who usually assumes the form of her pony OC.
I'm a bit leery of both. The cat feels like a stark departure from the usual style, though I suspect some of that is that I'm just not used to characters in this setting wearing that much clothing.
I have the distinct sense that in about a year, I'm going to find this comment again and either laugh or cry.
4417397 Fair enough. I suppose I was being a bit meta and reacting to reactions that were in other blog posts I just read.
I didn't even know there was a movie coming out! Normally I see the titlecard with art, but I think I want to go into this blind. When is it supposed to come out?
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Fingers crossed for the former.
I really can't muster too much cynicism, I'm still too excited about seaponies. :B And pirate captain griffin. THIS IS THE BEST
Catperson!
For some reason I am most interested in that, as they seem to be the first non-equine design that doesn't seem particularly related to Greek mythology.
EDIT: And I completely forgot about the Diamond Dogs, actually. Okay, let's change that to ONE of the few non-equine designs not related to Greek Mythology.
The cat I find interesting. Because sexy :3
What? :V
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You can ship the captain with your pirate OC
At least two of those are for attracting the non-fans.
I'll hold my judgment, but that won't stop it from being right
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4417400 For me, I could give two shits less that there's a talking anthro cat, because that's not something that would bother me in the least in Equestria, or that he looks like a distant cousin of Puss in Boots, because again, Equestria. No, my issue with the cat is that he has all the earmarks of a Sassy Mascot Character. At least, it was until I looked up his voice actor. Dude's a Broadway star and the ex-husband of Elsa from Frozen. And does mostly dramatic roles as opposed to comedy roles, apparently. That eases a LOT of my concerns. If he was a comedian, I'd be a LOT more worried about the damn cat.
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That's a fair point. I never even thought about his role; I was just considering design aspects.
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The cat makes me more wary because he seems like a bigger departure of the world as we've seen it so far. Whereas Tempest Shadow being an angsty, edgy character seems way too obvious for MLP:FiM, which -- although frequently predictable, this is a ultimately a children's show after all -- generally doesn't go with the blandly obvious thing without putting some kind of a twist or subversion into it.
Still, overall I share FoME's "Wait and see" attitude.
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I, too, am excited about the seaponies. We've got two revealed so far, and they look great!
But I can't stop laughing about Tempest Shadow. When I first saw her and was sharing news around to my friends over Discord, I was having trouble typing because I was laughing too hard. She looks like she escaped from Pony Creator or the Fimfiction front page (or possibly both).
I can't say I'm worried much about her, though. That kind of edgy edgiest edgehorse that ever did edge has to be intentional. And besides, I've been pleasantly surprised by MLP in the past.
The leaks roughly remind me of Star Wars knockoffs.
Something about the 'khajit has wares for the weary traveler' looking motherfucker specifically brings to mind Han Solo.
Am I the only one who saw the cat and thought Red Dwarf?
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That's just my regular OC in a pirate costume. :B
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I'm hoping they'll play against our expectations with that.
Or, at the very least, tell us how unicorn horns work. :V
I like the sea pony design the best (at least I'm pretty sure that's what she's supposed to be) because she fits the show's aesthetic. The cat and the griffon/harpy thing look like faux Disney designs made to appeal to non-bronies. Honestly, though, my biggest concern is that they're adding too many characters that won't get enough lines or screentime (Shadowbolts, anyone?).
And in that case, you were correct (at least for that specific two-parter).
Something else just occurred to me. If this movie is to be the series finale (which given the way S6 went, I think it probably should be), this is not the time to add new characters. This is the time to bring back old characters to give them a last hurrah. Of course, as long as they keep selling merchandise, Hasbro has no reason to stop making new seasons regardless of the writing quality.
I don't know, maybe I'm just thinking about this because I finally watched the Gravity Falls series finale and it was the best finale of any show I've ever seen.
I am looking forward to the cat because of Catrina from Gen 1.
Witchweed potion is a hellova drug.
...and only then go crazy over what a load of awful pigswill it is.
I kid, I kid, but honestly, I can't feel too strongly about it either way. Besides, there's so much good-to-awesome fan stuff going on that the movie feels like a courtesy detail at this point.
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I don't know the specifics beyond "some time this year."
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That's the kind of attitude I like to see!
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Bowie albums are clearly English mythology. I remain convinced that he actually was some manner of fae creature.
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I had similar concerns. Thanks for sharing your research.
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Not anymore, I can tell you that.
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Valid point about too many characters and not enough time. I suppose we'll have to see what they do with them. Still, even in the worst case, it'll be one last round of rich fic fodder. I know people have worked wonders with the Shadowbolts.
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The question is, will he have any bushwoolies working for him?
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That is debated?