Doctor Perseus Reviews: The Equestria Girls 2017 Specials · 12:33am Jul 13th, 2017
With no new MLP episodes to talk about right now, I might as well give my thoughts on the three Equestria Girls specials that recently aired. Those of you who have followed me for a while know that I'm a pretty big fan of this spin-off series. I even still like the first movie in spite of its flaws. And after three great sequels, does Equestria Girls work in episodic form? As far as this fan is concerned, yes.
Dance Magic:
While this is my least favorite of the three specials, this episode definitely go things off to a strong start. It was nice seeing most of the Crystal Prep gang from the third movie come back and it's nice to now that Cadance is now the principal of Crystal Prep now. This episode overall proved to be a really fun Rarity story. While some parts of the episode felt slow, the characters were still likable enough to carry it along. And the song we got at the end, aptly named "Dance Magic", was pretty good. It was also cool getting to see Sci-Twi's official Equestria Girls getup outside of her Crystal Prep and Camp Everfree uniforms. I think it's nice that they went through the effort of creating a unique outfit for her separate from Princess Twilight's human outfit.
Movie Magic:
Like the Equestria Girls movies, these specials just got better and better. Thus, this episode is my second favorite. It was interesting seeing the human world's version of Daring Do. Though I do wonder if the human AK Yearling is a real-life adventurer like her pony counterpart. While the overall mystery of the episode was a bit predictable, it was fun seeing the characters work things out. It's also pretty cool to see how the events of the fourth movie continue to effect the series with the director being a Camp Everfree alumni and the girls using their gemstones. The girls being thrown into the Power Pony costumes was also a nice reference. And this episode overall formed a pretty solid setup for Juniper Montage's role as the villain in the final special.
Mirror Magic:
Obviously, this is my favorite special. And how can it not be? It nicely ties together the events of the previous specials while also introducing Starlight Glimmer to the Equestria Girls world! It was great seeing Sunset and Starlight meet and interact. It's really fitting considering how Starlight was pretty much the main show's answer to an absent Sunset. Seeing Sunset back in the pony world for the first time since the first movie was nice as was seeing Starlight in the human world. Gotta say that she had a really cool design IMO. Juniper Montage was also a nice villain for this special. The magic mirror was an interesting concept and it was interesting to see how it affected Juniper. And it was also really fitting that Starlight got to save the day at the end by confronting Juniper. It's always nice to see that character development come into play. I'll admit that Juniper may have been forgiven a bit too quickly. But at least the special managed to poke fun at that with Pinkie's line about them being a REALLY forgiving group. This was just a fantastic special and it only furthers my hope for a full main show/EG crossover at some point in the future.
Overall, these three specials were great. I liked how they all played off the events of previous movies while also having a running arc of their own with Juniper Montage. Though Dance Magic does kind of stand on its own a bit aside from just being referenced in the final special. I've heard that we're supposed to get more specials next year and I'm all for it. If MLP's getting an eighth season after the movie this year then some more specials for Equestria Girls is fine by me.
What did the rest of you think of the 2017 Equestria Girls specials?
I usually wait until I do my review before I comment on yours, but when you read my latest blog, you will understand why I no longer care.
If? MLP is already confirmed for an eight season.
I too enjoyed these Equestria Girls specials for the most part. I actually found Mirror Magic to be the weakest of the three. Anyway, I like how Dance Magic and Movie Magic focus on Rarity and Rainbow Dash respectively. Usually EQG focuses on either Twilight Sparkle or Sunset Shimmer. I also found it interesting how Movie Magic and Mirror Magic are the first long-form EQG content to not feature any songs. Movie Magic also strongly references the Daring Do chapter book Daring Do and the Marked Thief of Marapore. It's kind of ironic because G.M. Berrow wrote the Daring Do chapter books but she wrote the previous EQG special Dance Magic, but not Movie Magic. That was written by Noelle Benvenuti. I don't know if you noticed, but Canter Zoom appears in the background of Legend of Everfree towards the end.
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See.
As for Mirror Magic, I did like the references to the very first Equestria Girls, seeing Equestria again in EQG for the first time since pretty much Rainbow Rocks, and how Sunset interacts with Starlight Glimmer. However, I don't feel Starlight's presence really adds much, especially since we don't see her interact much with the Humane 6. I also feel like the special didn't take the opportunity to be as epic as it had the potential to be. I also didn't feel Juniper Montage had the proper motivation for what passes for her villainy here.
I kind of found it odd that there's no mention of SciTwi's possibly burgeoning relationship with Timber Spruce, and neither hide nor tail of Flash Sentry is anywhere to be seen. Although the latter doesn't surprise me that much. EQG has pretty much turned its back on Flash Sentry.
In general, I kind of found it odd that the Humane 7 didn't use their new powers much. We got a little of it here and there, but they didn't have the opportunity to fully super pony up if you know what I mean. I imagine there will be the chance for that in a subsequent film. I was unaware there would be more specials next year. I'm all for that as well as another film if that's a possibility. In the end, I did really like seeing this somewhat shorter form take on EQG.
I feel like EQG is following the "Star Trek movie pattern" of the even-numbered ones being in general better than the odd-numbered ones, even among these episodes. Dance was good but standard, Movie was fun and the best, and Mirror was sadly too short to fit a real middle between the setup and resolution, easily the weakest objectively.
And am I the only one who thought Rarity's Dance Magic music video idea…wasn't actually a good one? I mean, a bunch of dancers in different outfits each dancing in a different style…so, what would the music be? That Spider-Man gif showed us that one dance can fit any song, but no song can fit every dance, and a bunch of different styles would mean either: A) you see the dancers all at once and most of them would be dancing horribly off-pattern with anything the music was doing, or B) you only see one dancer at a time as the music shifts to match each dance style, giving the impression that it's basically just several different music videos edited together for no reason instead of a unified whole. And now Sugarcoat's suing me for stealing her job.