My Little Pony: An Overdue Generation · 6:23pm Aug 28th, 2023
So you might (not) remember that I posted a blog two years ago, in which I pretended to have seen My Little Pony: A New Generation but was really just prankin'?
Well, a mere two years later, I've stopped dragging my feet and seen it.
The verdict?
Oh, and...
SPOILERS!
Blog Number 230: "Why Can't We Be Friends?" Edition
For those wondering about the joke blog, it was this one: The New Generation is a Great Generation. And yes, I am a Legend of Korra fan, though now's not the time to delve into that. Pony talk, people.
So, overall movie impressions: mixed.
Taken as its own thing, it's passable entertainment. OK. Even outright good here and there, with enough enjoyable elements and moments that I largely had a good time with it.
Taken as part of a larger whole, it is a misjudged mess.
First things first...
Why six colours? The mnemonic goes "Richard of York gave battle in vain", not "Richard of York gave battle vainly". Seriously, what have you got against indigo?
I'll start with the worst aspect: its contextual construction is atrocious. By that, I don't mean the terrible idea to take what could clearly work as a standalone story and inject nine seasons' worth of continuity into it with reckless abandon. Although no, the G4-G5 melding does not help in the slightest. If anything, it's actively distracting (and detracting) from the better parts.
No, I'm talking about basic questions of "how" and "why", and how and why they keep bouncing off the premises.
Said premises are thus: all three pony tribes used to be friends, but SOMEHOW a thing happened and now they live a segregationist existence ignorantly badmouthing each other through traditional, paranoid, self-biased, authority-approved propaganda that is also ignorant. A major plot element is that the world's magic is missing, SOMEHOW being encased in these two (no, three, to anyone who can count tribes ahead of time and notices a massive gap in a stained glass window full of gaps) crystals.
Luckily, our heroine's father SOMEHOW is the only pony who knows the true history and even has a convenient table in his lighthouse where the crystals can fit like pieces of an embedded jigsaw puzzle. The story is resolved when everyone realizes that chasing MacGuffins is less important than actually making friends across tribal boundaries, which wouldn't have happened if they hadn't chased MacGuffins, which in turn makes the MacGuffins work, so they are kinda important, and I'm not going to ding that because that at least is a fabulistic pony-consistent trope, and I'm not made of stone, damnit.
Hey!
Look!
Foreshadowing!
They said it was coming, so that makes it all right and totally non-controversial!
There's no kind way to say it: this is an excuse plot. It's a fun excuse plot, using the excuse to deliver a clean, charming adventure story with a (mostly) delightful cast of characters you wouldn't mind leaving your kids with. But for a story almost entirely motivated by its backstory, it's incredibly shy about actually pinning down anything concrete about that backstory, so stuff just happens in a neat and tidy order like a checkpoint-dominated video game, rather than because we've got any idea why three mostly personable tribes would suddenly start treating each other like a bunch of Brunos.
🎵 We don't talk about Bruno, no, no, no!🎵
This hurts it as a standalone because the message of the story is that the three tribes really aren't all that different. They're just everyday folk who'd clearly get along as happily between tribes as they do within tribes, were it not for the legacy barrier of paranoia erected between them. But then the force that makes them reconcile so easily also makes it hard to believe that they'd segregate to this drastic degree in the first place. On the flipside, if it really was that easy to split the three tribes with malicious gossip, then there's no way a few chance encounters would turn them around so fast either. There's a credibility gap here between two different plot requirements, and the movie is singularly uninterested in bridging it.
What's slightly frustrating about the film is that some of these plot holes aren't hard to paper over. Instead of having the three tribes be exes to each other, just have it so they were always segregated, and Sunny's belief is motivated by future optimism rather than past vindication. Of course, that raises the question of the provenance of the three crystals and the legends about magic, but it's not like fantasy's any stranger to predictions and prophecies, nor to ancient artefacts shrouded in myth.
Nor to coincidences. Seriously, the relative scales that would have to line up for this to work? You couldn't get them this perfect if they were a goddamn solar eclipse.
Heck, if anything you could credit Argyle with inventing the device to make them work, based on his crazy marginal magi-scientific theories that no one else wants to fund, which would at least explain what exactly he's studying in a lighthouse. Chuck in a line about him being a retired explorer, and there you go. Innovation's more interesting and challenging than having pre-prepared answers to dig up again, surely?
A common response I've seen among the fandom is that this gappiness is OK, because the movie was meant to be a launching pilot for an ongoing TV show or other media, which would then answer those questions. Well, we're two years into that post-movie wonderland of canon welding, so as to the question of whether it was worth the wait or not, I leave any and all answers to the discretion of the devotees among you.
In before Argyle is revealed to be a time-travelling Star Swirl pre-ascension.
Beyond that, I have two responses to the responses.
The first is that, unless you're going for an obvious Lord of the Rings style of film series, this seems a singularly unfair approach to take with your audience. If you have to do additional homework on top of that one movie you just put on to kill ninety minutes, then maybe make that abundantly obvious ahead of time, or within the movie itself?
Fact is, some people just aren't willing to invest in a franchise so they can be drip-fed answers to questions the previous installment left unanswered, especially when it's not advertised as such. It's this sort of exclusivity and unhelpfulness that makes microtransactions so obnoxious and the Kingdom Hearts series a narrative clusterbomb of patchwork and scrap drivel.
Behold! A bargain basement junk Heartless! Born from the hatred of the Transformer movies!
The second is that the movie really doesn't give this impression, even on its own terms and after watching it. The conflict is introduced and resolved, the friendship-believer is vindicated, three segregated tribes are brought together in a magical display. There's no dangling sequel hook, no "OK Twilight, now send me weekly reports" style of ending, no sense that this isn't meant to be a standalone story on its own merits.
Being a blatant setup for a followup, and just being full of holes, are two different things. It's the difference between being given a slice of cake, and being given a whole cake that has some vital ingredients missing and is actually pasta dough.
Ah, but then we'd miss out on the G4 connection. And can I just say that this was my single biggest turnoff for a long time? It does the movie zero favours, and - when taken into account with the above - outright sabotages it.
Years ago, I was actively rooting for G5 to hit the reset button so we'd have some cool new toys to play with, metaphorically speaking (that, and my attitude towards G4 was waning). The announcement that G5 would be a literal sequel to G4 shut down my interest in the movie, partly because I was disgruntled with how canon was holding up anyway, and partly because it meant being forced to remember a part of pony I'd rather overlook.
Now, having finally muscled past my reservations (and other people's reviews) to see it, I can't say past me was entirely wrong.
Again, this feels like something that could've been easily patched. If G4 had been a story-within-a-story - say, a motivational fable Argyle tells Sunny to encourage her future optimism and willingness to reach out, rather than unevidenced history with hardly any helpful proof behind it that mostly makes her look like a loon - then at a stroke you iron out all the continuity creases while still paying tribute to a predecessor.
And pretend this is, like, an in-universe movie or something. Really get the cash cow commentary rolling...
You don't have to wonder where the dragons went, or whether or not Spike's currently in a coma under a mountain somewhere. You don't have to wonder why the distinctly multi-species society has gone so badly wrong that it's less cooperative and progressive than a technologically advanced version of the Founding Fillies' time (seriously, at least back then the three tribes cooperated for pragmatic reasons).
You don't have to wonder why the sun and the moon haven't crashed into the planet already, why all non-earth tribes haven't starved to death, or whether the lack of pegasus rain means a lot of off-screen irrigation is going on (that, or the realm is taking its sweet time getting through all that desertification business).
NOOO! YOU WENT TOO FAR FORWARD!
And I'm not even going to touch the wretched implications of proving retroactively that Seasons Eight and Nine were wasteful delaying tactics, and Equestria under Twilight - academic prodigy, school founder, centre of a veritable stampede of friends across the realm, and the honest-to-Celestia Princess of Friendship - managed to be even more regressive and ignorant than it had ever been in its entire history.
Seriously, though, how do you hold all the best cards - more cards than your predecessors ever held - and still screw up this badly? This is way too sour a starting note for a movie as sweet as this one proves to be, and the contrast is not flattering.
"Princess Twilight Sparkle. Because why assassinate a character when you can character-assassinate her instead?" - Hasbro, 2021
Again, it all comes back to the standalone nature of the movie. People who aren't familiar with G4 won't care, so all this G4-baiting is meaningless to them. People who are familiar with G4 will care, but in the wrong way, because they'll notice the itches that need scratching and the tangles that need untangling and the places where the suit very obviously was not tailored to fit.
You have overloaded your beast of burden, G5. Do not add a last straw.
Other than that, the movie was fun.
"Konnichi wa! This is where I come in, right?"
What? I didn't come to bury all and praise none.
Frankly, it's a shame that they made the G4 connection and then put in zero effort to bridge the gap, because taken at face value, the movie as a thing in itself is pleasant enough. I can't pretend I was swept up in it the same way the best of G4 managed, but then again G4 had its painful moments as well, and I'd happily rewatch the movie rather than revisit those. Middle of the pack, I guess?
I'll ignore the unexplained worldbuilding ("sometimes they have sticky hooves" is about as close as we get to answering the unemphasized question of how a hooved, magic-deprived species can have buildings on par with us superior primates, to say nothing of the unadapted plugged-in modern tech) to say that this movie is very nice to look at. Leave it to Ghost Mike to detail the technical skill of Boulder Media.
And he better do it right.
All I can talk about is my general impression.
Maretime Bay is the least interesting location, but that much is still nice to see in its detail, complete with Arnold Schwarzenegger movie reference in the background. The lighthouse home is just quirky enough to feel interesting without doing much more than that, largely content to throw us background Easter Eggs (yes, I did smile at the Spike plushie). Having it be the beginning and ending of the movie is traditional enough. Really, I find it hard to say much about it, unless we're meant to make much of the fact that it makes Sunny's family marginal to the town, both figuratively and literally (and shine a light on it! Symbolism can be subtle, yo!).
Zephyr Heights is slightly more interesting for apparently being built on top of the ruins of Canterlot, though the movie wisely doesn't bother throwing that in our faces and just lets us hoary old veterans quietly figure it out for ourselves. The presence of the Royal Guard and the Wonderbolt posters are among the more blatant Easter Eggs post-lighthouse, and I can't make up my mind as to whether I appreciate that or not (probably yes, so long as I can ignore the ropey backstorying). Its main weakness is that it mostly seems like a more golden, more pop-culture-saturated social media hellhole than the relatively quaint Maretime Bay. On the plus side, it's the setpiece for an inexplicable heist subplot that gets gleefully overcomplicated, so there's that.
Bridlewood is easily my favourite of the three. I've always seen a unicorn-elf connection, so having them dwell in a forest evokes that quite nicely, even if it's mostly populated by goth-hipster hybrids who have a case of the Skittish Play/MacGirth syndrome. Plus, it turns out the unicorns are almost as weird and endearing as Izzy herself, in their own gloomy, superstitious way. Combine that with Alphabittle's bizarre turn as a high-intensity, dance-crazy gambling barkeep - which is apparently high office, if his later association with Queen Haven and Phyllis Cloverleaf is anything to go by - and this might just be my favourite part of the whole movie.
What movie about friendship would be complete, though, without its cast herd?
Extended -
- metaphors!
See, because Sunny kept trying to right it alone, and now they're fixing it for her! Symbolism can be subtle, yo!
Again, to be fair, there are decent enough hits and hardly any misses, so on balance I'd say it's good, not great. While I struggle to think of one on par with the Main Six (or Spike at his best, though Sunny's stubborn hopefulness does call to mind Spike's more dramatic version in "Gauntlet of Fire", easily his proudest moment), I still had a pleasant enough time watching them.
Before we start patting any of the main cast in an affectionate way, though, I might as well lead with the G4 cameo at the start.
Honest opinion...?
...Which looks gaudier?
Fun fact: I saw a clip of this about two years ago, out of morbid curiosity. In my eyes, it did the film no favours. As presented, it was just an over-saccharine bit which occasionally reminded us that these ponies had personalities (Fluttershy is nervous? Perish the thought!). I thought at the time it was because I didn't need the reminder that this new art style was being clumsily grafted onto a pre-existing art style, which in turn was now being grafted to a fully CG movie. Now I've seen it in context and had time to reconsider, I can say with full confidence: no, nope, I definitely didn't need the reminder.
There was nothing presented to remind me of why I liked G4 in the first place: it was just a gratuitous teaser, and for getting me off to a bad start, I hate it. Moving on.
(For some reason, Rarity randomly turning evil bugged me rather than amused me. I think I have a built-in "nope" reflex against Best Fashionista being played by Ken Jeong.)
"Unicorns! Horns at the ready!" Unicorns as in plural? Gee, if only we could invite a couple more to fill that awkward gap Twilight left.
As for the CG-Pone-I we'll be dealing with for ninety minutes: I got used to them pretty quickly. In stills, each character looked a bit too Uncanny Valley, like fuzzy Pixar knockoffs, but in motion they were graceful and expressive enough that I soon had no real problems with the presentation.
SAY WHAAAAAAAAAAT!?
The heart-shaped hoofprints I can't decide if I like or find off-putting, especially since I'm still wondering how they don't keep gluing themselves to the floor with those non-magical sticky hooves. Also, it's a shame they didn't put in some horse-isms to shake the impression that there was ultimately no reason this couldn't be told with human analogues instead, but nitpicks, nitpicks.
Now for the actual cast!
The most pleasant surprise was Sunny Starscout. I'd already gathered from other people's reviews that Izzy Moonbow was Pinkie done right (she is), and that Hitch was a lot more engaging than a token stallion ought to have been (he is), but generally I'd heard that Sunny was the bland one. By stock kiddie flick hero standards, perhaps. Well, if by "bland" you mean "earnest and charming", then yes, yes she is.
Let's not prevaricate about the bush: Sunny is a goddamn pegasister. She collects Friendship is Magic merchandise, she geeks out about G4, she relentlessly applies love and tolerance like a personal religion no matter how many people wish she'd shut up about it, and she comes up with convoluted plans to make the plot work rather than does the blatantly obvious. Heck, the one redeeming thing about the opening is that it boils down to her attempt at fanfiction. I think I'm contractually obligated to like her already.
Oh, but it gets more fun. She also talks to a picture of her (VERY OBVIOUSLY ON HOLIDAY, GUYS) father and corrects a crooked frame every time she shuts the door. She pushes a lost cause to the point of getting banned at conventions (so, still a pegasister, right?). She effectively becomes Izzy's babysitter on sight, which alone would make her best pony for sheer good taste and judgement.
She keeps a journal of obsessive trivia for journalistic badgering, just in case she happens to run into a member of another tribe and must flood them with vaguely insensitive scientific questions. She heists, because heists are always fun. She tries acting tough in this world's best attempt at a bad guy bar.
Yeah, she's no Charlie Morningstar from Hazbin Hotel, but that's more to do with the rote storytelling she's plugged into than because she lacks the singing moxie or the blitz of near-criminal levels of knife-edge optimism start-to-finish. Let's not mill about. That'd be loony.
But yeah, Sunny Starscout would 100% try to reform demons in Hell.
Given that, yes, on analysis she is kinda bland, I have a hard time articulating why I found her such a charming centre to a story hell-bent on being completely unrevolutionary. I still can't pretend she's actually up there with the well-defined personalities of Twilight et al: she's essentially a quirky, stubborn believer, and despite some protean play-acting (the aforementioned "tough girl" act when confronting Alphabittle, for instance), she doesn't stray far from that mould even as she explores the brave new worlds in the next county over. There's also the fact that she gets two "darkest hours", neither of which is compelling and one of which is a no-brainer for anyone who can count up to three.
Maybe it's the voice acting (which is impressive enough, given she's half of a High School Musical I have no love for)? Maybe it's the occasional signs of ambivalence - like Hitch - where she's mostly reasonable but shows that she's not so above it all and actually believes for a minute Izzy can read minds? Maybe it's the fact that she breaks rules on a whim, which at least gives her some initiative in a scenario where we all-but-know she's correct from the start?
Or maybe my memory's exaggerating a little? But I swear, given a bit more work, I don't think it'd take much to boost her to Main Six levels of engagement.
Oh yeah, there were other ponies in this pony movie, weren't there?
Hitch is... basically a fusion of Applejack stubbornness, Fluttershy animal-friendliness (an odd but agreeable trait, presumably a result of some recessive genetic inheritance), and Inspector Javert, right down to having a tough time grappling with the idea that the perp he's pursuing might have a solid point.
He's delightfully stuffy and overdramatic, which suggests some Rarity and Trixie DNA. Also, they make the wise move of having him come across as a mostly reasonable line-toer (hence his polite, pre-emptive warning to Sunny early on), so the transition from dogged police officer to tagalong ally feels more natural than the narrative bookies would've bet on.
Also, he might be the funniest character in the movie (no offence to Sunny and Izzy: they jointly hold the crown for most loveable). Like the bit in the climax when he has the boneheaded idea of decoupling the spinning catapult thing from the main machine (the name of which escapes me: the Sproutinator, or something?) while it's still spinning, and promptly realizes why that's a bad idea. Or like the bit where he's giving his heroic speech to a bunch of bunnies who have spotted the obvious clue behind him. Or his general attitude towards Sunny, which can be summed up as: "I'm trying to be nice, so for the love of Luna, don't do anything stupid, because it's against the rules to do something stupid, and you're gonna do something stupid, aren't you? You've done something stupid. Grrreeeaaat."
Arguably, he's the best or one of the best characters simply for the unusual mishmash of traits. He's got to be in the top three, though.
Sprout is... flipping annoying, to put it bluntly. The movie's point about the three tribes mostly being ordinary Janes and Joes saddled with bad cultures was gentle and agreeable enough, but not villain material, and not needing villain material. So here's a pathetic jackass to fill a hole that either didn't need to be filled or which isn't so much filled as rattling him around inside it like a loose screw. Thus, we get the worst of both deals.
See, with an antagonist like this, broadly speaking you can go either the "humanizing" route (for a given redefinition of "human") or the card-carrying villain route. Neither route is taken. He's nowhere near charismatic enough to entertain us like the great Disney villains, because the narrative won't bet all its chips on him being a fantastic devil of a grand villain. But neither is he likeable enough: he's too undignified and pathetic to move us with anything like a tragic backstory or a sympathetic motivation beyond being a whiny momma's boy.
As an allegorical placeholder in this soft cosmopolitan fable, he's an obnoxious caricature. As a dash of diabolical black evil in a mostly light-grey-to-white good-versus-good setup, he's not even the fun kind of bad.
He fails both ways. You could replace the bulldozer climax with an earthquake, and it'd be less objectionable; replace it with a warring tribe who tragically misunderstand the situation, and it'd be less stupid and reductionistic.
Also, we'd be spared plenty of scenes with this shill pill, so there's that benefit too. Easily the worst of the original cast.
Phyllis Cloverleaf is... a half-hearted attempt at corporate commentary, as far as I can tell. There's a scene early on which is mostly just setup for a few minutes of kiddie flick shenanigans and Sunny abuse, and that's really the point where the "nuts to it, it's for kids" vibe started to get across.
Canterlogic (Canter Logic? Counter Logic?) is very clearly profiting off the propaganda with preposterous products that protect ponies pathetically poorly, as proven when portions of the population are parenthetically pitfalled in the proper preamble to our precious, playful, pointy-headed Izzy Moonbow appearing (despite those same products being in a sale's pitch barely minutes before?), and I'm gonna stop the p-alliteration now before someone complains.
Why did I use pointless alliteration just now? I dunno, pony thing. Why did this movie devote a whole scene to hazy corporate criticism that stops short of actually accusing or clarifying corporate's role in brainwashing its audience? I dunno, pony thing?
Yeah, the diversion's just kinda there, and Phyllis falls more or less in the same bucket. The fact that this shady CEO plays the earth pony equivalent of a pegasus princess is a fact I have no idea what to do with (the fact that she doesn't meet Haven and Alphabittle until the very end hurts, as those two develop a rapport before she comes along). She loses points for enabling the worst new character, but at the same time she's literally the only vaguely interesting thing about him, so I'm at a complete loss.
Argyle Starshine is... well, he has the subdued version of Sunny's charms, so he's a welcome presence for as short as his time is. No idea what "studies" he was supposed to be doing in a lighthouse filled with collector's toys, especially when the result was that Sunny makes a case without any evidence whatsoever (Hitch is already a better intellectual for pointing out this not-inconsiderable hole in Sunny's argument).
Yeah, this film isn't just sloppy in its G4 welding or its lack of backstory: it's riddled with unexplained holes throughout, and we haven't even gotten to the arrest of Queen Haven yet.
It's a mark of how cliched this story is that Argyle's dead parent schtick passed completely over me without any impact. Sure, it reinforces Sunny as the lone voice in the wilderness, and someone had to plant ideas in her head, but when even the movie can't be bothered to explain what killed him, why should I care about it all that much?
Zipp Storm and Pipp Petals are... thin characters, though Zipp basically being a rogue archaeologist/historian is much more relatable - and her notably androgynous design more arresting - than Pipp's social media princessing, which I swear is one bullying comment away from being Diamond Tiara for the digital age. Right down to just being chill hanging out with the ponies who potentially ruined her home life for her (What? We're not honestly expecting Spoiled Rich/Queen Haven to roll over for their daughters on the first try, are we?).
This is really where the movie's thinness starts to work against it, because (by and large) the characters introduced earlier are stronger than the ones introduced later, simply by dint of being given more opportunities to shine.
Take Zipp, for example, and how she's the catalyst for the pegasus reconciliation, and also keep in mind that the whole point of the movie is to reconcile these tribes. Zipp is already willing and able to befriend outsiders, so the only challenge on her part is getting past the inexplicable technological defences of the pegasi. The core cast are already naturally friendly, so all they need is to meet each other and presumably set an example to their parents/friends. It's really the likes of Queen Haven and Phyllis Cloverleaf who need to be won over, and the main extent of their challenge is to stop arguing with each other long enough to let Sunny explain the crystal legend plot.
The film is nice and comfy and optimistic, almost to a Ghibli-esque degree, but that's also what makes its stakes hard to take seriously. It's a bit too easy. I like the core New Main Five in this movie, but all it took was the snowflake of Sunny's lantern letter to set off an avalanche of amiability on their part. They were practically waiting for an excuse to make friends.
The real hard work of overcoming prejudices and accepting that giving magic to your enemies is a good thing? That's why the likes of Hitch and Haven - who have baggage to work through - is slightly more interesting than the admittedly charm-overloaded glee of seeing Sunny and Izzy hit it off so well.
True, it's questionable how well they pull it off, given the reconciliation of the leaders - Haven and Alphabittle, for instance - is mostly relegated to after the episodic questing has happened and they're being teed up for the big bad Sprout climax, but at least there are interactions.
Now compare that with Zipp and Pipp.
"Not sure I like where this is going..."
To a lesser extent, Zipp's main contribution is to get the crystal ball rolling (OK, that sounded less confused in my head), and thereafter it makes sense for her to follow the New Main Five in collecting the crystal MacGuffins, because she's less invested in the status quo and clearly opposed to the royal lie. Pipp's main contribution is to be complicit in an ongoing act of public fraud for her follower count and to sing a song, and thereafter it makes no sense for her to follow the New Main Five, because they trashed her shallow lifestyle, and she's not nearly deep enough to have turned around that fast.
With Zipp as a budding princess, her interest in making that reconciliation happen carries more "political" weight to it than any prior friendship in the movie. It's not just that she too gets along well with Sunny and Izzy: it's that such a connection could have consequences for the throne too. The movie does hardly anything to build on that, but it's the point of escalation from personal (Sunny and Izzy again) to public, and Zipp is interesting at least partly for that combination of status expectations and secret status-quo-bucking.
By contrast, Pipp feels like a waste of story space. Haven's already providing the social media queening and conflict to push against Zipp, plus she's the one you really need to start convincing (which barely happens as it is). Do we really need a redundancy in Pipp? A redundancy, moreover, for both Haven and Zipp? Wouldn't it have been more interesting if Haven had been the one to argue with and ultimately go with the group, pushing back more against Zipp's optimism, instead of handing those storytelling duties off to an inexplicably-already-converted Pipp?
Sprout may be the most irritating of the all-new cast, but at least he theoretically serves a function. Pipp feels like the most pointless.
Speaking of royalty:
Queen Haven is... a Canterlot pony transplanted onto Cloudsdale, which in this setting was presumably transplanted back onto Canterlot. I can't make much of the white lie subplot. It's a character note, I guess, faced with a moral dilemma that the film has already decided has only one right answer and can't even be bothered to wait long before revealing its biases. This somehow gets her jailed, which somehow leads to her escaping, which somehow has no bearing on her remaining in charge, and you see what I mean? This script was put together in half a bakery.
I don't mind her vaguely Rarity-esque pomposity, which at least is unusual coming from a pegasus. Nor the later emphasis on pairing her with Alphabittle. I simply don't have much to say about her otherwise.
Izzy Moonbow is... utterly adorable.
Yeah, I've got nothing original to add here, though her treehouse might be as delightfully mad as she is.
Mi casa es too casa.
She reminds me a little of Perrito from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (unbelievably fantastic film, by the way), wherein they're both a knife's edge away from being irritating comic relief, but they never cross the line.
Then you're hit with the double-whammy of them having strangely dark origins (Izzy nowhere near as much as Perrito's "hide and seek" family, but it's unavoidable how sulky and hopeless Bridlewood is compared with the other two pony locales) and having the most heartwarming moments of their respective movies. Izzy finding Sunny's childhood lantern message was predictable as all get-out, but given what the movie's trying to do, it fits, and I will not lie: I unironically loved that revelation. Sunny and Izzy straight-up have the most believable connection throughout the movie, each vindicating the other's outlook plus each acting as minders and accomplices for the other, and this scene was the cherry on top.
I think the key is that Izzy is overwhelmingly innocent and ignorant, not idiotic. The comparison with Pinkie (at her best and at her worst) is obvious and warranted.
And sometimes...
...downright eerie.
Between the friend-making obsession and the way the script knows when to stop playing and start getting her to make useful suggestions or otherwise helping out. Heck, the tensest part of a largely tension-free climax involves her risking her neck to fetch a crystal for Sunny when it's on the edge of a collapsing lighthouse, and there's one bit where the stupid catapult device detaches and nearly impales her that's the closest I got to holding my breath (without actually going that far: one thing I'll sport is that the movie is a comfy enough entertainment that its tense moments are more momentary mild spices than convincingly heart-stopping tongue-scorchers).
Point is, everypony loves Izzy. I'm not heartless. 
Alphabittle is... part of one of the funniest scenes and voiced by Phil LaMarr of Samurai Jack fame. Also, he shields some critters from the climax and has a weirdly interesting rapport with Queen Haven, so he gets points for those too. Good times.
Hard to say he's a fantastic character, but he's arguably the best from the back half of the movie. I have no complaints.
Only other aspect I can discuss is the collection of songs.
I like them.
Yes, even the mob one.
"Light your torch! Mount your horse! Screw your courage to the - wait, I've already done this gag before, haven't I? That is sick and wrong!"
Sorry, no formalist critiques or lyrical moaning about how the angry mob song is way too on-the-nose. I enjoyed all the songs, straight-up. Pretty good way to boost the movie's production value, lift your mood, and keep things suitably peppy by pony standards. And not a dud among them in my mind: the very first song (Sunny's, as it happens) was the point where the apprehensive ice melted and I started genuinely enjoying the movie, and the credits song (???) was the point where I realized I'd enjoyed more than I'd expected, going in.
So it ended on a high note, at least.
Overall, the G5 film had a smattering of pleasant surprises, was a mostly "glad-I-watched-it" experience, and came across on its own terms as a simple, not-terribly demanding film about playing nice with others (think less "historical racism" and more "hey, those kids you meet on your first day at school might be just as afraid of you as you are of them"). Marred, unfortunately, by an unforgiveably boneheaded attempt to cash in on G4 without actually thinking through the consequences, and a sloppy approach to writing which drags it down needlessly and which results in bugs that shouldn't have been that hard to patch.
If I focus on the good, it's modest, babyproofed fun with occasional above-average elements, though nothing ambitious. If I focus on the bad, it's an injured racer who finished the course, but far later than it should have done in peak condition, and with an annoying fat bloke on its back. I dunno, a five-out-of-ten? Middle of the road?
The question now is: when's G6 coming out?
Hey, I can dream, can't I?
That's all for now. Impossible Numbers, out.
I THINK the whole G4-G5 connection was Hasbro mandated, but that claim of mine could use a good fact-check.
One thing I'll say that MLP still gets right is characterization (for the most part, ain't that right, Sprout). Yeah, Pipp was pretty one-dimension at points in the movie when going by the one time I watched it. But, I will say that the sister dynamic between Pipp and Zipp gets some love in MYM.
Sunny is a Brony. A gosh-darn Pegasister! Not a sick-minded troglodyte from 4chan that would make traumatizing 'edgy' animated pony videos without caring about what kind of audience they would catch. This mare is a sweet, well-meaning, optimistic for life, driven as buck Brony with a capital B! She'd feel right at home in FimFiction.
She's no perfect pony though, since she can be more driven than sensible and can be a bit naive at times. Come on, Sunny, mind reading powers? Hahaha. Even so, her drive to be a good friend to those who are different from her is great for kids to learn from. You cannot stop Sunny Starscout, you can only hope to befriend her.
Izzy is a treasure. A bubbly creative with endless positivity who channels the spirit of Pinkie Pie with ease. Thankfully, this holds true in later shows.
Zipp is the cool princess who would rather do her own thing than be a 'ruler', while Pipp is the social-media influencer with solid singing skills and a heart that I WISH was shown more in the film! May that mare never fall into the 'Be Yourself, But Better' pitfall that Vignette fell into.
Sprout was poorly written and is a (mostly) background character due to him not being popular enough to make Hasbro money via toy sells. I don't make the rules.
Hitch is the straight man of the movie who is also a tad reasonable, which helped a ton with keeping the tone balanced. Fluttershy would be so happy to know that another pony connects with animals like she can.
5744308
I could've sworn it was a writer's decision, but I can't find the reference for that bit of trivia to back me up, so it's a tentative guess.
For a franchise based on friendship bonds, it has to. We need to get the impression that these are interesting, likeable souls to spend time with, as a minimum, who have a rapport with each other as well. The movie gets that right, though I think it does better with its early-established cast - namely Sunny, Hitch, and Izzy - than with the later additions (barring rare exceptions).
Based on what I remember, Zipp's given more story attention than Pipp, which goes some way to explaining why she stands out more than her sister in the film (nice to know that's rectified in the shorts). Otherwise, the closest they have to a hint of a sisterly relationship onscreen is when Pipp grudgingly and eventually reveals a way to escape from Zephyr Heights after confronting her sister, and even that feels a bit redundant since Zipp's already sneaked into places that she clearly shouldn't.
😱 How do we know she isn't already here!? (Cue Twilight Zone music...)
The childhood introduction scene does a good job of showing how she came to that outlook through her connection to her father (on that note, where's her mother?). It makes it easier to see the personal side of her quest when e.g. she's doing crazy stuff like making futile speeches to the Maretime Bay residents at Phyllis' show.
That's kinda why I like Hitch too, as he's the first to make the obvious point that Sunny's beliefs need a bit more evidence than just stubborn loyalty.
I love the fact that Izzy's hometown is roughly as mad as she is, but focused on gloom and defeat. Without saying anything, it explains quite neatly why she'd go looking for friends in Maretime Bay.
That is a comparison that I wasn't even thinking about, but which makes way too much sense in hindsight.
What's especially poor about Sprout is that even at his most threatening, he still comes across as laughably lame. The worst thing he does is destroy Sunny's home, and compared to his epic war ambitions, his machine struggles even to do that much once everyone else fights back. Literally all the tension comes from the fact that the heroes are stuck in the "must assemble on the table" mindset. He's all but forgotten about after that, like even the movie can't be bothered about him once he's done his part.
Funny thing is he's pretty crazy too, in his own way. Dude takes sheriffing way too seriously.
Well now… this was quite a surprise to see in my feed!
I don't know what prompted you to finally give this a go. I'd normally guess the knowledge that Make Your Mark is ending in November and G5 will only continue thereafter with the Tell Your Tale web series, which probably itself won't last more then marginally beyond 2024 – but I know you're super good at avoiding such news and that this was probably triggered by something small and personal in your offline life. No matter.
I'm not going to try to respond to everything here, not necessarily in a particular systematic order.
Literally the only observation I have to add to the disastrous G4 connection (a end result of a decision made when the film was being conceived and FiM was still going, and clearly something they backed off onmore and more as the film rolled through production, but couldn't abandon altogether) is that I find if I headcanon that the backstory here centred on a Twilight and Mane 6 in a Equestria, but not the Twilight/Mane 6 in FiM's Equestria, there are far less pressing questions.
Of course I don't give the film more points for that, for even requiring such work on the viewer's part is very bad. You kinda said everything that needs to be said otherwise. Ditto for the contextual construction of the film being a hot mess.
The greater point about the film being an excuse plot – one Present Perfect summed up nearly two years ago by describing it as not a story, but a movie script – that is very shy about stating anything concrete about its world or backstory, in the hope that we'll just enjoy being swept along for the ride – is very much on the money too.
I am very glad that you dinged the film for the unexplained everything and did not give it the benefit of the doubt that the future material could fill in the gaps, on the grounds that it is structured and ends like a standalone story without the tone or impression of "to be continued!", because back when this was new and quite a number of reviews and takes ended with that benefit of the doubt sentiment, I was proclaiming this from the rooftops. Especially as someone who, in this day and age, greatly values an object that can tell its own story and not leave you feeling dissatisfied with unanswered questions, yet while leaving room open to continue with this world and these characters. And I am only slightly vindicated by the fact that the followup show has answered almost none of that and is even less connected to G4 (though still enough to be a disaster of timeline crossing – the only extra backstory we've learnt is that due to an evil alicorn trying to seize all the magic, at a time when distrust was spreading for a reason we still don't know and likely never will, Twilight divided all pony magic into the crystals and drained the evil mare of her power. Over time, the tribes split into their separate dwellings. Oh, and that said evil alicorn goes as far back as Celestia and Luna being fillies, and was jealous of them "getting all the love", though this is from the horse's mouth (
) and probably filtered to present her in a better light.
It's not a direct answer to any particular point of yours, and more a general response, but yet again, I feel it relevant to bring up the point I coined after first seeing the film: it's ostensibly a grand-scale story of racism, prejudice and friendship unity that encompasses a cornerstone of a whole multi-societal history… yet is doing it with a Hundred Acre Wood-sized world. And the juxtaposition between these two elements totally breaks any believability in the film's Mise-en-scène, least when the animation camera isn't rolling.
Who are you, and what have you done with Impossible Numbers, changeling?
Okay, I jest. But the modern social media city state makes it impossible for me to get behind this, though I can admire a lot of Zephyr Heights from a production standpoint. On the other hand, I admire more the vaguely-80's, industrial vibe to Maritime Bay as crossed with a windy San Francisco sea-adjacent locale. One where the vehicles sport EU licence plates, but cultural amalgamations and part and parcel for modern world design.
Many of the crew's sharing of art pieces from its production, and the accompanying commentary, have clarified that the almost total lack of equine-ness is a result of most attempts to do so not looking good when translated to CG. Attempts for them to pick things up with their mouths went out, for a start. On a similar note, the pegasi once had wing-feathers on the backs of their legs, but they didn't operate well in animation, so they got removed from the models. I recall that Silver Quill made an observation in his initial panel/video on the film where he stated the physical ground of CG meant the various animation cheats and dismissing of physical reality for visual flair, a gag or the like couldn't really be done here, and was one reason why he preferred a traditionally-animated look for MLP. All of the above could be done in CG of course, just not on a Hasbro budget and oversight that requires some stylistic conservatism.
Speaking of… reflecting on the fact of the film's production now is weird, given Hasbro sold Boulder Media off, and just recently sold eOne off too (for only $500m of the $4b that bought it for), the entertainment giant that ran Hasbro's entertainment division from 2019-2021, when this was in proper production and not just development. With all the parties that actually made the film gone or disbanded, it feels like a lost artefact, the one thing produced by something lost to time, for better or for ill.
Once we get past all that, and just focus on it as entertainment, as you note, it is fun enough. One point you didn't raise but which I feel strongly about is that it wisely doesn't go for the belly laughs typical of modern animation and which are prone to failure. Instead, it keeps to mild chucklers and has a much higher hit rate for it, with few of the bits not involving social media falling flat (and even though are far less disastrous or present than one might expect – as the followup show would louder on time and time again). And it eschews the fallback three-tierd joke system of toilet humour, innuendos and pop culture references (the last one does put in a few appearances, but mostly as background joke baskets and not as the focal foreground point of a shot or in dialogue. Better to aim modestly and succeed then have grand ambition and flounder.
The rest of your blog is largely responses to the individual characters and songs, so this gives me specific points to bounce off of. Especially as my several watches of the film on the month following its release, plus time to settle thereafter, did quite a lot of shuffling around for me.
Case in point: I went from only really liking the first two songs in the movie to, like yourself, liking pretty much all of them. Yes, even the pop songs. The quality of the following G5 songs evidently has something to do with that (a lot are Pipp numbers, and nearly all flounder for some "in universe" pretext for them to be sung, which are too big crippling points on top of the quality), but these are fun boppers. And while I persist in finding "Fit Right In" a little overrated, and "I'm Looking' Out For You" rather underappreciated (somewhat understandably, as it was drastically cut near the end of production from 2:04 to 1:15 for budget and pacing and feels rather slight – the album versions I have listened to have spoilt me, for all songs are longer there, from just 18 seconds for "Angry Mob" up to 1:17 from the bland-but-functional late end-credits songs "Together"), there isn't a clinker in the lot. For all that it feels like an obligation rather than a musical proper (the songs occupy only 11 minutes, and that's with the pop numbers that are often just background music to the main action), they are fun and lively, and do largely boost the plot point they cover. Which is kind of the goal!
Okay, characters.
Very interesting take! Not unheard of – even just among people we both know here, Sunny was Loganberry's favourite, for a start – but it's curious how her overly sunny optimism and total ignorance of social etiquette and common decency in the pursuit of her goals, sticking points for quite a few, were traits that endeared her to you. I think in my case, it was that Hitch and Izzy has the most room to fail, and they wildly exceeded my expectations, while Sunny was about where I'd landed. But over time I'v warmed to her in the film more and more, to the point my favourite these days is basically a three-way tie between her, Izzy and Hitch.
Who, yes, does get many of the best lines, and we love him for it.
It was always clear to me that Sunny (well, all of the characters, but especially her), was designed as a movie protagonist for this one story first and foremost, and this it's not too surprising the followup material has flounder to do anything with her, even with her becoming an alicorn, Zipp is far closer to the lead, though it is really a show without a central character, and not in the purposeful balanced way of FiM. But I digress.
My view of Sprout will forever be tainted now by how, when I last watched the film with a IRL friend who has watched chunks of FiM over the years but is no Brony, he found Sprout the highlight of the film for him, finding his buffoonery and being the butt of a joke rather funny. So I must acknowledge that for more casual viewers, he does work. But it still remains that, outside of his song (which is, incidentally, sung by the songwriter, not Ken Jeong, and I frankly prefer that voice), he's kind of a wet flop. Not my least-favourite, Pipp has that tied up, but yeah. And I agree that the most interesting parts of him are all tied to Phyllis.
Still, even I wouldn't wish the insult he's had in MYM of appearing like three times, and only one of those proper (one was a role anyone could have filled in, another a one-shot silent cameo), and not at all in TYT. They could have turned him around, or done something with the fact that Sunny and Hitch have known him since forever, and surely must care about him on some level. But, no.
She's the most transparent plot device for sure, basically just a way to facilitate the diversity theming in the quickest manner possible and which totally breaks the mise-en-scene, with how terrible all the gadgets are. I cannot fully separate how she is in the film from how I wrote her in my one (to date…?
) G5 fic, but it's telling how she and Sunny never interact, or that something like 3/4's of her dialogue are in the first half.
This. I've had a lot of time to think about the film's structure and pacing, and despite 9 of its 10 characters being introduced by the 31-minute mark (of an 83-min film without credits), the shortening of space and cramming of material really does a number on the stories of… well, all three royal pegasi, but especially Pipp, for how she is just "on the journey" after her concert is ruined, is converted is a few non-sentences in the flower field, and thereafter has the odd social media or music quip. Hell, not counting her pop song, she has less dialogue than Phyllis (on a bored weekend some time after the film was new, I did a dialogue line/word count of all the characters, to see what trends I could observe).
At the time, I made the observation to a few people that you could have effectively combined Pipp and Haven into one character. Make this hybrid the older sibling instead, have just one or two lines explaining how she recently became the leading princess, and pretty much the rest of the combining writes itself. She gets far more inner conflict that develops, and Haven's offscreen shift gets proper weight. Boom. Balancing even ten characters in a short film with as many threads as this (and with Arygle worked and Alphabittle appearing all of 18 minutes before credits, it's almost functionally eight), is dicey, take any opening to combine that strengths your material you get. Not like Haven as-is was ever going to shift any merch.
Nothing to add on Izzy, except she suffered by far the sharpest drop from this film to MYM/TYT, so it's perhaps for the best you won't be looking at any of that (and also had the most distracting voice replacement, though Kimono Glenn had the best one here, to be fair). And really showing how great it was that they nailed her here.
It's kinda funny, how drawn I've found myself to Alphabittle and his part of the movie despite how objectionable a lot of it is on a writing level. To whit: while a lot of the film's writing changed over development and production, his section of the film was totally different as late as March 2020 – eighteen months before the film opened, and when some of the animation had already been done – as can be seen in this colour script in the third-last row:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-3OV5eQbJITM/YVn5tbNQnQI/AAAAAAADjLs/7KjyFEqB0BU8pyr94RM9rNM2BzX3Uyq8ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1080/244525122_146593784352582_1420334397382328433_n.jpg
At that point, he was still a blind unicorn sage and had a cave in the back of the shop. I don't know the full story of why it was changed, but apart from the writing, you can tell it was last-minute by the pony rigs evidently not being designed for the DDR game, and Sunny getting far more snarky for just this one scene. Plus Alphabittle in the scenes beyond the DDR game is far closer to his original personality, both in being a figurehead and being caring, if still gruff (his original character was a kind of will zen cooky type). I've got plenty more on him and this cut part of the movie from various disclosed storyboards-production concept art of the film's crew, if you're curious.
[I also thought that, with this rewrite, they missed a chance for an extra transition on Hitch's arc, who has the only true character arc of the five, by not having him be the one instead of having Sunny do everything, and it would have really shown how much he's on her side now and being a really touching cornerstone to their friendship. Have a brief aside in the prologue that shows how Hitch is really good at Rubik's Cubes, so when Sunny gets her idea, a look with Hitch is all it takes. Maybe she still does the talking, maybe Hitch does and we get more comedy, but when Alphabittle switches it to the DDR game, after his fiasco at the concert, they and the audience get really sweaty. And here, on top of Sunny getting despondent at about to lose after the first two rounds and Hitch feeling like he's failed her, Pipp's coaching would mean a lot (and pay off his bad dancing, requiring just some adjustment to let him get into the rhythm). They win, she hugs him for what he did for them, and every moment they have for the rest of the film gains extra power. Boom.]
And yet, I still kind of like Alphabittle. Phil Lamarr's voice helps a lot (his natural voice, believe it or not), as does his design, but it mostly comes dow to the grace notes you mention and the interesting personal history one can infer from him. It's telling that, for such a minor character, he's been the focal one in a decent chunk of my shortlist of Personal Best G5 Fanfics. He's been done especially dirty thus far in MYM, alas, when he has showed up, but what can you do.
The last point I'll just say is that, this being a MLP film, and me being first and foremost an animated film ghost, not a tv show one, there are lots of particulars here that just scratch my itch. From the ability to have a short moment with no dialogue where the production values can make it really sing (for all the writing of Sunny's darkest hour in the lighthouse is a shambles, the cinematography and staging really endears it to me), to moments where the orchestra can really swell (I unironically adore the campfire scene, both for the lantern bit and my favourite moment of Hitch pledging to help too – the music also makes the mis-credits stinger despite knowing now how much the following content botches the return of earth pony magic), to so many other little niceties that can only really happen in a film, both in the writing and the production values. Lot of politics and cooks to compete with, aye, but they scratch my itch something fierce.
Thanks for this blog, buddy. It's largely for making me feel mixed-to-positive about G5 again in a nostalgic way after a year and change of drek, but it's a fascinating thing in its successes and failures, and one I still feel compelled to root for on a minor level, as an individual object if not as part of a story and universe going backwards and forwards.
And, for being the first (and for the foreseeable future, only) CG animated film made in Ireland. Because the home troops matter.
5744315
The writers may have had some minor hand in some of it, but the broad decision was fully Hasbro, if with some caveats. In the first six months the crew were working just another G4 movie (this was before the 2017 movie had even aired). Then it was a G4 reboot, the stuff that came from the leaks, where Twilight was now an earth pony, Fluttershy a unicorn and Pinkie a pegasi.
Finally, it settled into being a generation-latter "continuation", and while Boulder Media certainly would have made story suggestions along the way (the directors did get Story By credits, after all), and were given freedom to do plenty of exploration (the characters designs are 100% theirs, nothing from Hasbro in America or the toy division), the large-scale decisions about the story and timeline and generation would not have been something they would have had any personal authorship on.
So, yeah, pretty Hasbro. As is the smartphone thing, even if the design of the things came from Boulder Media, and specifically Lea Dabssi (aka "Imalou").
5744322
"The writers may have had some minor hand in some of it, but the broad decision was fully Hasbro, if with some caveats..."
Darn it, Hasbro. If you really are hemorrhaging money, then perhaps you can take a chance by leaving some things alone, like a generation of MLP that never needed a sequel?
5744322
For starters, having a long time to toy with the idea, especially of watching at least the movie to see whether good outweighed bad. But more recently, I've not felt very happy about being so disconnected and unable to talk about pony beyond nostalgia revisits. In conjunction with both a radical (and somewhat strained) overhaul of my writing, and a broader uptick in my workload, I've also been getting more experimental with my Netflix watching. Just for anything that'd been sitting around my watchlist or on my mind for so long*.
* One weird quirk I have is a tendency to start putting off lots of tasks if one task gets obsessive.
If it hadn't been for a recent chance to go nuts and binge on stuff I'd been putting off, this might have been delayed even more than it already was.
That would have been fine as a writing solution. Either way, going full A.U. would have provided much more freedom to the project.
I think I've said this in another context, but it's one of those problems that could've been fixed with a bit more expositional dialogue. Not even necessarily much. The scene where Zipp shows them the broken window would have been a good candidate, as you could provide background imagery to cut corners if necessary.
Yes, I think this is the blind spot of a fan judging things as a devotee and not as a dilettante. And forgetting that there's a broader audience beyond their clique.
My attitude is that this sort of adaptation expansion is fine for bonus details - details that it'd be nice to know and rewarding for a devoted fan, just not essential to enjoying the original story - but in poor taste when made a basic story requirement, since it effectively alienates casual viewers who go in expecting something more straightforward and upfront.
True, that does depend on context - anyone dumb enough to watch an obvious sequel without watching the first story, and then to complain about getting confused, has only got themselves to blame - but in this case, A New Generation definitely feels incomplete in its own right. I mean, these aren't cute side details, these are core aspects motivating the entire plot.
I'd picked up scanty details through the electronic grapevine, aye. It shouldn't have been done like that anyway, but the fact that the delayed answers weren't even all that compelling just rubs salt in the wound.
I see what you mean, but I take a different conclusion from it. I think in some ways the tight plotting and geographical compactness helps with the light-hearted cosiness of it all. It doesn't come across as a sweeping epic, at least not in execution, but more like a lark that jumps from one location to another, giving the impression that these are more like disgruntled neighbours than anything genuinely serious.
That lowers the stakes, of course, and the tonal mismatch is like my point about the segregationist backstory requiring different societies than the not-terribly-damning ones we actually meet in the movie, and who convert surprisingly readily. Although on balance I think it fits better with the characters to keep things fluffy, it also makes the broader Equestria connection look even less relevant.
HISS!
Whatever else you can say about Zephyr Heights' TV screen addiction and bad puns (Pony/Sony, geddit!?), it's at least interestingly off. The city has more concepts going for it than the relatively sleepy Maretime Bay - traditional armoured guards, grandiosity, shiny aesthetics, being built on a ruin, the cloudy backdrop evocative of Cloudsdale, and yes, the obscene square-eyed citizenry. It's like an awful hybrid of Cloudsdale, Canterlot, Las Pegasus, and Equestria Girls as designed by Vignette Valencia, so it at least has the appeal of a broken mirror. Maretime Bay can't help but feel a little "stock" by comparison.
Really? I wouldn't have guessed it, going in. Even little things like tail flicks and ear twitches?
Ah, the other consideration...
Ignorant as I am of backstage developments, the performance at the front feels that way too. The movie was at least a confident foot forward: the back-and-forth nature of the streaming comes across as someone losing their bottle.
Given your past comments on G. M. Berrow's style, I am now making much of the simplicity of it all given her involvement.
A New Generation is a squeaky clean movie, which adds to the easygoing tone. At least it avoids the crasser pitfalls.
What bugs me more than the mere presence of social media - which at least has a plot function in the Zephyr Heights scenes - is the way this technology's just artlessly plugged into a movie about quadrupeds with no thought as to the logistics. I spent most of the movie wondering if they were ever going to address the elephant in the room, seeing as they've A) firmly kept the unicorns, the most versatile class, segregated, and B) explicitly removed magic from the setting to begin with.
To be fair, this is me we're talking about, as someone whose tastes in music get no more sophisticated than "I like what I like, OK?" And who can't remember any of the song names.
Since pony had long since been invaded by pop songs (especially EqG, where they're unavoidable), if anything the songs did a much better job of making this feel like a version of the old show than most anything else did. What can I say? They were Disneyesque bubbly fun and I smiled when I listened to them. Gotta be doing something right, ya?
With the possible exception of Hitch, she's simply the one character with the most stakes in the plot, and you know me: I've always liked my heroes to be somewhat flawed, crazy, and/or well-intentioned extremists following their own initiative, however misguidedly. Add in our glimpse of her personal family connection and the vulnerably desperate edge to her questing, and she just works for me.
I might have been spoiled in their cases, as most reviews praised them back in the day. So ironically, they landed roughly where I was expecting them to: it's just my expectations had been raised by spoilers beforehand.
Essentially yes. The golden trio.
And the best moments, like how he bravely rescues the child and gives him to his "mother".
Ah, the Cadence/Shining Armor syndrome, eh?
I find it hard to imagine I'd pursue G5 beyond the movie, as I've yet to hear anything all that impressive about Tell Your Tale or Make Your Mark. Just seeing the movie at all was a tough call, and that received the most consistent praise.
This in a series perfectly capable of throwing us big, bad, imposing villains of dark grandiosity. I'm hesitant to say a full-blown mega-villain would have been needed for a film this capable of being fairly nuanced in a no-villains mode, but Sprout feels like a poor compromise between the two.
He's almost pathetically funny, but I never crossed that last step to actually laugh at him, so he comes across as a misfire.
Still, I'd take him over that ridiculous Cozy Glow any day of the week. (Not a high hurdle to jump, but I stand by my statement: at least Sprout makes sense in-universe).
Funny, what's weird is that, between Sprout being a childhood playmate and Phyllis egging on his ambitions, you'd think they were building up some thematic connection between him and "I'm-going-to-prove-my-Dad-right-if-it-kills-me" Sunny Starscout. I don't think even the movie noticed what it was doing.
I'm reminded of DannyJ's criticisms of the defences in "Sparkle's Seven" on his review blog.
I spotted the exact moment when the movie showed the frame you used for The Endeavour Within, and I was like, "I know that pic!"
It likely would have worked better if they'd been depicted as a double act, preferably as early as possible. That, or just cutting back on the cast for economy (or, as you suggested, merging two character types to downsize differently).
Back in the day, I was utterly confused as to what made Izzy so endearing to people, since virtually none of the reviewers pinned down a concrete detail about her beyond "she's like Pinkie!" Watching her in action certainly helped. Her introduction alone cemented her as the child to Sunny's minder, where she seems not just ignorant but constitutionally incapable of understanding that anypony could wish her ill.
It's hard for me to remember specific Izzy moments the same way I remember Hitch's more bizarre ones, but then we get to Bridlewood and her song with the mad arts and crafts projects, and her actually explaining things to the others for once. Plus before that, the campfire scene wherein she gives the movie its "d'awww" moment.
It's also hard on analysis to pin down what makes her work so well. She's just sweet all round.
That would definitely explain why his scene feels so... mad libs, for want of a better phrase. Probably because it's Izzy's hometown, but I didn't bat an eye at it. Just enjoyed it as stupidly funny in the moment. Although it makes too much sense that he'd been intended as some kind of grizzled oracle figure, given his greying design.
Sure, hit me.
That would have been a great arrangement.
Partly, I suspect it's how his dance contest somehow feels more dangerous than stealing a queen's crown. Dude's more impressive than the actual "villain". Then there's his odd collection of doodads, his implied Rubik's cube level of intellectual prowess, his also-implied winning streak, and his general eccentricity.
If it wasn't for Queen Haven single-hoofedly breaking out of jail offscreen and roughing it in the wild with the Guard on her tail, Alphabittle'd doubtlessly be the coolest leader figure by default.
I'm starting to run out of steam, so I'll at least admit I didn't think about the cinematography all that much, much less for Sunny's lighthouse scene as you mentioned. Perhaps I'd notice it instantly on a rewatch.
No problem. One of the nice things about being a latecomer is getting the chance to give something a second wind, so to speak.
May there be plenty more!
Oh gosh, yes, I remember the Main Six with their tribes swapped. Earth pony Twilight is an incredibly bizarre concept to contemplate.
yeah, this is about one-to-one for my thoughts, albeit better worded than mine
now, if y'all will excuse me, imma go listen to Fit Right In again, it's a banger(rap segment and all(hell, the rap segment is one of the best parts imo))
5744380
Yes, we need more rapping Izzy in our lives.
5744333
Oh, perhaps I didn't express myself clearly enough. In isolation, I actually quite like it being a small world only a couple of miles wide that is rather domestic and cosy, not extending beyond what a child might imagine at playtime (I have compared it to Trolls and Smurfs: The Lost Village in that regard before for a reason, after all). The film's overall fluffy tone is certainly a good fit for this; it's just that the particulars of the story and especially the background context very much aren't.
Also, related: while the relative lack of pop culture references and slang in the dialogue doesn't date this, the plot and story being such a diversity-focused one marks it very clearly as another post-Zootopia movie, a timestamp to the late 2010s/early 2020s that will soon leave most media from here staler than gone-off cheese.
Curious. In most prior cases when discussing different episodes, you've often leaned more towards preferring something bland and uninteresting but functional over something interesting but broken.
To clarify: by pop songs I particularly mean the non-diegetic numbers written outside of the book musical songwriters' work included for commercial reasons, meaning Pipp's song, the jazzy number over the DDR game and at the very end of the credits, and the other pop song in the middle of the credits. Of course Daniel Ingram's work, and the character-sung numbers here, do use poppy tunes, but they aren't commercial mandated tunes by any stretch, and there's a big difference.
Ah yes. Hard to fully separate the prior knowledge going in from one’s initial experience.
A part of me (you may call it schadenfreude, even if I wouldn't) would like to see your take offhand on just one sampling of it, both for your audacity on how basic its failures are and how much that'll make you appreciate this one working in quite a lot of ways, if not nearly all of them. But considering how often I've warned against them, I do concur with this choice, yeah. Apart from anything else, the technical execution is so sloppy it undermines all but the very rare actually solid moment in the writing.
While I'm sure many were more cagey about spoilers than yourself, and I agree that she’s not as easy or as interesting to analyse as what made Hitch work, I read plenty of takes – and wrote one myself – that said more on her then that. I’ll chalk it up to a mixture of the ones you read and which facts stuck in the mind, something we don’t always have full control over.
I realised on my last watch how the scene of them running around town dodging the splatterpaults is totally pointless, as they literally end up back on the Main Street they started at where Izzy gets caught in the unicorn trap. And not having that would have meant less evidence for the viewer on how much of a joke it all is. Considering how many effective character moments got cut for pacing (one chief one being Haven gently asking of Zipp has something she wants to say prior to Pipp's big number), it's an oddity.
Alas, the stored link I had to the storyboard artist's website for the particular scene I had in mind isn't public anymore. So, my summary notes I took at the time will have to do:
This points to Haven not necessarily being arrested earlier, and a little more focus on Zipp’s “becoming queen one day” plotline, rather than it being a minor character detail. And gives context to Haven coming around on her own too. Obviously in an earlier enough draft when a decent few plot details differed, but fascinating nonetheless.
Three of this artist's other scenes are still up: an extract from the campfire, the three foals playing in the opening, and the crystals joining together in the climax. The former two are near-identical, but the last one has a number of small but notable differences.
Another board artist has the first half of the action climax which shows Alphabittle's earlier design and personality in a few small but notable ways too.
And finally, as a bonus, two scenes from totally different drafts of the film, in animatic form, rather than still images form. (they're on the board artists's LinkedIn, so you might an account there to view them). The first is an action setpiece of stealing the pegasus crystal (using Chicken Run background music as temp score, amusingly), which the artist says was rushed for a screening and was already clearly not going to survive the next round of rewrites. The second is of Argyle and teenage Sunny trying and failing to campaign for their cause in town, leading into an earlier song not matching any we got. This was when they were still fiddling around with Argyle possibly being in prison during the movie rather than having gotten a Disney Death between the prologue and main film.
Both these scenes happen in earlier drafts when the ponies hadn't lost their magic generations prior, but their crystals were dying during the course of the film and threatening so: also, this early, Maritime Bay was apparently surrounded by a wall keeping every pony else out… yeah, glad they scaled back on that symbolism!
Most other boards tend to be similar to the final scene, just with extra or different beats, but I'll dig more of the most interesting ones up, if you're curious.
Since day one, I've always headcanon'd that Cloudpuff got her out (hey, they're sidekick animals in an animated movie, it'd fit). And that he was able to track the group (or Hitch, more specifically), and thus how Haven caught up so efficiently.
Virtually any moment without dialogue for even a short burst has this in spades too; other instances include Sunny being sad and alone after Hitch's "I'm the last friend you got in this town. You really want to lose me too?", ending with her quiet "I wish you were here, Dad." See also pushing the portrait back together at the end.
Though, I'll admit, I too took rewatches to really appreciate the staging and timing and such of these moments too; once you know the story and incident offhand, you can appreciate the rest. Films are designed to reward repeat viewings, after all.
Generally speaking, I agree with all your points. The G4 connection is not doing the plot any favors, and Izzy is great. The only thing that made me facepalm was the alicorn thing at the end. In a movie of ease, of contrivances, it felt the least difficult and most contrived.
In particular, the switch to 3D animation did make it look better. There's so many little details that make the world richer. Even the characters having little accessories and flourishes adds a lot.
I haven't watched much of the show. I tried, but something about Hasbro's cheapness—replacing every voice actor—left a sour taste in my mouth that I couldn't overcome. (Despite predicting it in my initial review, the reveal still stung.)
Without the baggage of a previous generation, without corporate meddling, it could have been better than it is. Taken on it's own merits, however, the movie is good.
5744512
It didn't bother me so much, but the alicornification felt like another example of the unfortunate connection to G4 muddying the waters. I cut them a little slack because it's different in form: magical constructs rather than actual changes to the physical body. Taken on its own, it's a straightforward "three tribes united" symbol for the one pony who actually believed in that from the beginning. Put in G4's vaguely magic-creating scenario, though, and it raises a lot of baggage that doesn't fit nearly as well.
I'm less bothered by that than by the relatively lacklustre reception it's been getting quality-wise. I scarcely joke when I say I'm waiting for G6 to see if that's going to be any better.
5744419
Something else we can ding the G4 connection for, I think. Toss in the (ancient?) legacy, and it seems bigger than it really needs to.
I'm a tad more sympathetic to that as a general "we can all be friends" moral rather than anything parochially political. Apart from Sprout, the film lacks much in terms of satirical bite.
Eh? I generally prefer "bland and inoffensive" over "interesting but goddamn annoying". I know that because I sometimes see people profess the opposite approach. No idea where you're getting your particular comparison from.
I think you forgot to complete a senten
Unlikely, as you surmise. I'll complain about something in an otherwise enjoyable franchise, but I don't deliberately wade into bad franchises for the sole purpose of tearing them apart. It's like mud-wrestling pigs: you don't achieve much and you feel dirtier for doing it.
Izzy would like to know if you need help finding the rest of those pesky words.
Like what DannyJ said about the School of Friendship. My goodness, I'm getting nostalgic...
Ha, that Fluttershy gene spread far, didn't it?
I wonder how many people have done just that for this particular one. The challenge would be getting over the "forgettable" aspect; I don't see it standing the test of time, to be brutally honest.
Ah, there we go.
It does make it hard to be completely impartial, but since Hitch and Izzy are great regardless, I don't think it ruined anything in practice.
General impressions, aye. I'd be the first to admit my memory isn't flawless. Or I would, so long as I remembered my cue to speak.