The End of Neighs (Again) ...Or is it? · 1:40am May 2nd, 2013
Given the hivemind-telepathy rate of news transmission in the fandom - not least among we author types - I'll presume you've heard.
Equestria Girls Synopsis
When a crown is stolen from the Crystal Empire, Twilight Sparkle pursues the thief into an alternate world where she transforms into a teenage girl who must survive her biggest challenge yet… high school. With help from her new friends who remind her of Ponyville’s Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy, she embarks upon a quest to find the crown and change the destiny of these two parallel worlds.
From Cineplex.com via Equestria Daily
Now I'm just going to copypaste my initial response here:
"Twilight Sparkle pursues the thief into an alternate world where she transforms into a teenage girl who must survive her biggest challenge yet… high school."
Because a fallen eternal bent on killing the sun, a trickster god who the immortal goddess of the world can't stop, a changeling queen with army at hoof, and unicorn wizard who enslaved an entire kingdom single-hoofed with dark power are all challenges obviously secondary to high school.
Unamused / crass dismissal aside, there are some things we can take away from this as world-builders and canon-nitpickers.
- Equestrian magic jives with interdimensional portals, which can go to or from Equestria itself
- Equestria is now ascribed to the multiverse theory of dimensions (via parallel world)
- This thief may or may not be from the world in question, and thus "human" or not
- Twilight ventures into this parallel world alone (this is important)
- Parallel selves of her friends are found (though apparently not herself, unless her parallel self is the thief? Spoilers?)
Now then, let's take stock of this, shall we? Because when it comes to vicious over-analysis and extrapolation of minutia, this fandom has its shit together.
Equestrian magic and portals, parallel worlds and the multiverse theory...these are things that are basically built into commonly accepted fanon already. There are hundreds of stories where humans (and other things) fall into Equestria (or out of it) by thinking with portals. These things can be tossed aside as nothing serious.
Now for the more significant bits.
The 'thief' may be "human". Which I put into quotes because based on the character art released for the movie, complete with wings, the world of Equestria Girls is demonstrably not our own. It is, at best, a parallel world in between Equestria and our earth, accordingly holding aspects of both (and I think we know which parent universe provided the recessive genes...)
The most important piece, though, is that Twilight Sparkle enters this universe alone. This little tidbit is a goddess-send for fanon and canon alike, because it means only one character has to shut up about it for all of it to go away. (This may even be intentional, in order to insulate Hasbro's golden goose against untoward backlash from the new property.)
Now, while in that world, Twilight finds parallels of her friends (and other characters evidently, but such is the nature of parallel worlds). This allows them to ground in the series, maintain (more or less) the same character slate, but allows canon and fanon to completely disregard everything they say and do. The only canon implications we need to bear in mind are the actions of Twilight - the ones in Equestria, that is. Even her actions, in the parallel world, are just as easily written off.
All of this could be explained away in canon as such: Twilight jumps into a portal to recover an artifact, comes back with said artifact, closes the portal and says nothing about it aside "you really don't want to know". Then she shudders, has a long shower, and gets back to flying into trees under Rainbow's instruction.
And done. /thread over. Sunshine and rainbows with a chance of chocolate showers.
Now, of course, I'm not promising it will all just go away like that; I have no idea. But in that same vein, it's also possible - if by current appearances unlikely - that Equestria Girls could actually end up being good pony*.
So I suppose the takeaway is: keep calm and canter on. We (arguably) survived Twilicorn, and this is something that might be easily handwaved entirely, so I damn well expect us to survive this.
* - Good pony insofar as non-ponies can be good pony, which is pretty far based on certain fics.
I'm sorry but the entire concept just sounds stupid and ugh.
KEEP CALM!?
derpicdn.net/media/W1siZiIsIjIwMTMvMDMvMTEvMDdfMzNfNThfMjk2XzI2ODAwMV9fVU5PUFRfX3NhZmVfcmFyaXR5X2ltYWdlX21hY3JvX3Nob2NrZWQucG5nIl1d/268001__safe_rarity_image-macro_shocked.PNG
THIS IS A DISASTER IN THE MAKING!
IT WILL BE THE END OF FANON.
IT WILL BE THE START OF SUES OF UNHOLY PROPORTIONS!
WE'LL BE DROWNED WITHIN A CESSPOOL OF SHITTY CROSSOVER THAT'LL RENDER ANY CREATIVE HEADCANON MOOT, REPLACED BY A MONSTER THAT DESIRES MONOTONE CONFORMITY THROUGHOUT THE FANFICTION COMMUNITY!
THE TAINT NEARS US! GALLOP FOR THE HILLS!
Well, I was about to break down and cry like a fanboy, but thanks to your reasoning I actually feel better about her meeting alternate versions of her friends (as opposed to them just going with her), since yes, it does seem to mean we'll have an easier time just pretending this whole thing never happened.
Yes, it could perfectly well be good, even fantastic.
I do not at all expect it to be.
Ugh. I know I shouldn't judge something like that but...much as I enjoy the same old high school trope, I did NOT want to see it from them. Come on, guys...you KNOW you can do effing better. But whatever.
I've been thinking of Equestria Girls as sort of in the line of the Dragon Ball Z movies; divergent at a certain point along the timeline and therefore not canon. If nothing else, it will help me rationalize it if it is terrible.
And, though I may get crucified for saying this, I thought the plot summary sounded good
I am ready, bring forth the torches.
I have nothing particularly constructive to add, but I'm happy that you wrote this.
I maintain that I'll reserve judgment for the moment. I certainly think it has the potential to be a train wreck, but I personally feel like the staff has averted a few of those already and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. And I'll probably do my best to like it anyway, no matter what happens.
1048263 Hey, I thought it sounded pretty good too. Though most of that is because I realized it was saying "this is going to be far easier to sweep under the nearest rug than you all thought".
Already forgot about it.
#drinkingcider_notgivinafuck
EDIT: For real though, you're a hero. That line right there just made me more ok with this than I already was. Considering I didn't know about it at all... That puts me into the positive of "Ok".
A very nicely-done summary and short analysis. I like how you limited the speculation based on the limited info. Thoughtful and useful for drawing some general conclusions!
I've thought, since day one, that this is a loser of a project- not just because we don't know who's doing it in terms of key frames, inbetweening or even writing and storyboarding, but because it's the wrong cast for a fickle market. Trying to bend a lot of nice, friendly, genuinely good characters to sell morphodite dolls to teenagers has to be one of the worse abuses of IP I've seen in a while. I've just sort of ignored it as a disaster in the making, and I notice that NO ONE who might be associated with it, even the ones addicted to attention *koffTarakoff* have mentioned a thing. (Then again, I've heard yes and no on the same VAs, so...)
I mean... I'm sort of interested, but only in a sort of "how bad will it be?" way. I do find it odd that some people have eagerly jumped onto mocking the fandom for going crazy over this, because... I haven't seen that. I can't fathom people being excited or supportive of it, but... I just tend to shrug, and the only people making a lot of noise seem to be the ones who think it's ironically funny to mock people getting worked up by acting as if they were getting worked up. But that sort of falls flat when only the mockers are making noise.
TL;DR, EqG won't be anything important, and I even get that vibe from Hasbro, with the lack of pre-release hype.
There's one trope that someone on EqD pointed out- this is straight Wizard of Oz crap. "Auntie Celestia, you were there, and you were there, and you were there, and so was Tot- I mean, Spike! Granny Smith, you made Sloppy Applejoes!"
To be honest, I'm a touch scared. Granted, I will probably watch it (because if this actually comes to pass I will give it a fair shot) with tall glass of something alcoholic nearby so that if it does turn out to be bad, I have mind bleach ready to go. I kind of get the vibe that Hasbro really does not want to do this, but someone keeps going "No, this is a good idea. Really."