Fixing "Equestria Girls", Part 1 · 5:45am Jul 9th, 2013
I've now sat through Equestria Girls twice, and I have to say, both times I've come away fairly disappointed. The film is visually interesting, and many of the jokes are well-crafted, but the plot doesn't hold up under the scrutiny I would give to a tissue after sneezing in it. I'd love to know under what constraints the studio was laboring, because this really doesn't feel like it's up to the rest of the standards of the show. It's not even what I would consider "an average kid's film."
* How does Sunset Shimmer know about the Element of Magic, much less what it looks like? The last time she was in Equestria, there were only five known elements, and they were all embodied as stones in the Castle of Two Sisters.
* Even if she'd known what it looked like, what does that imply about the world she chose to inhabit? The Element of Magic was forged out of the activations of the other five Elements, which took on their current appearances based on the current bearers; without that initial friendship push, there would have been no in-world Element of Magic to duplicate.
* How does Sunset Shimmer successfully navigate the halls of the Crystal Palace without alerting the guards? The mirror was under Canterlot when she last went through it, and the Crystal Empire hadn't yet returned.
* Why do Rainbow Dash and Applejack -- the fastest flyer in Equestria and Ms. Expert Lasso -- let Sunset Shimmer escape? Why do we not see Twilight cast spells against Sunset Shimmer to impede her progress?
* Why is Twilight depicted as being the same age as Sunset Shimmer when we know that Sunset Shimmer is Celestia's previous student?
* Why would Celestia forbid the Mane Six from going through the portal "because of unknown damage," when it was obvious from context that her former student had been operating there without a leash for at least two-and-a-half years?
* Why would Dash and Pinkie, or any of the others, bother listening to such an order when one of their friends -- and Equestria itself -- was in trouble?
* Why would the principal of a high school decide that the tiara that mysteriously appeared on the front lawn outside the school would work as the reward for the Princess of the Fall Formal?
* Why didn't Twilight just say "yeah, that was mine, I can describe it for you" and claim it out of Lost and Found?
* Failing that, why didn't Twilight Sparkle sneak into Celestia's office at night, steal back the crown, and return home with it? Why would she volunteer to run for student body president of an alien school with two days to solve a mystery, when she was perfectly willing to break into the Canterlot Royal Library to use Star Swirl's hourglass?
* For that matter, why didn't Twilight just go back through the portal in the evenings instead of sleeping on a stack of books in a library where she might have gotten caught? Are the beds in the Crystal Empire that uncomfortable?
* Where was Twilight's analog at Canterlot High School? There's reference to a twin across town with an identical dog, so it's likely that that world's Twilight was never encouraged to go out and make friends, but why assume "you have a twin" instead of simply assuming that was Twilight?
* For that matter, where was Sunset Shimmer's in-world analog?
* How did Sunset Shimmer fake texts without stealing somebody's phone?
* Are the Mane Six Five so dim as to not check headers on e-mails to see if they've been forged? "Reply-To" is not a secret weapon, people.
* Is it realistic to believe that a pep rally involving costume pony ears and tails could overcome a million hits on YouTube?
* Why would Sunset Shimmer bother with cutting up photos when we know she knows how to make a YouTube video? Doesn't she have a cracked copy of Photoshop just like everyone else?
* Why didn't Princess Vice-Principal Luna take the failed attempt at pinning the blame on Twilight as evidence that Sunset Shimmer shouldn't be allowed to run? Is she really so much more naive than Equestria's counterpart?
* Why do Pinkie's "hunches" sound like cheap attempts at exposition to bypass lengthy recaps?
* What school board lets two sisters be Principal and Vice Principal?
* Why didn't Sunset Shimmer stack the ballot box? She pulled every other dirty trick.
* How did Sunset Shimmer activate Equestria's Element of Magic without being attuned to it? We know from "Spike, you're Rainbow Dash now" that the Elements are at least marginally connected to specific individuals.
* A horde of mind-controlled teenagers, two demon-wannabes, and one Element of Magic... against four alicorns and potentially one reformed draconequus. Really? This is a contest?
* Why would Twilight opt to leave Sunset Shimmer, known traitor to Equestria, in an alien world rather than force her to return to face criminal charges?
* Why would Canterlot High School's governing body let three rebellious high school students with a history of anti-social behavior rebuild the front of their administration building and not just call the police?
* For that matter, if magic is unknown in the world of Canterlot High School before the arrival of Twilight and Sunset, how can we expect them to behave with the discovery of demons, magic, ponies?
* What's Celestia's plan for two-and-a-half years from now, when human Pinkie Pie comes through the portal looking for Twilight?
* What's Celestia's plan for two-and-a-half years from now, when the rest of the human world comes streaming through the portal because they've discovered magic and want a piece of it for themselves?
I'm not even going to try to touch the character design in the film; it's problematic, but I'm not an artist and I'm not a geneticist. I'm a writer, and my eyes were on the plot, characterization, and setting. The third was about as good as one could expect for "set up an entirely new environment in ninety minutes," but the second and especially the first were so flimsy that I really have problems with how it all came together.
Because it probably wouldn't be that hard for Luna to check the names against the school records. But I suppose she could have broken into the box and changed out the ballots. So I guess I don't really know.
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I don't recall how such things worked at my high school, since that was many years ago, but all she had to do was break a lock -- assuming it was locked -- pull out a wad of ballots, and put in another wad of ballots with her name check-marked instead of Twilight's. I suppose you could say that she was more focused on "steal the crown once it was on Twilight's head" at that point, but if Twilight had lost, would she have demanded a recount or tried to take it from Sunset by force? Waiting for official channels would have taken until past the closing of the portal, meaning Twilight would have had to do something almost as drastic as casting the Want-It-Need-It spell.
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Whereas I haven't even attended high school yet. Yeah, they failed the plot line structure in this movie.
Perfect Plot Line: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Acceptable Plot Line: --~--~--~--~--~--~--~---~~---~~--~--~--~--~--~---~~---~~---~~--~--~--~--~--~---~~-
Equestria Girls Plot Line: ---~~~~~v~~^^v^^~~~~v^v^v^v~~~~^^v^^~~v~~~~~---
Or at least somewhere along those lines.
Hey, came up with a few answers to some of your questions.
Because Celestia is allowed to have multiple students.
You point out in a future note that they elements are in some way a part of the ponies. Thus them going would cause similar problems to the crown.
They look the same. Sunset stoll the High School one to replace it with Twilight’s and was going to take it back.
Because the copy is identical. The more apt problem is why she didn’t bring the copy and say there had been a mix up.
It was stolen once, maybe it was someplace “safer.”
Because… uh… maybe she didn’t want to risk being seen or blocked from coming back?
Because technically they are identical, Pinkie might know they are the same but did not completely understand the situation. Or maybe she did and wanted to confirm something or make a comment but didn’t want to revel her understanding at that point in time.
Same place as Twilight’s, somewhere else because there was no princess to requisition her from her normal life.
These are basically the same question. Given how often people lose phones, or make it easy for information to be stolen it wouldn’t be difficult. Especially with a grew up with it not properly paranoid generation. This actually happens in schools.
Because snips and snails are dumb and probably did it, that’s also the joke.
The same reason she gave twilight a chance to explain, she needed proof.
Because they were.
Don’t get me started on the school system in America. State wide decisions occur because some soccer mom reads something in a magazine. Seriously, it pisses psychologists off. The board is usually made up of people within the community and a government official or two, plus a few teachers (though I don’t know what the restrictions are). It leads to stupid ideas based on no evidence or standards. Honestly all you have to do is make them think it is more efficient or better for the same price and they would go along with it. Also who knows how it’s run there.
More votes than students would have been suspicious. Also by that point she may have just decided screw it, I’ll just take it when she has it.
It didn’t activate properly, also Spike was a dragon and you could argue a species bias. Also she might know how to activate it where as Spike did not, though I agree it was kind of weird.
The ability to mind control others, two deamons, one super empowered demon, and a lack of knowledge of discord.
I actually agree with this but it was pointed out to me that she had spent a lot of time in that world building a life. Without dominion over others she may not have wanted to return. Also, how else will they launch a series about Sunset learning the lessons of friendship.
The same reason kidnappers and attempted murderers (diamond dogs and dragons) are allowed free in equestria. It’s a kids show. This isn’t really unexpected or different from FiM.
A party, duh! It’s not like Human Pinkie is a magical element.
“Don’t ask such questions unless you want a sequel.
Also they could pull a stargate and have them pop out into instant death or a prison for processing and return.
Thank goodness Piquo Pie was on the case--I've resolved not to watch the movie again until it comes out on Blu-Ray. While I did enjoy the film overall (I was actually looking forward to it), I think I came out of it with a mindset inverse to yours.
Years of Western Stock Plots (not to mention three years of FiM which has its own plotholes if you look at it funny) actually allowed me to mentally patch most of the holes in this, but at the same time I knew it could be nitpicked to death very easily. Characterization was okay (wish there'd been more of it) but I'm with you, Celestia was... weird. The setting, though? The one thing I was really looking forward to (more in a world-sense than the whole "high school" thing)? Gave me almost nothing to work with to the point where I felt nearly insulted. Keep in mind I am not usually someone who needs a whole bunch of worldbuilding to be entertained and I know they were working with maybe 80 minutes with their hands tied, but still, wow. Way to make me do all the work myself, movie. :P
Anyway, it got the spirit of pony right IMO, even if it's an utter cluster--erm, hodgepodge. Yeah, that's it. Hodgepodge. I'd hold it up to the standards of the more-experimental/less-focused first season, maybe? But that's as far as I can go.
That said, looking at this blog's title, I eagerly await what you've got cooked up. :D
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I believe we decided this was a "goat parade" in pony parlance. No offense.
And yes, there is a Part 2, once I have a few minutes to gather my thoughts.
It's this, really. It's not that I can't fill in all the plot holes. It's that I have to take the time to do, often and in multiple ways. I didn't go into the film with the intent to not like it; I did my level best to not have any expectations, really. And, truth be told, I came away from the first viewing with a general sense that, for a kid's cartoon summer movie, it wasn't that bad. It's just that, on a second viewing, I started to really see just how flimsy it was, and how much of the enjoyment was my own patch-jobs over the existing narrative.
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Oh, certainly, but where was she keeping this multiple student all the time Twilight was growing up? The implication is that Sunset Shimmer left Celestia's tutorship before Twilight became her student, else Twilight would have known about her. Unless Sunset started when she was still in diapers, the odds are good she's at least a few years older than Twilight. That means either she's not smart enough to pass high school, or Twilight was only a freshman and faking being a senior.
Then again, to be utterly fair, the ages of the Mane Six has been broadly debated at many points, to no good resolution. Fluttershy's a year older than Pinkie Pie, Rarity's old enough to own her own business and not live at home, Twilight's functionally a grad student, and yet I believe I've seen Faust say something about them all being on the level of fourteen, with the CMCs at ten-ish? Age in Equestria is generally screwed up, but that's a hole in the main canon, not in EqG specifically.
First, with the crown gone, the other elements are useless, unless Cadence doesn't know anything about the Elements, which means she hasn't been watching the show either.
Second, this is less about the magical forces being unleashed, and more about the logic inherent in saying "my former student, who is arguably more powerful than Twilight is on her own, has been operating freely in another world for five or more years and is now in possession of an artifact of immeasurable power, so I'm going to send Equestria's current chief defender and the cornerstone of most of my catspaw maneuvers in after her without backup." That really doesn't sound like good tactical advice, to say nothing of good governance.
They don't, though. The crown we're expecting to see is the one in the pictures of Sunset Shimmer on the wall in Principal Celestia's office. It's a much more traditional round-with-prongs affair and three red gems, and more importantly, it's the same in all three photos, if I recall correctly.
More importantly, if Sunset Shimmer did steal the crown, then it's all the more reason why Twilight should, and could, have simply gone back to Equestria through the still-open portal, gotten the duplicate, brought it back to Canterlot High, and said "hey, Sunset Shimmer stole this and swapped out the fake." She could have been disqualified from day one.
In fact, why did Sunset Shimmer bother with the Fall Formal at all? In the end, it was obvious that the crown was what mattered, not the annointment, so why didn't she just steal it? If she stole the first one, surely the second wasn't beyond her.
"Why didn't Twilight bring back the duplicate crown" is a good question unto itself, but again, how did Sunset Shimmer know what to copy? Once again, see point one: Sunset Shimmer wasn't in Equestria when the Element of Magic was discovered, and the mirror wasn't under Canterlot when she got back. She had a ready-made duplicate of an object she'd never seen before and no reason to know what it looked like.
Celestia does say she gave it to Luna for safekeeping, but finding out where Luna's office was should have been equally easy.
How? By whom? If she'd taken five minutes and said "better not do this; somepony might see me," okay, but she doesn't even mention it. Amusingly, it's the lack of lampshading that annoys me. At least in Magical Mystery Cure, the writers take thirty seconds to run through a list of possible cures and explain why they won't work. Here, it's like the ideas don't even come up.
"Because Pinkie Pie" is almost always an answer, and one with which I won't generally argue, but why bother calling attention to this and not to Sunset Shimmer's analog?
Does Sunset Shimmer look like the kind of pony who'd take a chance on being discovered as a duplicate? It might be possible that she's the "other girl" to which pony!Sunset is referring when she talks about the last girl that ran against her... but that raises an interesting point: how long have Snips and Snails been her goons in this world? They're the CMC's ages, which means they're probably freshmen, but they're also hinted at having been working for her for a while now.
I don't think it makes sense to argue that they're savvy enough to get YouTube and not savvy enough to get identity theft. If they'd had their phones stolen or lost, they'd be the type to report it. More importantly, they'd be the types to tell their friends, "hey, I got this weird e-mail from you; what gives?" It shouldn't have taken Twilight to get involved for them to ask each other about the mare-in-the-middle attacks.
Snips and Snails took the video, sure, but that's Sunset Shimmer's voiceover in the video. And yes, they trashed the gym, but I doubt severely they did the photo cutups. Sunset Shimmer doesn't strike me as the sort to look at two printouts taped together and say "yeah, that's enough for an adult to buy it." Not if she was willing to go to the lengths she was to produce that video.
"Sunset Shimmer accused Twilight out of nowhere and held up doctored photographs as evidence to back up her claims" isn't at least suggestive of Sunset trying to frame Twilight for something? Again, the important thing here is less "the thing" and more "the incongruity with this thing against everything else." If everyone in the school knows Sunset Shimmer is a tinpot tyrant, it's highly unlikely Luna and Celestia aren't aware, too, assuming they're anything like their Equestrian counterparts.
Yes, I know they were. Rhetorical question. Remember all those times I said, "if you drop exposition into a story without a really good justification, I will beat you with a pool noodle"? This was not a good justification.
I'm actually aware of this one; my roommate, whose mother is a retired school teacher, called me on this one. Apparently this isn't that unusual at all, which says something unflattering about American culture.
Stacking a ballot box could have been as simple as pulling some out and putting others in that she knew were votes for her. This one's a stretch, I'll grant you, but it's still noteworthy that Sunset Shimmer's fallback plan is "use cheap paper cutouts of photos to try to pin destroying the gym on Twilight" and not something eminently more practical like vote-rigging. Maybe that just says something about me.
I'll give you that she might have known a lot more about how to activate it; she does make a point of saying to Twilight she knows what happens to an artifact when you take it across a dimensional boundary. Well, she calls Twilight out for not knowing it, without volunteering whether she knows either. Point is, we've seen nothing to date to indicate that someone who isn't a Bearer can use an Element, and we've got a pretty strong indication that the Elements know who their Bearers are. It doesn't make a lot of sense that Sunset should have been able to get anything out of it... but it explodes in a power fountain as soon as she puts it on her head. It's like the Element was waiting for her to wear it so it could activate... which seems as though it goes against what we know to date about how the Elements work.
Twilight knows how to mind control others; she cast the Want-It-Need-It spell, remember? The super-empowered demon went down under a rainbow blaze even without the crown, as I recall, and while Sunset Shimmer didn't know about Discord, Twilight did. As soon as Sunset announced her intentions, I'd have ducked back through the portal, told Celestia to summon Discord, and made sure he was ready to turn Sunset Shimmer into raspberry gelatin as soon as she crossed the boundary.
It's that "launch a series" bit that makes me uncomfortable. This feels less like a narrative and more like a marketing strategy. As for building a life in Canterlot High's universe, whatever she did she more or less upended by turning into a demon, tearing the front off of the school, and turning the graduating class into a bunch of zombies. Given the fact that her best outcome probably involved jail time, going back to Equestria probably would have been a smarter move.
The same reason kidnappers and attempted murderers (diamond dogs and dragons) are allowed free in equestria. It’s a kids show. This isn’t really unexpected or different from FiM.
Diamond Dogs and dragons are, arguably, not ponies and thus not subject to Equestria's laws. Even without saying "it's a kids' show," there's a ready excuse, one that doesn't extend to Sunset Shimmer. The question of whether Spike is a full citizen is one that I believe remains unasked and unanswered.
Isn't she? She was identified as such in the musical number in the cafeteria, as well as in the magical-girl sequence at the end. She successfully participated in a rainbow evocation with Twilight, and she as the same fourth-wall-breaking powers that her equine equivalent does. I'd say that probably qualifies.
I'll try and keep this condensed.
Magic word implication. You could make a reasonable argument that Celestia may have had a number of students kept apart as she searched for the element of magic. Why keep them apart? So that a bad apple doesn't ruin the batch.
Yes. It's a downside that is present anyway, it doesn't mean that it's worth risking another world, though that is a perspective issue. DO you A) screw the other world to increase chances of saving your own or B) do the best with what you have.
That said I think a few guard or even the princesses themselves might have helped, though they are pretty lazy
Well, Twilight has shown herself to be quite capable except for a single instance about a certain lesson (zero) which I refuse to acknowledge. Also Celestia may no that there is no unicorn magic. Also Celestia did call Twilight the most powerful.
Those were previous dances, winter spring and summer.
Would you believe that, our would you think it a possible prank. You are dealing with twits and A-holes in High School.
Steal it once, shame on you, steal it twice, I think not. Also vanity is a common trait with Villains and I would argue she did give up on "winning it."
I would argue that with a month to research she could have found the answer, also I do believe that it might be a coincidence, there were a lot of those.
Offices aren't exactly safe. Maybe it was stolen from Celestia's?
Because… uh… maybe she didn’t want to risk being seen or blocked from coming back?
Agreed, hence the uncertainty.
Well obviously without being Celestia's student she would be in a similar boat, somewhere else.
Same place as Twilight’s, somewhere else because there was no princess to requisition her from her normal life.
Valid points, more so about Snails and Snips. Anything could have been done with her analog.
People can steal and put a phone back after using it. Some guys prank eachother. But you argument about asking wtf is valid. I know some people who would just stop talking but they are few and usually very shallow, not nearly as real as the main 6. That said it is a shortcut, one that is very common in all media.
If Snips and Snails did it but she did the Youtube that different that them all doing both. Besides she needed a alibi. Also you cut them out then photocopy the images on top of eachother. I've done it dozens of times when the scanner breaks and I need to transpose something. A photo is less believable but lets face it we give the show a bit of leaniancy for some things.
They probably do know, and have never had evidence. Also just because the police find planted evidence to throw the blame doesn't mean that they are responsible. Now she ain't no police but the same logic applies. If she found them legitimately and they punished her while she had an alibi to the whole things they get in trouble. Hence her goonies doing it, and doing it poorly, then they can't say she did it because when would she have done it if she was always visable.
* Why do Pinkie's "hunches" sound like cheap attempts at exposition to bypass lengthy recaps?
Because they were.
Rhetorical answer...
We agree on one
there is a glitch in the matrix.
It would likely have been unbelievable. If there is suspicion of tampering then maybe it would get delayed and she wouldn't be able to go back to Equestria.
* How did Sunset Shimmer activate Equestria's Element of Magic without being attuned to it? We know from "Spike, you're Rainbow Dash now" that the Elements are at least marginally connected to specific individuals.
It didn’t activate properly, also Spike was a dragon and you could argue a species bias. Also she might know how to activate it where as Spike did not, though I agree it was kind of weird.
True, I think they needed to explain it more. My personal theory is a corrupted element, also without magic in the world maybe it only had friendship and not other spells matrix's.
Thank you for destroying all of humanity. He is way scarier and might have done terrible things just by being their on accident. He is a Pandora's box after all.
* Why would Twilight opt to leave Sunset Shimmer, known traitor to Equestria, in an alien world rather than force her to return to face criminal charges?
I actually agree with this but it was pointed out to me that she had spent a lot of time in that world building a life. Without dominion over others she may not have wanted to return. Also, how else will they launch a series about Sunset learning the lessons of friendship.
Their analogs gave Luna a try, maybe the humans will to. Also if a magical pony princess said give them a second chance I would.
Inter-species diplomacy is lightly touched on in the show, but I think you went beyond the bounds of your own question. She was a pony from another universe so the same would apply by your logic. Also if her ruling princess says it's okay, then it's okay by your logic.
Joke
Apparently I'm not the only one with Opinions about the film:
So... it's been a while, but ya forgot the biggest question of all...
Why does the humanized version of Equestria have more horse puns than the one where they're all... y'know... actual literal horses?
Canterlot Wondercolts? Are you freakin' kidding me?