Cartoon Reviews: Equestria Girls (from my DA page)

For some time now I've been a fan of the show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. And within just a few years it has practically become a cult phenomena on the internet and beyond and is currently one of the most popular cartoon shows in recent years with a particularly large and creative fanbase called Bronies or Pegasisters(if you're a girl) consisting suprisingly enough of yound adults. And I think part of this shows success comes from veteran animator and director Lauren Faust and her team, who took a once hollow Hasbro toyline, a rather bland cartoon show and awful movies and gave it a whole new life. What was once purely as a marketing strategy aimed towards little girls has now become something that's enjoyable for everybody, not just little girls with it's fluid flash animation, nice artistic style, good writing, clever humor, and likeable characters it's little wonder this show has a large adult fanbase. With 3 successful seasons under it's belt, it's own line of comic books and truck-loads of fan works, the only places left to go with FIM are video games and it's own movie: Equestria Girls.

SYNOPSIS
The movie takes place after the season 3 finale and Twilight Sparkle, now an Alicorn and a princess, and her friends go to the Crystal Empire to attend a princess summit with Celestia, Luna and Cadence. During the night Twilight's crown is stolen by a mysterious Unicorn named Sunset Shimmer, a former student of Celestia's, who takes it through a mirror-like portal to another world. Twilight must go through the portal and retrieve her crown. However when she arrives in the world on the other side of the portal she's turned into a human teenager and now she must survive her greatest challenge yet if she wants to reclaim her crown: high school.

Humans in FIM? Well, this is new. Ever since the show aired fans have been fascinated with the idea of humans being in the FIM universe. Numerous works of fanart have been made in an attempt to portray what humans would look like in the shows art style. And I've read literally hundreds of fanfics with humans coming to Equestria or ponies going into the human world. There are even stories and drawings of the shows characters as humans. Afterall the G-1 series had humans in it, so why not have them in G-4? At first bronies seems to like the idea of humans in the FIM universe, but for some reason when they decide to make a spin-off movie with the main cast as humans the fans suddenly went off on it with all piss and vinegar saying the show was now ruined because of this one little spin-off movie that had the Mane 6 as humans. And this was long before it even went to theatres. However some gave the movie a chance and ended up liking it. What do I think of it? I thought it was actually pretty good.

It still has the original charm and style as the tv-show; it just has a different setting and the main characters now take on a different form. Plus there are the cameos of some fan favorites like DJ PON3, Trixie, the CMC, Big MacIntosh, Photo Finish, and Granny Smith, some good songs and a decent antagonist. So let's get started

1. STILL HAS THE SAME GOOD WRITING AS THE SHOW
As I've stated before this movie manages to maintain the same charm, style and good writing as the show. And considering the setting of the movie it would be pretty easy to make this movie into your typical cliched garden-variety girly high school drama movie with the main character having a love interest or being infatuated with shopping or fashion or boys or proms. And while it does have some of those elements in it, they're very minor to the point of having little relevance to the story; the main focus is on Twilight retrieving her crown and bringing some old friends and everyone else back together. And this is consistant with the overall theme of the show: friendship. And there's also clever little references here and there like YouTube, Back to the Future, Mean Girls, the Transformers sound effect, Hamlet, Arrested Development, Lucky Star, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and even some guy doing the Gangnam Style dance. There are also cameos and some real funny parts, like Twilight trying to get used to her new human form and trying to figure out how to fit in in the human world as well as trying to figure out their technology.

2. MAIN CHARACTERS ARE INTERESTING AS HUMANS
This is the part where a lot of bronies went off their rockers: the designs of the human characters, namely because it wasn't what they were expecting and also because of the strange skin colors of some of the characters like Rainbow Dash having light blue skin or Twilight having lavender skin. Personally the skin colors don't bother me too much, except for Rarity; she could use a little more skin color. The term white girl has probably never been so literal with her. If there was something I could say I didn't like about the human designs are the feet look a little to large, like the feet of the characters from Bleedman's web comic PowerPuff Girls Doujinshi or Panty & Stocking. And the clothes for the characters isn't bad either; Twilight has a school uniform type outfit, AppleJack outfit fits her cowgirl persona and Rarity's outfit definitely says 'fashionista'. Though I think Rainbow Dash should lose the skirt; I just don't see her as the skirt wearing type. But anyway, lets discuss the characters themselves. While Twilight and Spike are the only ones of the Mane 6 to actually enter the human world, however her friends have humans counterparts in that world and they're basically the same as their pony counterparts, but also a little different in temperement and personality. And I think this gives them a little more depth. I also find it to be an interesting and subtle look at human nature and how easily we allow as trivial as simple miscommunications or misunderstandings to destroy our relationships with each other, especially teenagers. But anywho let's look at the main characters.

Twilight: Obviously the main character of the movie, and show. Following the season 3 finale Twilight been crowned a princess and became an alicorn. Though she's been given the title of princess, she has a great deal of self doubt: can she handle such a responsibility or better yet is she really worthy of such a title? So she's clearly not comfortable with the idea of being a princess; not to mention having wings. And when she enters the human world she's definitely out of her element as she struggles to adapt to her new environment not to mention her new appendages and has trouble using them for simple activities like writing with a pen or typing. She's also having some difficulties with the technology of this world like computers, a copy machine, and even a vending machine. I actually found these instances quite amusing. But you really can't help but feel sorry for her because she's so out of place. The majority of her development is spent trying to bring old friends(the human Mane 6) and bring all the different cliques together after being divided by Sunset Shimmer in her campaign for the title of Princess of the Fall Formal and win her crown back. And at the end when she does get her crown back she feels more confident that she really is worthy of the title of princess.

Fluttershy: Twilight first meets Fluttershy's human counterpart when she is being verbally abused by Sunset Shimmer in the hallway. Just like her pony counterpart Fluttershy is shy and timid coming out of her shell only after she sees Spike, who's now a dog. She also has a love of animals as she works at a local animal shelter. However I feel that human Fluttershy has a little more "oomph" to her as she appears to be slightly less introverted that her pony counterpart, especially when it comes to helping animals usually with charity events and attempting to rally volunteers to help at the shelter. Another thing about human Fluttershy that I think adds some depth to her character is the fact that despite her kind and timid nature she can get angry over a simple misunderstanding and hold a grudge about it, especially if it involved something important to her. For example for the first of the movie she's antagonistic towards her then former friend Pinkie Pie due to her bringing noisemakers to a silent auction at he shelter.

Pinkie Pie: The next person Twilight meets after Fluttershy is first seen decorating the gym for the Fall Formal. Like her pony counterpart she's zany, random, sanguine, a party-lover and probably the most in character of the Mane 6's human counterparts with her cartoonish antics like pulling off the balloon patterns of her dress and inflates them like real balloons and 4th-wall breaking abilities where she guesses the entire Twilight came to their world down to the smallest detail. Her pony counterpart does the same sort of thing at the end of the movie. I think they both read the synopsis of the movie XD. Even though it seems like a cheap cop-out but it actually closed gaps in the story logic that would've drawn the story out longer through exposition. However despite some of the quirks she shares with her pony counterpart human Pinkie Pie seems to have a little more control over her emotions, more down-to-earth and she doesn't seem as childish as her pony counterpart. In the episode Party of One Pinkie went into a temporary loss of sanity because she felt like her friends didn't like her parties anymore. And thus Pinkamena was born or Cupcakes Pinkie if you prefer. And like Fluttershy she too can hold a grudge, namely with Fluttershy when she got mad at her for bringing fireworks and noisemakers to a silent auction at the animal shelter claiming that Fluttershy said she wanted a big party. In a way human Pinkie pie is more mature than her pony counterpart.

Applejack: To be honest I don't see a whole of differences between human Applejack and her pony counterpart. Both are hardworking, dedicated, super strong, and hold to very moral principles, namely honesty. One difference that I can tell is that she's slightly more serious demeanor than her pony counterpart. Like the rest of her former friends she too holds a grudge against someone namely Rainbow Dash, whom she felt made a liar out of her by promising that she and the softball team would show up for her bake sale and told the whole school about it but didn't show up. Along with Rainbow Dash, Applejack seems to be the most likely to hold a long term grudge against someone, since both possess proud, stubborn personalities even as ponies. But later on she and RD reconcile their misunderstanding and become friends again.

Rarity: There's not a whole lot I can say about Rarity's human counterpart either. Much like her pony counterpart she has a love of fashion, behaves lady-like and is very generous. She's first helping Twilight find a new disguise after Sunset Shimmer releases some embarrassing videos of her struggling to cope with her surroundings like trying to type on a computer with her knuckles, picking up books with her mouth and being startled by a photo copier. Like Fluttershy she holds a grudge against Pinkie Pie because she volunteered to help Pinkie with the decorations for various school functions but recieved a false e-mail from Sunset Shimmer saying that Pinkie had enough volunteers. But she found out that Pinkie had done all the decorations herself. So she obviously felt stiffed and unappreciated because of this. Where she differs from her pony counterpart is that she seems a little less uptight but has a short temper. She also cares about her friends well-being as she warns Twilight about falling in love with Sunset Shimmer's ex-boyfriend Flash Sentry for fear of Sunsets retaliation, especially since she too was after Twilight's crown. And later on as she and her friends got back together she suggested they become real Canterlot Wondercolts whilst she showed them pony-like headbands and tails to support Twilight for her campaign to become the Princess of the Fall Formal.

Rainbow Dash: Absent for the first part of the movie until she's found by Twilight and friends at the school soccer field practicing her kicks. Much like her pony counterpart RD's tomboyish, athletic(naturally making her the captain of every sports team at CHS) braggadocios, competitive, determined and loyal. She and Applejack had a falling out with each other over the incident about AJ's bake sale as she and the softball team were asked by Applejack to perform at a bake sale. Sunset Shimmer tricked Rainbow Dash into coming on the wrong day by sending her a phone message saying that the bake sale was postponed, with the message being addressed from Applejack. This misunderstanding caused Rainbow Dash to feel abanded, and she and Applejack ignored each other thereafter. But after it was explained to her that it was just a miscommunication, done on purpose by Sunset Shimmer, she and Applejack become friends again. Some noticeable differences that I can tell between human and pony Rainbow Dash is that human Rainbow Dash doesn't seem as lazy, in-your-face or reckless as her pony counterpart. Plus she also seems more willing to forgive wrongs.

Sunset Shimmer: The main antagonist of the film and the alpha-bitch of Canterlot High. She was a former student of Princess Celestia before Twilight. When she could get what she wanted as quickly as she wanted(to become the next princess of Equestria)she became cruel and dishonest and left Equestria through the magic mirror portal into the human world. At the beginning of the movie she comes back to Equestria through the mirror portal to order to steal Twilight's crown(and Element of Harmony) but is caught in the act by Twilight and Spike. During a struggle the crown is thrown into the mirror portal. Sunset is the exact opposite of Twilight: cruel, manipulative, dishonest, mean-spirited, arrogant, evil, power hungry, selfish and the school bully. Throughout the movie she bullies and intimidates all those around her, which has lead her to vote Princess of the Fall Formal 3 times in a row. And often humiliates and demoralizes anyone who gets in her way. With the help of her henchmen Snips and Snails she posts humiliating videos of Twilight online and even attempted to frame her for destroying the auditorium where the Fall Formal Dance was being held. However despite her villainous nature she has her limits(she won't use hostages). When she puts on the crown she becomes a demonic humanoid creature and she becomes more sadistic and malevolent. After her transformation she hypnotizes the rest of the students at the Fall Formal to use as an army to invade Equestria and even tries to kill Twilight and friends but is soon defeated. After she's defeated by Twilight and friends and is reverted back to her original form she has a total change of heart and shows regret for her actions and horrified at what she'd become, so her actions after her transformation may not've been voluntary. In the end Twilight's friend offer to be her new friends and later she accepts her punishment and is put to work repairing the damage she did to the school during her transformation.

Snips & Snails: In this movie these 2 act as the personal henchmen for Sunset Shimmer. She often uses them to gather information on someone for Sunset Shimmer to use against them later. These 2 are definitely different from the pony counterparts who were idiotic but good-natured foals, where as in this movie they're more mean-spirited and antagonistic. But one trait they do have in common with each other is their bad taste in women: The really seem to have a thing for abusive, domineering girls.

Celestia & Luna: Basically the same as their pony counterparts, though in the human world they're not royalty but principle and vice-principle of CHS respectively. They both appear to display kindness, wisedom and fairness like their pony counterparts.

3. GREAT SONGS
The shows music director Daniel Ingram really outdone himself here. All the songs are great; they were catchy, fun and memorable.

The first song is a remix of the show's opening song and it wasn't bad.

The second song called "This Strange World" was good at setting the mood for Twilight trying to figure out her new surroundings.

"Helping Twilight Win the Crown" is without a doubt the best song in the whole movie. It's got a catchy tune, good lyrics and some great choreography.

"Time to Come Together" was a good montage song for the scene where everyone at the school helps clean up the auditorium after Snips and Snails destroyed it.

"This is Our Big Night" is my 2nd favorite song in this movie. It's got a good beat and it's the kind of song you'd expect to hear at a school dance or a prom.

And the end credit song "A Friend for Life" was a great song to end the movie on.

4. SOME PRETTY FUNNY GAGS
Along with some decent writing we also see some pretty humorous little gags here and there along with some clever little references. I found it pretty funny watching Twilight freak out upon first seeing her new body, particularly her new hands and lack of a muzzle, horn or magic(and running into the glass door at the school entrance) It's also amusing to watch Twilight trying to figure out how to work some of the devices in the human world like computers(and Cheerilee putting on a happy when explaining how it works) and even a vending machine. And I especially liked how Trixie upstaged Twilight at the vending machine. Apparently Trixie has a thing for peanut butter crackers. There's also the antics of Pinkie Pie making the Transformers sound-effect when she uncurls from a ball and her human counterpart wanting a party cannon that could decorate everything super fast and using her hair as broom and experimenting with different hairstyles.

5. DECENT ANTAGONIST
While a lot of people think that Sunset Shimmer was a lousy or mediocre villain at best, but I felt she made a fairly decent villain. She plays the role of the villain so well with her nastiness and egotism. And it's so easy to dislike her considering all the damage she's done in driving a wedge between all the different groups and how underhanded she is. Hell, just listening to her talk down to Fluttershy near the beginning would make you think "Wow.. what a mega-bitch she is, talking to Fluttershy like that." And not only can she act the part of a villain, she looks the part as well with her flame-colored hair, cold icy bluish-green eyes, her black studded leather jacket and black boots with pink flames on them. And of course what villain is complete without their henchmen. What makes her a good antagonist is the fact that she seems to be willing to go to any length to get what she wants and practically runs the school as a result. And in many ways she's like Twilight's evil twin: both are unicorns, both have similar sounding names, both were students of Celestia, and both seemed to be quite skilled in magic. We get a little more backstory for her in the comics where we find out that part of the reason for her bad attitude came from the fact that Celestia would not make her a princess despite all her advancements in magic. And she went into the magic mirror believing it could help her achieve her destiny of becoming princess. In a way she's jealous of Twilight for being made princess instead of her. While she is willing to harm and humiliate anyone in her way, she still had a limit, as she was not willing to use hostages. And after she is purified she becomes repentant, likely because she was horrified and disgusted that her darker tendencies turned her into a true monster, and pleads for forgiveness.

6. GREAT CAMEOS
One thing that a lot of fans like about this movie were the cameo's of some of their favorite backgroung characters as humans like DJ-PON3, Photo Finish, Trixie, Granny Smith, Big MacIntosh, the CMC, Diamond Tiaria, Silver Spoon and even Derpy. Cheerilee and the Cakes also make appearances as humans. I thought all these little cameos were a nice little touch.

7. KUDOS FOR TRYING SOMETHING NEW WITH THE FRANCHISE
While most bronies didn't care too much about the idea of their beloved show going into a high school setting, in the human world no less, I actually thought it was an interesting direction. Sure the previous generation MLP shows had humans in them, but this is the first one in which the ponies have human counterparts. And the first one in which a pony character is turned into a human. I got to say this is something new for the franchise. Another thing that had some bronies up in arms were rumors that Equestria Girls would be getting its own tv series. So far the rumors are unfounded but if they do decide to make a spin-off series based on this movie I don't see any problem with it.

IT HAS IT'S FLAWS
While I thought this movie was good it was no oscar winner and the writing certainly had it's flaws just like some of the episodes of the show itself.

1. SOME THINGS NEED TO BE EXPLAINED
Even though I thought the writing for this movie was fairly good there were some things that I wished it could've explained a little better like:

1. How come Twilight can barely fly in this movie when in the season 3 finale she seemed to be able to fly just fine?

2. What exactly is this Princess Summit that Twilight and company have been called to?

3. How did Sunset Shimmer know exactly which room Twilight was sleeping in and how did she know that Twilight Element of Harmony/crown would exactly like the fake she was replacing it with?

4. If Sunset Shimmer was Celestia former protege why hasn't she mentioned her to Twilight or anypony else?

5. Where exactly did this magic mirror come from and how much does Celestia know about the world on the other side of this mirror portal exactly? And has she even been to that other world?

6. Why didn't Sunset Shimmer and Twilight recognize each other at first?

7. Who is this girl that Sunset Shimmer humiliated during the Spring Fling dance?

8. Exactly how old are the characters in the show? The CMC, Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, Snips and Snails are about elementary age. Yet their human counterparts are either freshmen or jr. high age. And if Sunset Shimmer was Celestia's student before Twilight she should be older than Twilight and yet in the human world they're the same age.

9. If everypony has a human double in the human world, where are Twilight and Sunset Shimmers doubles? Twilight's double is mentioned by Pinkie. But does Sunset even have a double in that world?

10. Where has Sunset Shimmer been living during her time in the human world? And did she support herself? And how did Snips and Snails become her personal henchmen?

11. Exactly when the human mane 6(minus Twilight) have their falling out and how come it took them so long figure out that Sunset Shimmer was the one who set them against each other?

12. What happens when you bring an Element of Harmony into alternate dimension? Seriously that was never answered, unless you count Sunset Shimmers' transformation when she puts on Twilights' crown.

13. If Sunset Shimmer were to hit the portal with that hammer while it's open wouldn't the hammer just go through the portal and out the other side possibly hitting somepony in the head?

14. Why isn't the term "human" ever mentioned?

2. TRINITYINYANGS DESIGNS ARE BETTER
While I sorta the design for the human characters, I like Trinityinyang's designs much better. For one thing it looks more consistant with the show's art style, the feet look normal, the hands are closer to normal size, and the proportions are a little more realistic. Plus there's no bizarre skin colors and his human version of Celestia and Luna don't look they have fish lips.

3. SUNSET'S INVASION PLAN IS SEVERELY FLAWED
Did Sunset Shimmer even think through her plan to conquer Equestria? After assuming her demon form she hypnotizes all the students at CHS into mindless slaves and tells Twilight she intends to invade and conquer Equestria her "teenage army". Did she even listen to herself when she said that? There's a number of problems with this plan:

1st- She's using brain-washed teenagers. Of all the kinds of people to make an army with a bunch of teenagers isn't the best choice. I mean c'mon they're kids, they wouldn't last even a few seconds against the Royal Guards. And considering her time spent in the human world you'd think she'd pick better candidates like the local SWAT team, the Marines, National Guard, local militia or even a bunch of LARPers.

2nd- They have no weapons or magic to defend themselves with. How are they supposed to fight without weapons? And what would they use as weapons? Guns are out of the question since it would be awfully hard for a teenager to get ahold of enough guns to arm a small army. Same thing with swords and other weapons except for improvised weapons.

3rd- There's too few of them. It's gonna take alot more than 100-something teenagers to overthrow the Equestrian government.

4th- I think her transformation into her demon form may've warped her mind; similar to how the Alicorn Amulet did to Trixie in Magic Dual. So she may not have been thinking straight at the time and it may've been against her will, hence her turnaround after she was defeated.

4. UNNECESSARY EDITS MADE IN THE TV RELEASE
When this movie was released for tv viewing on the Hub network some scenes were cut out for some odd reason like the scene in the library where the human CMC are listening to their music video, the vending scene had the part with Trixie edited out and I believe the song This Strange was also left out. Why were these scenes left out?

5. "WHAT ARE HANDS?"
Seriously Rainbow Dash you don't know what hands are?

CONCLUSION
Well contrary to popular belief Equestria Girls is not the franchise-killing monstrosity that critics make it out to be. Sure it has it's flaws and plot-holes, but the show had the same problems. It was a fun movie to watch. It had the same good writing, good animation quality, same good humor and the same good characters as the show. And I for one think it's a good addition to the franchise. There's already a comic for it coming out, but for whether or not there will be a tv-series on the way only time will tell.

Comments

[Mexican Brony 101]

Very nice review.

Really