What We Can Learn From Where Friendship Games Went Wrong · 4:25am Sep 28th, 2015
First thing Monday, and I've got a blog post for you!
I watched Friendship Games. I wasn’t impressed. Personally, I think it’s the worst of the Equestria Girls movies, but I totally understand how other people might feel differently. It had a lot of cool ideas, and some really cool moments, and sometimes that’s enough to top something like Equestria Girls (Original Recipe), which really fell down in the originality department.
My problem with it was in how those cool elements meshed together. They didn’t. There were story construction problems plaguing the whole thing, and what came out was, to quote a Canterlot taste-maker, “a piled on mish-mash of everything but the kitchen sink.”
But mistakes are learning opportunities, and other people’s mistakes are the best kind of learning opportunities! So I’m going to break down four things that I thought went wrong with Friendship Games, talk about how Original Recipe and Rainbow Rocks got them right, and maybe people who are writing this kind of adventure/action story can keep them in mind, and write things that are better!
Obviously there will be spoilers for all three movies below the cut.
Okay, let’s get this one out of the way first, because it’s the most basic problem: suspension of disbelief. The more unrealistic stuff you pile on, the harder it is for your audience to get invested. I’m not talking about the magic here, suspension of disbelief for magic is the price of entry into the MLP/EQG universe. I’m talking about the how-this-world-works, school life stuff.
In the case of Original Recipe and Rainbow Rocks, sure, this isn’t how normal high schools work, but it stays fairly in line with what we’re used to from movies and tv shows. Rainbow Rocks even gets extra points for playing up that Sunset’s taking-over-the-world phase has affected her social status, and that at least some of the weird stuff (the hyper competitive battle of the bands) is the result of mind control. All in all, as fictional high schools go, Canterlot High is probably more realistic than Bayside or Sweet Valley High, even with the occasional magical battle for the world thrown in.
However, the Triwizard Tournament Friendship Games throw a major wrench in that. If the story had been about an until-now-unmentioned soccer or football or basket weaving rivalry with Crystal Prep, that would be par for the course in fictional high schools. But how likely is it for a school to have a weird set of games they do every four years, with no set events, and the events they end up with seem to have been determined by giving Pinkie Pie a Mad Lib?
Yeah, that’s a strike against Friendship Games. It might not be enough to sink the thing, but it really didn’t help.
But let’s say we’ve bought into the Friendship Games as they are. The EqG verse is a straight up fantasy verse, after all, with magic and people trying to take over the world. But that brings us to our next problem, they failed to establish the stakes.
In Original Recipe, we establish right away that Sunset Shimmer wants Twilight’s crown for bad, powerful magical things. In Rainbow Rocks we know the sirens want Equestrian magic for bad, powerful magical things. These are the problems that drive the plot: can the girls save the world from bad, powerful magical things. Once again, Rainbow Rocks comes out ahead here, because we get a lot of explanation of what the sirens powers are, what they want, and what their plan is. So we know when it’s working, which helps build suspense.
In Friendship Games, we know that… Crystal Prep is mean and Canterlot High wants to beat them. And that Twilight is accidentally sucking magic up. Sure, at the climax the magic Twilight collected is trying to rip the world apart, but at no point before that is anyone really worried about that particular result. Including me, at least, because while holes in reality probably aren’t good, I had no reason to think they were necessarily bad either. Inconvenient, when you accidentally summon the Everfree forest during a school event, but if the thing had randomly broken through to Sweet Apple Acres they just would have had to dodge a bunch of apple trees.
So, the only things driving the plot were “will Canterlot High win?” and “what’s up with this magic?”
Now, notice those are really two separate questions. The plots never successfully meshed. This is a common story construction problem: where you have two or more aspects to a story, you want them to come together into one satisfying climax. It can be hard to do, but it’s one of the things that makes a story great when you pull it off, because one scene/chapter/section is the turning point where everything gets answered.
In Original Recipe, the magic plot was “Will Twilight get back the Element of Magic?” and the high school plot was “Can the dorky girl become Monarch of the Conveniently Timed Dance?” both of which can be summed up by “Will Twilight become the Monarch of the Conveniently Timed Dance?” It was the same story with two sets of stakes. Rainbow Rocks once again slammed this out of the park, with “Will the girls defeat the sirens with their music-born magic?,” “Will the Rainbooms go up against the Dazzlings in the battle of the bands?,” and “Will Sunset overcome her past actions and be accepted as a true friend?” all of which end up tied together in “Will the Rainbooms defeat the Dazzlings in the battle of the bands?” Killer plot construction there.
Friendship Games asks the questions asked above, “will Canterlot High win?” and “what’s up with this magic?,” and only vaguely ties them together with the question of whether it would be considered cheating if magic accidentally interferes. The magic has nothing specifically to do with the contest. It only appears during the contest for AJ and Dash by coincidence. That problem could have been cut out entirely by benching the girls, if they were that worried about it. Twilight would have still been in the competition thanks to villain intervention, but nothing about Canterlot High winning (one of the plots) inherently had anything to do with Twilight and Sunset trying to figure out magic (the other plot.) In fact, at the end the “will Canterlot High win?” plot is resolved via deus ex machina of Celestia declaring a tie. Yay?
And speaking of villain intervention… it was pointless. In fact, it hurt the story. In a lot of movies and stories like these, the villains end up being memorable and popular characters, and one of the reasons for that is that villains almost always have the power to act while the heroes are trying to figure out their power and stop them. They’re in control, which means they can be cool and dangerous until the climax.
In Original Recipe, Sunset has several legs up on Twilight: she knows the human world, she’s apparently a bully/social manipulator feared by the whole school, and she’s ruthless enough to not play by the rules. She uses all of these things to make it hard for Twilight to accomplish what she needs to-- she does things, Twilight reacts to them. In Rainbow Rocks, the sirens use their magic to brainwash most of the school, and Adagio’s skills at manipulation to almost break the mane six without them ever realizing they’re being played. The mane six are left scrambling to keep up until the very last minute.
Principal Cinch actively does only three things in Friendship Games: she bullies Twilight into participating, she bullies the Crystal Prep kids into not enjoying themselves with the Canterlot High kids, and she song-bullies Twilight into unleashing the magic. The first one is only arguably necessary to the plot; Twilight already planned to hang around Canterlot High looking for magic. Sure she was a ringer in the first competition, but that meant she had to be in the second, where she was worthless. So neither plot really required her to be involved in the games. Keeping the kids apart didn’t really do anything either. Twilight was already stealing everyone’s magic, totally on accident. It kind of drove the “will Canterlot High win?” plot by keeping Crystal Prep as the “mean” school, but… not really. Because it was just Cinch that who was mean, so there wasn’t really a feeling of being let down by the tie in the end.
The third, convincing Twilight to unleash the magic, is both Cinch’s most villainous moment and one of the least satisfying decisions in the story, because it doesn’t really make it more or less likely that Crystal Prep will win, which is, like, her only freaking goal, and it excuses the person who actually had the power to act as a real villain: Twilight.
Twilight should have been the villain from the get-go; she was the one with the power to mess up the Canterlot High girls shit. If Twilight had been more dismissive (say, kinda like Moondancer in Amending Fences?) and had wanted to be in the Friendship Games (maybe it would look good on her transcript) and was solely focused on understanding the magic and using it to her advantage? That would have been a great villain. That would have tied together the plots. That would have made the ending mean something.
Now, I’m not blaming the writers. I have no idea how much the games were required to be things Hasbro could tie into other toy lines. I would not be surprised at all if they originally intended Twilight to be the villain, and weren’t allowed to do that because Hasbro only allows so much with their intellectual property. There were a lot of interesting ideas in the story, and when you’re talking about a movie it’s easy for those to get scrambled with all the people who have to put their stamp on it before an audience actually sees it.
But if you write adventure stories, pay attention to this stuff. It makes the difference between a great story, like Rainbow Rocks, and… well, I guess that happened.
Since this is a make-up for a Monday Blog Post, a big thank you to: bats, nemopemba, diremane, First_Down, sopchoppy, Bradel, stormgnome, jlm123hi, Ultiville, Singularity Dream, JetstreamGW, Noble Thought, horizon, Sharp Spark, Applejinx, Mermerus, Super Trampoline, Quill Scratch, Peregrine Caged, blagdaross, BlazzingInferno, and Not Worthy.
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Okay, but just so you know, saying that there's nothing good about a film after only seeing a trailer is an incredibly reductive, unhelpful statement, and it just makes you look reactionary and ignorant.
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So in what way is it not an example of a competently constructed story? And in what way is Rainbow Rocks not an example of a well constructed story?
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Jake, stop trolling. Engage with the material or STFU.
I agree, for the most part. It was an enjoyable ride, Twilight going demon at the end had my mouth open, but other than that, nothing was better than the other two.
Music-wise, I don't think Daniel is ever going to be able to top Welcome To The Show.
I am.
You also forgot to mention a big inconsistency with it: The principals are nonplussed by magic at this point, treating it as an 'eh, it's been done before' thing, same as pretty much the entire fucking school. But Principal Celestia tells the big bad teacher (I forgot her name already, even if you mentioned it a second ago, so I'll call her Thin Ursula, because she has the same color scheme as that fat octopus-bitch from The Little Mermaid), anyway, Principal Celestia tells Thin Ursula that nobody would believe her if she said she saw magic and wizards and shit at the school. I was like "Nigga, Photo Finish took Goddamn pictures of them in their gay psudo-anthro form with them levitating and crap. How do you explain all of this away? How does everybody in the entire school keep this secret under wraps?"
At least there was a scene with AJ as a respectable archer, a frame where it looked like AJ had some big knockers, and a frame where Rarity had a ok looking butt while she was rollerskating. I don't think there was even all that much lesbian subtext for the best girls, only thing I saw was maybe some SunsetDash (SunDash? I don't know what people call that to be honest.)
Oh, and Dash sort of kicking the shit out of the tentacle monster. That was ok too. And Sunset (rightly) blowing up at Twilight for being stupid and playing with magic via an invention she created that she doesn't even know how to operate. That'd be like if Dr. Egon Spenglr, when asked how the Proton Pack worked, just gave a sheepish grin and shrugged, rather than informing the audience about how he made 'em and not to cross the fucking beams when you're bustin', even if it feels good.
i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee222/merc_the_jerk/shitpostin%20makes%20me%20feel%20good_zps3yd2mcal.gif
Despite the complaints, all in all I give it a rating of "Holy fuck a talking dog/10"
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You gotta learn how to shitpost and mock what is going on too. You have a ways to go, Padawan.
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Oh Merc, I
you.
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I just call 'em as I see 'em, buddy. Love you too, tho'.
This movie was only a major disappointment to me because of one thing: I expected it to be better than it was. I know, I did it to myself but hey after Rainbow Rocks can you blame me? With FG I feel like we got 'Equestria Games'd again- a whole lot of awesome hype and buildup for basically no payout. Makes me sad that I have to once again set my expectations to zero should they choose to do another one. Hell maybe that's why RR was so good, I didn't go into it expecting to be wow'd.
This right here would've saved it, this would've been something I think people would've been excited to see.
I saw Cinch's motivation to be less about winning and more about proving that they were superior... in that sense, her thinking that the magic option would bring everything to a neutral spot where her school can then prove that they're automatically better doesn't deviate much from her modus operandi. I saw her more like a Scar from the Lion King in her attitude and villainous profile. Convinced she was superior, that she was doing everything else better, that she and her school were smarter than everyone else etc. She even says so when she talks to Twilight privately. (Also, Shiny is a smug ass.)
I'll be honest, I see a lot of your points right there in the movie now that you bring them up. Some things were clearly not very rational... but at the same time, I don't think they're trying to be serious about it. Of course it has elements of many other things, it's directed at a generation that would connect that kind of stuff because it's what they've seen... from Harry Freakin' Potter to the obvious Wicked musical influence... hell, I was having a blast doing Elphaba/Semi-human!Twilight comparisons. (In my headcanon they're spiritual BFFs).
Also, while the plots never meshed... was the "Will Canterlot Win" thing a plot or a bit of a distraction? I mean, clearly the plot is about friendship and how Twilight never had friends to help her. It's about Twilight and Sunset not the games. The games are a plot-device, not a plot themselves.
Sure, we see the mean side of Crystal Prep, but it's made clear early on that it's a deep-seeded, Cinch-fed rivalry that never had a chance to simmer down. Twilight doesn't have friends not because they're mean, but she also never seems to have made an effort to be part of anything, case in point—her main concern was finishing her classes and getting out of there. Could the students be better? Sure, but we also don't see how her growth in the school was. There's resentment from them and clearly a misconception of who she is, as shown by the bus scene.
As for the "no-one will believe you about the magic", even if there was some stuff about it before, it's also clear that none of the Canterlot High students went and blabbed about it, since no-one knew up until then, and with Cinch alienating her whole student group? Yeah. No support.
I think again, you make many good points, but I don't think it really is as much of a bad movie (mechanics-wise) as you're saying it is... it's just something that I guess you were expecting to be different.
Personally I liked the movie. It showed how far Sunset had actually came. She gets to be the Twilight
.
You raise some valid points, but you know what? I enjoyed it. Maybe not as much as Rainbow Rocks, but it was still a fun movie. And I do think it was better than the first one, overall. But what do I know?
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If they're a distraction, they're a distraction to the audience too. They took entirely too much focus from the plot. (Which, how could they not, being the big spectacle pieces?) Which is a different flaw, but still a flaw.
Like I said, there's a lot to like in there, I totally agree. But I don't think the problem was that I was expecting something different going in or anything, it was that the story was constructed in a way to make me expect something different, then it didn't deliver it.
I would recommend Rainbow Rocks to people who hate the EqG verse, to show them it can be great. I would warn that Original Recipe is a bland, by the numbers teen movie. I wouldn't recommend Friendship Games to anyone, I don't think it works unless you want it to work.
Would you recommend Friendship Games to someone who hates the EqG verse, assuming they couldn't watch Rainbow Rocks first?
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If they already hate it, why would I recommend either?
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Because they haven't actually seen it, and some of it shows the same great writing and character focused plot as MLP?
I mean, maybe I'm just weird for trying to get people to engage with stuff they have a knee-jerk reaction against, when I know they're smart people and I know it's of a quality that would make them understand why it's worth while? I like showing my friends who hate MLP good episodes of that, too.
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I would say that, plus an even more subtle and devious Prin. Cinch in the shadows egging her on.
Twilight is just a HS girl; if she is too evil it really would hurt the Twilight Sparkle image. But as she is in the movie, it doesn't work for all the reasons stated above. So the best compromise would be... Sci Twi being a privileged jackass like in S01E01, but not genuinely malicious, except instead of Prin. Celestia nudging her towards sainthood we have Prin. Cinch befriending her, encouraging her academics, and manipulating her for Cinch's own interests.
Bookplayer had dismissed Cinch as a villain with no power of her own. But if played the correct way, as the evil (but charming not frigid) half of an antagonist duo, she'd be fine. Like the little devil on Twi's shoulder.
3426502 Well, to be fair, this one doesn't make sense at all regardless of how we feel about the logic behind the story... if they haven't watched the previous two movies. So... no, I mean, I couldn't recommend it before battle of the bands because well... you need that to get this one.
You know, one thing that really bothered me was the inconstancy of the Crystal Prep students. Are they just as invested in the rivalry as Cinch or are they disinterested? They don't seem to care during the first event, even those competing. Then they're all in for round two, and decide to step up round three by bullying Sci-Twi into releasing the magic. (Best song in the movie right there. Not saying much, really, but I adored it.) ...Aaaaaaaand then they go back to not being too invested in the games and calling out Cinch on going overboard. Who the hell was singing those sweet vocals back there, sweeties? The dog?
And I completely agree that Sci-Twi should have been the villain. Cinch, for all her unpleasantness, is just a normal principal. Her evil plan is proving her school is better than Celestia's. What, is she a woman scorned?
Hang on, I have to write that down.
Seriously though, the only step up is forcing Twilight to release what she knows is a very dangerous power for the sake of winning a high school competition. There's no gambling subplot, no money, condemning of schools, ruining of careers, there is nothing riding on these games. So really, her crossing the line moment just makes her look stupid.
Eh, at least we got a few new characters out of it. And barely any Flash! And more Sunset! And the animators, as always, threw us some delicious soup bones.
While I was watching it, I remember thinking that maybe CHS should lose to make one of any number of points.
Also, Principle Cinch should have been Sombra. But really, I agree with you--the simplest construction would have been to go all out with the exploration of where SciTwi goes without friends and guidance. I mean, c'mon, the Amoral Mad Scientist trope is just sitting there, waiting to be used with big, sad Spikepuppy eyes.
I don't know. I thought they've always had the problem of explaining about magic, which is why I initially went the Weirdness Filter route (and started writing after the first movie): no one really remembers what exactly happened after the fall formal. Scootaloo, for example, remembers something really cool with Rainbow Dash, almost like they were flying, but that can't have been real. And of course no one can argue with the hole in the lawn. But now too many people know about magic, or at least it seems so. It's a flaw in the Potterverse, too, once you start poking around a bit: there are just too many Muggles over the course of time who know individual wizards for the entire community to remain hidden, no matter how hard they try. Forget the Muggle Prime Minister: what about all of those families?
On the other hand, I thought it meshed together fairly nicely. The Friendship Games was only an excuse. What it really was was a chance to see Dark Side Twi. We've already gotten a glimpse before of what she would have been/was like before she had friends. This is Twilight without Celestia. This is the Sorceror's Apprentice, Doctor Faustus, and Doctor Frankenstein. And I'm not sure if Principal Cinch really quite believes in magic until she sees it at full blast in front of her, and then she wants to get away from it.
Interesting choice, because Principal Cinch is a human villainess, without (apparently) any magical abilities or horse counterpart at all. Sure, they COULD have gone the Sombra or Chrysalis route, but I think this was more interesting.
(Also, apparently Sci Twi finds Sunset Shimmer more interesting than Flash Sentry. Did I imagine it, or did he just get thoroughly sidelined? I've got nothing against him, but it's just as well.)
Looks to me as though they have figured out how to get Human Twilight permanently there, minimize the connections to Equestria, quietly push Flash Sentry to the side, and allow Spike to talk. I'm cool with this. Next stop: Zecora.
Principal Cinch was a lousy villain. The movie kept trying to build her up, but there was no payoff. She just ended up being unrelatable, confusing, and just sort of there.
She keeps talking about reputation, and to a lesser degree, her legacy. She even flat out says in her first lines to Twilight that she doesn't actually care about winning or losing. She cares about the reputation that winning will afford the school and—she says with emphasis—herself. The Games themselves boil down to "because I want to stroke my ego some more, by winning a competition we historically always win."
Okay. Why blackmail Twilight into the Games then? Obviously the plot requires this, but how does Cinch benefit from this? There's a vague mention that she could be helpful, and indeed she does clinch a win against Sunset with that trigonometry question. But if not for AJ's intervention, CHS would have dominated the obstacle course, with Twilight still stuck on the archery range, sobbing uncontrollably as her entire team boos her and her principal torpedoes her school record out of spite.
Again, this seems to come down to reputation and nothing else. Cinch emphasizes that Twi is her best student (academically) and Shining Armor suggests that "representing the school is kind of a big deal." All of this blackmail happens because it would be a slap in the face if the school's star student snubs the sports spectacle. Okay? That's a realistic problem—I know that some programs will concern themselves with how their members reflect publicly on the program—but it's dry politics, and that's not really compelling. As the viewer, I have no reason to care about her reputation.
But no. Cinch offers Twilight a quid pro quo deal that Twilight would probably accept anyway, but then she promptly blackmails her anyway for the evulz. And then she tells Twilight to infiltrate the Humane Six to "learn the secrets of Canterlot High's new-found success," which is pretty much nonsense, but luckily the obstacle course begins immediately thereafter so that plot thread is mercifully forgotten. And then most memorably she goads Twilight into releasing magic beyond their understanding, because that will even the playing field of a sporting event probably. Why do any of this?
Luckily for us, Sugarcoat (Best Human) slams it home.
Look, I understand sports rivalries. I'm a Michigan fan, and I watched an Ohio State father teach his 4yo daughter how to flip me off. But that does not make for a compelling villain! Especially when, as Bookplayer points out, the first two movies did a much better job of merging the Equestrian and High School plotlines. Cinch had a one-dimensional interest in the latter plotline, and she only tripped over the former plotline by being pants-on-head stupid and opening Pandora's Box.
Principal Cinch wanted to win the Games for the sake of looking good. That's why she snubbed Celestia, why she drilled her students, why she blackmailed Twilight, and why she indirectly caused the world to nearly be destroyed. Reputation was literally all she cared about. At least Sombra cared about crystals and slaves.
I think it's a little unfair to call Friendsip Games worse than the Original Recipe. I mean, objectively I suppose it is since the writing is a frickin' mess but it did at least try to be different and have fun with its premise. I think calling the first EQG movie Original Recipe is almost accurate. It's definitely a recipe but I wouldn't call it original. That's because its plot is essentially the first two episodes of MLP, just with a different setting and a different villain, then you got some really shitty highschool cliches tacked onto it. Twilight meets the Mane 6, we see who the Mane 6 are, Twilight loves Flash Sentry, than they defeat the bad guy who, again like the first two episodes of MLP, gets redeemed (albeit in a much different circumstance).
With Friendship Games, you can't really compare it to any episode of MLP. Sunset is firmly cemented in her role as the group's leader and honestly I think that changes the Mane 6 dynamic a little bit. Whereas pony Applejack seems to be the Lancer to Twilight, human Dash serves the same role for Sunset. Either that or I'm thinking too deeply into SunDash, which is objectively the best Sunset ship.
I suppose originality doesn't make a film good by itself but, in this case, it certainly didn't make it boring like parts of Original Recipe were. Even if I was slapping my head in confusion as some of the plot holes, I was still invested enough to see the film's climax. I think that deserves some credit.
It's really unfortunate how Twilight's post-season 3 problems have leaked into EQG.
Twilight is no longer a character with any significant flaws, she's a pretty pony Princess now. The only flaw I can really tell she has these days is that she works too hard. Whoop. Even that's an admirable flaw. So even in this movie, Twilight has to be perfect, she can't have any asshole tendencies in aaaaaany way.
Where's my snarky bitch Twilight that occasionally told Pinkie and Dash they were acting like retards? I don't care if it's not nice to be snarky, it gave Twilight some flavor. Now all she does is sit in a castle and... act pretty, I guess.
At least this movie shows how much better Sunset is a main character now than Twilight. She's got that fiery edge in her, a remnant from her old villainous days and I really enjoyed seeing that come out when she was verbally BTFO of Twilight. It's also this fiery edge that makes me think she's a better shipping partner for Dash than Twilight would ever be. She's far from perfect and still has character growth left in her. Also has design is hawt but as a ginger I'm automatically biased for redheads.
There was another high school girl one?
Ahh, now that's how you offer a critique :)
Thing is, I haven't even watched RR, let alone FG, so I can't say much. But suffice to say, Bookie, that you've given me something to think about regarding my own ideas. We'll call that mission accomplished.
-Scott
Oh phew I thought I was the only one who didn't get on with it. I loved the previous two but was kinda let down by this one, and I think this blog post pretty much pegs down why. I found the villain just plain boring compared to the previous ones, the plot felt unfocused and the climax just... I don't even know what to say about that. Which is why I don't do critiques, I guess
I might feel different after watching it a couple more times (with beer?), but as it stands I can't really say I like Friendship Games. Except for that scene with Applejack talking Twilight through how to shoot - that was pretty cool
I'm liking the idea of having Twilight as the villain, and planning to use the magic to win all along. The ending would make a lot more sense if that was the case (not to mention that it would rustle the status quo quite nicely).
Great post, bookplayer! I will reference this when people ask me how I felt about the movie
I can definitely see the criticism and would rate Friendship Games as not really as good as Rainbow Rocks, but I rewatched a bit of the first movie earlier to pull some screen captures out, and this most recent movie really was much better. I think even the animation and the way they used the character models is significantly better, like they've gotten more used to the new format.
But, as I said on Bookish's reaction blog, I really love magical girl anime, and the ending to the Friendship Games was so much what I was hoping for that I may be ignoring story issues for sheer enjoyment of that final sequence.
3426502 I just generally assume people who hate the EQG movies sight unseen to be so irrational to not really being worth engaging. A couple years ago I would have had a different answer, but since then I have tried to engage with various examples, and it has seldom been worth the time investment.
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The way Cinch puts so much emphasis on a game between just 2 schools, and its unconventional nature (no basketball, football, etc), makes it more akin to Cold War Olympics than varsity sports. There would be no logic for 2 mediocre schools to care so much about the results of a game between just 2 schools.
It's likely that CH and CP are the top-2 prestigious private schools in the
citystate, and so victory affects everything: donors, applicants, media attention, the entire district. Cinch would benefit a lot, but it'd trickle down for everyone graduating.Granted the movie should have made this clear, not me.
A good story... well, doesn't necessarily need a good villain, but it definitely benefits from one, and definitely suffers from a poor one. Going into this, I was hoping there would be some dark secret behind Cinch's need to perpetuate the winning streak. Demonic pacts, deals with the mob, some reason hanging over her head that could come crashing down at the climax. But no, it's just a bitter woman getting vicarious glory through the achievements of her students and needlessly being such a stick in the mud that she's more like a dead mangrove forest.
Still, at least she got character establishment. The Crystal Prep competitors other than Twilight consisted of two running gags, two characters with about ten seconds each of focus, and one who didn't do anything to distinguish herself until the climax.
I loved the ideas of the movie. (Well, most of them. You want to talk about the school board, why not bring up letting high schoolers do motocross jumps in an official school event?) But as you noted, the stories just don't mix.
As to the unrealisms of Canterlot High and Crystal Prep as secondary schools, I would point out that this obviously isn't meant to be our world, but rather a world that in many ways is similar to our world, inhabited by a different species of Human. So I'm okay with xenocultural things, such as high school principals having absurd degrees of autonomy or sports events being very mixed-competitional -- as long as the WRITERS understand that's what they're doing.
What they actually failed to establish was just why the Crystal Preppers were so stuck-up and nasty. Because they very obviously were -- this is plain from the way they were treating Twilght Sparkle. The reason, by clear implication, was because Cinch encouraged this sort of behavior -- but this is merely implied.
This is one of the great loose ends of the story. Obviously, winning the Friendship Games wasn't Cinch's "only freaking goal," even though it was the only one she stated. Obviously, what she really wanted was to gain control of the power of magic (though she was terrified when that power proved uncontrollable because it was driving Twilight insane, and hence impossible for her to manipulate).
Problem is, that plotline remained unexplained and unresolved.
I think the biggest takeaway from this is that writing for TV and writing for a full-length movie are two completely different beasts. You can tell from the utterly dropped plot lines, like Spike. Spike can talk now! Um... why? Does he contribute to the plot? Does he do anything meaningful with it? Does he serve as Twilight's anchor and voice of reason as he did in Original Recipe, which is Spike's most defined character trait in the show? Nope, just, "Oh, hey! Cathy Weseluck earned her SAG paycheck!" The pacing and timing for TV and movies are completely different, and it shows that Josh Haber is more accustomed to writing for 22-minute stints.
Also, and I freely admit that this is completely a personal thing, the biggest mistake this movie made was Shining Armor. Think about it! They made the point of bringing him into this movie... and barely use him. This would have been a perfect time to flesh out his character! Show us how he and Twilight interact, explore their relationship. Every scene with Twilight and Cadance could have easily replaced Wife Horse with Husband Horse, and without even changing the dialogue, it would have served as a way to explore something that the show likely never will.
That all said, the movie did do some things right. Not having Pony!Twilight swoop in and provide assistance to Bacon Hair was good, as it let her deal with things herself. Human!Twilight really felt like Pony!Twilight did in S1E1, and seeing her like that was really fun, sort of a glimpse into the past.
Sadly, the missteps overshadow the good things. I was extremely disappointing, because Rainbow Rocksi was so good! And no, not just, "when compared to the original." I honestly feel it was a very solid kids movie with memorable villains, a well-defined character arc for Sunset Shimmer, fun jokes and scenes, and excellent music. In fact, I think that contributed to my overall feelings for FG: the music was supremely lacking. I did really like the montage song, "Let's go, Wondercolts/Shadowbolts." That is telling, because I have a soft spot for marching band, Sousa-style music, but I just felt the songs were weak.
While I am kinda glad they introduced new characters for the Crystal Prep students, I will admit to being slightly let down that we didn't see Lightning Dust, Gilda, or any other antagonists from the show. All told, I agree this was the weakest in the series, and I am now even more happy that an actual movie writer is handling the script for the MLP movie. Granted, his biggest claim to fame is one of the Ice Age sequels, but hey, with McCarthy and Larson guiding him, I am tentatively confident it will be awesome.
3426427
Obviously, Celestia and Cinch are privy to secrets not generally known to the public. Which begs the question -- what are the real purposes of their schools?
Personally, I think that Celestia is trying to encourage the emergence of magical talents in the EQ-verse. And Cinch has just begun to grasp that something of this sort might be going on. And that both Celestia and Cinch have the backing of (possibly different) political factions within their larger society.
I'm not sure if the writers realize that this is the most logical explanation of the events as depicted.
Which begs the question, utterly-unanswered within the show: how and why was Twilight's magic-detector also able to drain magic? That ability obviously surprised her, so it wasn't by her own design. Who built that into the parts she installed?
3426477
IMO, Shining Armor obviously had a hidden agenda. Which he was willing to use his own sister as a pawn to promote.
Another possibly-related question which was never resolved in the movie. What were Cadance's and Shining Armor's games? What ends were they pursuing? We can't simply assume that they are the same ends as in the Ponyverse.
I'm hoping these were deliberate open threads on the part of the writers.
3426536
This is why I think that Cinch had additional motives which the Movie did not reveal -- and I hope that this was intentional on the part of the writers. Everything Cinch did made sense if it was more about the magic than the games.
To my eyes:
"Friendship Games" was no more about the games themselves than the Humphrey Bogart movie "The Maltese Falcon" was about the bird statue. They were both plot devices, what Alfred Hitchcock used to call macguffins, things that the characters have to run around and deal with while the actual story is happening.
The actual story of the movie for me was focused on the same question that both Sunset and Sci Twi ask themselves: "What do I do now?" Sunset's not trying to take over the world anymore, and she's found a place as a regular student. But she still has the drive that brought her all the way here in the first place, and she doesn't know what to do with herself. Sci Twi has her whole "Little Mermaid" song to explain her part of it, and the movie is then about the two of them crashing into each other as they try to answer this question.
So my complaint is that the movie spent way too much time on the macguffin--the games took up so much screen time, the story got buried underneath it. Also, the biggest part of Sunset's starting motivation isn't actually shown in the movie--it's shown in one of the shorts that Hasbro released a month or so ago where Sunset tries and fails multiple times to figure out how this whole "pony up" thing works. It also made me twitch at the end when Sunset points out to the newly monstrous Twilight that she's destroying this world to get to the other, and Twilight doesn't say, "So what? What did this world ever do for me?" This would've been the key line to show that Twilight has surrendered to the Crystal Prep attitude--it's only important if it benefits me--and would've set up the lesson that Sunset has to teach her so much better.
But the first hour and a quarter of the film was too scattershot because those darn games kept getting in the way of the actual story.
My Two Cents,
Mike
This was Karate Kid 3 all over again. First part, origin story that builds up the setting and characters, giving the main character a new insight and a small victory. Second part, where the stakes are really high and Sunset Shimmer's character develops and blooms to save the world. Third part, an athletics festival with nothing on the line except pride and bragging rights. Yeah... No.
I think this was a better movie than the first Equestria Girls, solely because there was so little meat in Equestria Girls. It was world-building, it was a re-telling of the first half of season one as humans, then a cliché prom with a cliché love interest, and a great finish. Friendship Games doesn't come even close to Rainbow Rocks. RR did everything better; character development, villains, motivations, stakes, hell, even music! The final battle of the bands is something I've watched several times just because it, well, rocks.
What REALLY bothered me about Friendship Games was that it was so episodic. The moment we saw Rarity lose her powers, it was INEVITABLE that every single character would get a similar scene where they manifest their element, only to get drained by Twilight. This lead to a contrived plot with those scenes taking almost half the movie. Then we had the Friendship Games with no stakes. More Filler. Twilight could have accidentally drained all of them at the start, then become the villain in the mane six's eyes, finally becoming the actual villain because of more misunderstandings, then have both schools join up in unity to pull her back, kinda like reversing the ending from the first movie. (In Soviet Canterlot High, the schools save you!)
There's also the question of build-up. The first movie built up to the confrontation between SS and TS. The demon thing was pretty far from the left field, though, and came in far too late. in Rainbow Rocks, the confrontation is built up from the moment the movie starts, culminating in the bad-ass finale to rival season 4's.
Also they had the perfect opportunity to get rid of Flash by having the new human Twily fall for him and them hooking up. We get to keep our Pure Princess Book Pony, there's a big kiss in the end, both fans and Cashbro are happy.
Add in an ELEPHANT OF HARMONY in the room: Where is the human Sunset Shimmer? Is she a singularity in the dual dimensions? Was she tossed into the pony world as a child and is she actually a phoenix like Philomena? What is pony Shimmer's element? Balance? Equality? Harmony?
The ONLY thing that I was wrong about this movie was that I fully expected Abacus Cinch to grab the magitek amulet from Twilight when she refuses her after the villain song, and ends up becoming the end boss. Thank Celestia it didn't stoop that low. Now I only dread this becoming serialized with Cinch being the big bad trying to mess up the totally normal high-school lives of the mane seven.
3426761
Reread my first paragraph in my blog post:
I agree with most of what you said on the subject (I don't think Original Recipe was a retelling of the first episode of the show; the first episode of the show was formulaic in a different way.) But it just comes down to me having different priorities for media than you do. In that case it's not unfair of me to rate Friendship Games worse than Original Recipe, unless you have an argument that the plot was actually as well or better constructed than Original Recipe.
3426883
I think this is true in the show since season 4. I kind of wonder if the whole property got a shiny new budget after Twilight got Princessed and Original Recipe didn't bomb, and that let them splurge on animation. Also, it's possible with this movie that they had more money because they didn't bother with the expense of a theatrical release. Or maybe they're just getting that much better as they go along.
3427035
Yeah, 3426477 pointed out something similar, and I think that's an equal or better analysis of where the movie fell down than mine.
Edit: But it's still clearly a step down from Rainbow Rocks, where the macguffin of the battle of the bands tied together all of the plots and subplots in the movie.
3427035
This is it exactly.
3426352
Don't think I'll look at human Pinkie the same way again. Kinky.
Agree with most points of the blog. There are some things I don't, like the plots not meshing together. It's not that they didn't, I believe that it's that they did so to a somewhat lacklustre degree. It looks like Cinvh was thinking unleashing magic would give Crystal Prep wings, which would be an advantage to some degree (but not really. Finding pennants hidden inside the school with wings would only get you so far. Like, you could prolly only utilize them in the gym, the lobby, and outside. It's just to cramped.). Either that, or she thought it was an automatic win button and a hydra or whatever would reach out of a portal and give her the pennant. This whole thing does seem forced.
I wouldn't call Cinch's intervention at the end completely pointless. Twilight was not going to willingly open up her magic stealing device without coaxing.
I had a few other random beefs with the movie. Hmm... that Twilight turned demonic seemed strange to me at first. Like, how the hell did this happen without foreshadowing? But, there are subtle hints that she has been hiding a lot of her negativity from being socially outcast. Absorbing magic let her let loose that pent up aggression and I don't entirely think she was completely aiming to travel to Equestria, just lash out blindly. I personally wish they had been less subtle about it. I dunno... Twilight breaking down massively after Sunset tore into her (and I really like this shot. Like it's shown throughout all of MLP, they're quite realistic characters in that old habits will die hard and Sunset hasn't completely gotten rid of her aggressiveness. Prolly never will. Fuck I should've footnote these.). Some sort of big indicator that Twilight is more willing to release the magic. Show some flaws. After all, Sunset just ragged on her the worst she's ever been ragged on.
The girls from Canterlot Prep... they felt distracting. Like, there's too many girls to pay attention to, but how else will Hasbro plug their new Sour Sweet dolls? I like how in the previous films it was more focused, having time to go into a little bit more depth and personality with four villainesses. Those personalities helped build the tension, too. EqG seemed too scattered for me to get invested in any tension. Yeah, those other gals were too distracting for me, and anything foreboding or whatever that might've been blatantly there flew over my head a bit.
Maybe they're releasing a Cinch doll irl? I guess Sombra dolls won't sell well. Actually, I think they could've done up this story without Cinch having only a minor presence, but I guess not having a blatant villain might be a tad confusing. Like, instead of having Cinch instigate everything, have the Crystal Prep gals do it. Like, the apathy of the main student body can stay; those girls who're actually competing already seemed hellbent on winning. They use the magical powers of Peer Pressure to convince Twilight to get on the team so they have a guarantee at winning any academical event, but she's not really one of them so Twilight is constantly being pushed around regardless, with indifference and possibly concern being shown by a couple of the girls. It can be slowly inferred that Twilight doesn't want just to get into that independent learning school just to learn advanced lessons, but to get away from people. It'd make more sense with transforming into Midnight Sparkle, cuz that void of friendship would be more enforced.
It will also make the audience question if those girls were actually the villains of the story when they rescue Humane 6 that're falling into that dimensional tear. Like, were they truly the villains? Like, any bad guy worth their salt wouldn't do nothing for nobody, right?
As much as I'd want to see Abacus Cinch in rule 34 (:P) the film might've had more emotional weight to it if it had those Crystal Prep girls as the main antagonists instead.
Also, if you watch EqG1 and skip to EqG3, that moment with Sunset and Twilight fighting it out kinda looks like a double-turn, where a heel turns face and a face turns heel.
All right! Rambling about ponies when I'm suppose to be doing my job! Yeah baby!
3427074
That means you have excellent taste!
Clearly SunDash is the best Sunset ship, of course.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/10/20/453001__safe_pinkie+pie_fluttershy_animated_gummy_may+the+best+pet+win_nod.gif
I just got back from work, so I am late to this party, but these are my 2 bits:
0thly, the good:
Megan McCarthy is great at story, but not at Grammar. Josh Haber makes far fewer grammatical mistakes.
1stly, the bad:
The 1st 2 movies had worlds in the balance. Friendship-Games did not until Abacus Cinch, who is supposed to be very intelligent with an extremely good education talked the HuManeTwilight Sparkle into releasing an huge amount of magic all at once. This could have exploded like a bomb, killing everyape. Luckily, that did not happened, but something else did happen which lead to the climax of the movie. Since the HuMane Pinkamena Diane Pie was there, one knows that there was lots of CreamPie. Seriously having an intelligent well educated character use the idiot-ball for advancing the plot is just bad.
We did not have a chance to learn about the members of the CrystalPrepShadowCults. It is my personal opinion, that all EG-Movies would be better if they would be 90:00 minutes long instead of 67:50 minutes long.
At the end, the HuMane Twilight Sparkle realizes that she needs friends, this is good, but she abandons her studies, which sends a terrible message to children in general and girls in particular. The Show did it better:
Miss Twilight Sparkle starts out as the equivalent of a Graduate-Student in Canterlot, but at the end of S01E02 Friendship is Magic Episode # 2, moves to Ponyville to be near her new friends, but still continues her studies as the equivalent of a Graduate-Student in Ponyville.
Since in Rainbow Rocks, the HuMane 5 had to fight Sirens, it was a musical. Friendship-Games just musically cannot compete with Rainbow Rocks.
DHX has been experimenting with rendering somethings in 3D and running the output through filters for the 2D-Look/Feel such as the Timberwolves in Spike At Your Service. I suspect that some of the new characters such as Dean Cadance were 3D. If DHX intends to just render everything in 3D and run it through a filter for the 2D-Look/Feel, the technology seems mature and it might as well do so now.
On a scale from 0 to 5 stars, these are how the movies compare:
3 stars for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: Equestrian Girls #01
4 stars for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: Equestrian Girls # 02: Rainbow Rocks
3 stars for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: Equestrian Girls # 03: Friendship-Games
Since we just had a Lunar Eclipse, here is a link to Luna Eclipsed:
http://dailymotion.com/video/xn1fjl_my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic-episode-30-luna-eclipsed_shortfilms
pre-edit: Beaten to the point by other posters while writing this, but I'll throw my hat on the pile.
But that isn't what the movie was about. It's classic coming-of-age stuff, where the drama is built around "has Sunset learned enough to become a leader in her own right?" and "what road in life will Twilight take?", and in the process of answering those two questions, the two plot drivers crash directly into each other.
CHS winning isn't ever a real question. Unlike the usual underdog school story, virtually everyone takes their loss as a foregone conclusion. The Games exist to highlight the social differences between the two schools and to reinforce Cinch's leverage over Twilight, which are the two driving forces behind Twilight's story. The events themselves are... odd, but reinforce the fact that Twilight is completely alone when she's winning and even more so when she's not, to the point where she'll unleash god knows what just to get the slightest bit of acceptance.
The fact that the Games end in a tie at all feels like the misstep; better to have CHS lose anyway, but play it as a standard "the losers are the real winners because they have what really matters and vice versa" thing than to try and have it both ways. Cinch is petty enough to threaten to complain even as the victor, and they could still have the resulting teardown to tie a bow on it.
What's up with the magic is also never really in question. The audience gets the whole picture there early on where the characters do not, and the whole thing winds up serving as the linchpin for Sunset's inner dilemma. Every time magic comes up, she's either writing to Twilight, fretting about not hearing from Twilight, or trying to take all the responsibility on herself as a misguided sort of penance. It's only when it all goes horribly wrong at the end that she's forced to act, and in doing so, comes to her realization. And doing that is what bridges the two stories and gives her the means to point Twilight in a new direction, tying up the other half of the plot.
Without Twilight being forced into the Games, she has no reason to unleash the magic, no reason to interact with other characters, and no story. Just hangs around eating magic until Sunset blows up at her and maybe cracks the locket open later out of curiosity, and at that point the two plot drivers really are disconnected.
Cinch is insanely petty and devoid of subtlety, but all this series really needs out of a villain is someone to induce social pressure, which she manages well enough. Making Twilight the villain removes the story's ability to put social pressure on her, and in turn means we end up with the villain messing with the Rainbooms' social dynamics again, which also would've thrown off the contrast between the two schools.
The CP students were played up more than their relevance actually demanded, but that's likely a marketing thing.
edit: And as long as we're talking EG1, that movie is a mess. It poses the question "Is Twilight a good leader?" and goes on to have her do virtually nothing to answer it or to drive the plot forward beyond being the mass around which other characters gravitate, and none of what they do makes any sense either.
3427074
Part of it is the nature of Flash animation. S5 is drawing on 4 previous seasons of generated assets, which frees up some of the animation budget for new stuff. EQG is now starting to hit that same kind of stride, where the animators are free to get fancier and to refine what they've got instead of creating it in the first place.
3427088
Y'know:
I don't think I've rewatched "Rainbow Rocks" since seeing it in the theater last summer, but yeah, this one had a significantly larger percentage of "ya what?" moments than that one.
Mike
I liked it quite a bit more than "original recipe." Sure, the games themselves were useless, but less forced feeling than the Fall Formal in the first. I can believe the charactes are invested in the outcome of the games, while I can't see anyone besides Rarity actually giving even one tenth of a shit about the Formal. And I really liked how the villain (and I'm referring to Twilight, here, since she was the real villain even if the comically evil principal hadn't intervened) was far more active and effective throughout than the original. And the ending to that plot was pretty amazing, because Sunset is just great here. First movie she was evil, and ends it repentant. Second movie she's trying to prove she can make it up to everyone. Third movie she's gotten there, and helps someone else going through the same problem. It's a good end to a strong arc. So I really liked the magic stuff in F.G. a lot better. At that point it boils down to whether or not I liked the high school nonsense plot of the original enough to say I liked it better, and I just don't. So since I'd legit rather watch either of the two halves of F.G. even if they never come together for a satisfying whole, I find F.G. to be better than the original.
Rainbow Rocks is still far and away the best, though. Kinda sad I felt the need to write all that just to defend my second place choice, now that I think about it. Also I typed this on my phone on break, so apologies for any spelling mistakes or generally stupid-sounding sentences.
Eh. I'll say it's better than Original Recipe, but more on the basis that this one has watchable scenes, an interesting premise, hints at events in the actual show, and took advantage of recent Internet explosions (Go Set a Watchman).
I do agree with your points, though.
To be pithy in chiming in :
RR is the best by a wide margin, FG is slightly better than Original Recipe. The main problem here is the movie needed to be tied together much better in the outline stages, and because the arcs were never done properly there, everything else is weakened by domino effect; there's a lot of individual bits to like here, but its a house with a sagging foundation. You might have an amazingly furnished kitchen, but the floor is still tilted 5 degrees wrong and no amount of making the kitchen better will fix that.
Which is disappointing. The ending that was Pure Anime was fun, but by then it was too late and I had been left feeling sad - like 'I wanted to love this, but I...can't' sad. Still, here's to hoping the obvious TV show they built up to manages to replicate lots of what made pony great. But right now, I have my doubts.
3426945
Exactly. Considering that her first introduction involved blackmailing Twilight, and she became more blatantly asinine over time, I was really expecting a twist. Like, she merely seems evil, but in actuality she's just strict but fair, so even though the movie builds her up as the villain, she actually ends up siding with the good guys in the final confrontation. I mean technically Sci Twi became the villain at the end, but it wasn't a twist per se: Cinch goaded her with an Ursula song, and while she did nope away from the demonic form, it didn't end up swaying her personality or core beliefs in any significant way. She was still poised to blackmail Celestia in the end.
3426979
Like Sombra, there's enough holes in her motivation that fanfic writers can introduce plausible backstories and motives. But like Sombra, none of this is explicitly mentioned in the text.
3426981
Agreed on Shining Armor. It's tragic that the show and this movie give us a tighter bond between Twilight and her foalsitter/dean than with her BBBFF :/
As for Spike's purpose, I'm only speculating on what the author's intent was, but I feel like he was meant to be Sci Twi's anchor, in a slightly different way than Dragon Spike is Pony Twi's anchor. Sci Twi didn't value friendship, partially due to a focus on studies like S1E1 Twi and Moondancer, but also because all of her classmates treat her like shit. Once bitten, twice shy. While the case of mistaken identity confused things, Sci Twi seemed genuinely freaked out that the CHS students were being nice to her. But the movie (deliberately, I think) never tried to build her up as understanding friendship, so much as experiencing it as an alien phenomenon. So when Midnight Sparkle is poised to destroy the world, she has no sentimental value tying her to saving it.
...except Spike. He'd lick her face and sit on her lap. Hell, he was Twi's computer wallpaper! When Spike gave her the puppy dog eyes, that was supposed to be this big moment of "maybe the whole world isn't awful. Maybe there are others who I care about." By making Spike a speaking role, it was able to build further upon that emotional connection, so that the puppy dog scene had more emotional heft. Of course, YMMV if the puppy dog eyes scene made any sense, and if being able to talk actually helped that scene, writer intentions aside.
3427869
I haven't seen the movie (and probably won't) so I can't comment on how he was portrayed there. However, I must disagree just a bit on how their bond is portrayed in the show. True, Cadance does show up more than Shiny, but he and Twilight do share a lot of nice family moments when they do get screentime together. And given that the Royal Couple is slated to pop up this season, I'd wager we get a bit more of that. Though I will say that I'd love to see something involving their family—maybe a little thing where Night Light and Twilight Velvet call for their kids to come home for Hearth's Warming?
Probably won't get it this season, so I'll just hope for it to happen in S6. Or just write a fic when I get bored, 'cuz I have way too much free time :P
I was just discussing this with someoneelse : This movie would have been much better without the Equestria Games at all. What matters is Twilight, spying on the Rainbooms and sucking up their magic, not the stupid high school olympics. And you don't need the games to just have Twilight hanging around a public high school, nor do you need Cinch to have her eventually try and absorb a giant magic ball on her own and turn into a demon, Twilight is incredibly curious and would have tried it on her own eventually.
No one else from Crystal Prep got any real characterization, and we will probably never see them again. This could have been a tighter movie with more focus not only on the Rainbooms and Twilight, but also on more of the background students at CHS, if they hadn't wasted all the time on the competition.
Shit "villain" (Cinch did nothing wrong), poor use of new characters, idiotic events inspired by toys (motorcross racing...seriously? Plus a desperate attempt for the Hunger Girls audience as per usual now for girls toys), I guess everyone just accepts flying people and magic now, nobody notices twilight using her device clearly in public at the games, nobody seems that worried by giant man eating plants from another dimension..... I could go on. My friends and I had a good laugh the whole way through this movie at how bad it sucked. Seriously, this movie was just....stunningly awful.