Five ways to improve Equestria Girls: Friendship Games · 4:37pm Sep 30th, 2015
Friendship Games is a middling sort of installment. Better than Equestria Girls, worse than Rainbow Rocks – but given the latter was so great, and the former so abysmal, that's no real surprise. How did it fare on its own terms? Again, middling: Better than it might've been, but still not quite as good as it could've been.
It does lead the pack, though, in ambition. RR may have been the better, more coherent film, but it was pretty standard in its structure. And honestly, I have to respect a noble failure more than an easy success.
More than that, I suspect that FG succeeds to the degree that it actually is ambitious, and fails to to the extent that it loses its nerve. Who's to blame for this cowardice? It does look in places like executive meddling hobbling a better idea, but I couldn't say for certain. Let's just take the film as it is, and go ahead with my suggestions to improvements:
(The standard subjectivity caveat applies.)
1. Drop Cinch
I hope I don't need to justify this too much. Her only real purpose is to be a target for boos and hisses. As the designated villain, she's also one of those failures of nerve I talked about.
If she's going to be in the plot at all, it should be as a minor supporting character: Just a strict headmistress who wants the best for her school.
With Cinch out of the way, the structure of the plot changes. It moves away from heroes and villains and towards a more general collision of agonistic agencies. One of whom is Twilight.
2. Twilight Sparkle is more than a nerd stereotype.
I had problems with Twilight's characterisation in this film. She's a nerd, but not that kind of nerd.
Let's run with the idea that her personality will be pretty similar to pony-Twi, before character development set it. What does that give us?
For one thing, she should be a lot more confident. pony-Twi was uninterested in social interaction, not incapable of it. Back in episode 1 (remember that?), she had no problem approaching ponies she'd never met before to organise them.
So let's have a human Twilight who's capable of interacting with her teammates, if not being friendly with them. And while her motivation – understanding magic – remains the same, she can be a lot less apologetic about it. She would be more likely to rebuff the Mane-5's attempts to befriend her. This puts her in more an antagonistic role, without being an actual villain, and it gives her an actual character arc than can be cashed in at the end.
3. More Sunset-Twilight interactions
Ah, Sunset. Where would we be without you?
FG did very well on Sunset's character. Possibly the best of all the films. Here we can finally see the source of her vitality, and something that RR only hinted at: The conflict between her sweet, compassionate side and her aggressive and wrathful side.
Now, the dynamic between Twilight and Sunset is the core of the EQG films. With Cinch out of the way, this can take its rightful place as the main conflict of FG. And look how elegantly it fits:
On one side, we have Twilight.: Standoffish, unfriendly, uninterested in anything but her research, and thereby causing all manner of problems for the protagonists. On the other, Sunset: Finding herself in competition with Twilight both in the games themselves and in problem with magic. And she does have a competitive instinct, doesn't she? Aren't the games likely to bring up all the buried resentment once again? And the arcs naturally resolve together: After the antagonism has pushed them apart, Sunset's better nature wins out. She forgives Twilight for her actual failures (mirroring EQG1's resolution) and reaches out to her once more, and finally gets through. And then they can finally fix the broken magic together.
In a sense, these character arcs are already in the film, but they've been pushed aside and distorted by the prominence of Cinch.
4. More Shadowbolts
These girls are just fun. They're all one-dimensional, sure, but I could stand to see a little more of them. And not just bullying Twilight.
You want more?
Oh, okay. They can serve to reinforce the theme above. Sunset vs. Twilight gets replayed in miniature with Wondercolts vs. Shadowbolts. They can also work in service of a secondary theme: Competing against someone doesn't make them a villain. Have them show their nastier sides at the start; then have the team spirit and work ethic that made them so successful come through at the end as everyone works together to fix the problem.
5. Replace the magical girl transformations with a motocross climax
No.
Okay, I get it: Merchandising.
But still, no.
The main line of plot – increasingly unstable magic – offers its own climax. We don't need Cinch stepping in, we don't need evil Twilight, and we don't need another transformation.
How about, instead, we take the motocross scene, dial it up, and move it to the end? Twilight's experiments with magic finally become too big a problem to ignore. Sunset forgives Twilight. They work together. Wondercolts and Shadowbolts do the same. We have an exciting cycle battle, and everything turns out okay in the end. Bonus points if the Wondercolts are are course to win, but forfeit when they have to save someone, and thus inspire the Shadowbolts to do the same.
In short: Exciting battle, intertwined characters arcs, and no villains.
Weird, I agree with you on 1 and 3, but feel the opposite about 2, 4 and 5. My feeling was that Twilight going around and inadvertently capturing the girls magic with her ghostbuster-device was the key plot, which built to that awesome humanized nightmare/alicorn faceoff, and the actual Equestria Games were a distraction. I felt they should just have had Twilight hanging around CHS and otherwise ignored Crystal Prep. Not that I dislike the Shadow Bolts, but they didn't get to spend enough time on them to make them good characters, and if they were going to flesh out more characters, why not more background students at CHS, since future movies and the series will be set there?
I agree that Cinch was 1 dimensional and had terrible motivation ( her reputation staked on some high school olympics). I also feel like the personality of human Twilight makes sense. Her life has been very different. She's no ones personal student, she didn't raise a sapient dragon like a parent from the time she was 10, she is far more isolated than pony Twilight Sparkle has ever been in her life. Also, Shining Armor seemed pretty distant towards her. Given their different backgrounds, it makes sense she would have even less confidence and social skills than pony Twilight at the beginning of the show.
3432878
Human twi in the movie was horribly 1 denominational and rather boring. Her character arc would have been a lot deeper if she was antagonistic. Not to mention she was alone and bullied which would lead her to want nothing to do with people. She was wrapped in her studies and would have grown accustom to not having anyone around. Like a hermit, they are easily contented being by themselves. Its true that humans crave interaction but as intelligent and driven as Human Twi was friends just wouldn't really fit. Intelligence in most cases often breeds arrogance too especially in a school like that.
3433064 Yeah, I think you have a pretty good grasp of human Twilight's personality. The only problem is, if she was super-antagonistic from the start, it probably would have been too similar to the first movie to be really enjoyable, with the ex-equestrian unicorn and her five friends facing down an arrogant bully seeking to gather up all the magic for herself.
3433224
She doesn't have to be Shimmer levels of antagonist just uninterested in being friends like pony Twi maybe even more suspicious about magic. She just said well I guess magic exists and I am ok with that. No skepticism whats so ever.
3432878
Well, I suspect 1 and 3 are the most important changes I'd want to make (though I'd still keep the secondary plot of the friendship games in place, because it makes things more fun).
Twilight's personality made sense, given her upbringing, yes. I don't doubt she could turn out that way. But it still results in a character who's very different from our Twi. She's a cliche nerd in the way our Twi isn't. And as 3433607 says, she doesn't have to be antagonistic like Sunset was in EQG -- just less of a doormat.
3434017 I think if the Equestrian Games was going to be a main focus of the movie, what might have made it more interesting (besides obviously, getting more development of the Shadowbolt characters, as you said) is if some of the non-Rainbooms had made it into the final rounds. Then it would feel like the Shadowbolts have an actual chance of winning, adding stakes to the conflict.
Another thing is that I think the deleted scenes also showed things like the rest of the student body getting excited for the Equestrian Games, and those missing pieces are what keep it from being interesting.
I think I could see a way supernerd Twilight could still be fairly antagonistic. Maybe she believes the weird energy readings are part of some elaborate hoax and she's going to do whatever it takes to expose the Rainbooms as frauds. This makes her not ridiculously evil, but also their antagonist. As a side benefit, it would give an excuse for her to investigate Trixie, a self-proclaimed "magician," and there's no way that wouldn't have been funny.
You have latter and former mixed up.
is what you said.
4301007
Oops. Fixed. Thanks for the catch.