Thoughts after watching Legend of Everfree (spoilers spoiler-tagged) · 5:35am Oct 3rd, 2016
I just finished watching Legend of Everfree. Maybe this is partially the accompanying cider talking, but I'm pleased overall, despite some gaping plot holes and continued hand-waving about how Equestrian magic is supposed to work in the other world.
Basically it's like this
I had mixed expectations going into this one. I've been hearing that it was pretty good, but I had my doubts. Friendship Games was, IMO, a huge let-down. Maybe Rainbow Rocks was just a tough act to follow, but I didn't feel like FG really did much to elevate itself beyond another pony-girl-hybrid merchandising cash-grab opportunity. "Unleash the Magic" was the only song that really did anything for me, and the evil Crystal Prep kids were so underutilized that they may as well have not been there. Overall, I felt it was largely flash without substance, which disappointed me, because I saw how well the Equestria Girls concept could be executed in Rainbow Rocks.
Also pictured: Best antagonists
I daresay that the powers that be decided to crib a bit more from Rainbow Rocks this time, sometimes pretty explicitly, as with the moment near the end where the Rainbooms suddenly getting to play a show. The music was closer to Rainbow Rocks' style as well, though with a campfire tinge that worked better than I would have expected. We also got to hear Rainbow say "butt" again, which made me smile, and largely because it felt like a callback to Rainbow Rocks.
Character-wise, I generally liked what they did with the Manes, though Sunset's power of suddenly being able to grab and read the script felt lazy and unrelated to anything I would have expected her to develop. Sci-Twi got the best development and struggle by far, and somehow managed to tackle the equivalent of Luna's struggle with Nightmare Moon more convincingly than Luna does most of the time, IMO. The romance angles also were okay; I liked all of Flash's moments, and I think they're being smart to keep him around as a potential future romantic interest for someone, albeit not Twilight. (As a side note, though, it seems I have officially taken too long to put my Flash X Limestone story together, and its future is in jeopardy.) 
Now on the flip side, I felt the gag reflex every time Timber Spruce was making doe-eyes at Sci-Twi, because he has a creepy vibe that Flash never did. Twilight can do better, and the development they gave Flash here demonstrates that he ultimately is better, which is sad considering how much hate Flash has drawn from the fandom. But at the same time, I recognize that FlashLight has been played out, and Timber at least offers something new, and my reaction to him is probably more subjective than anything.
Plot-wise, we get two antagonists, one of which felt pretty natural, and one of which felt like a bolted-on invocation of either Donald Trump or the bad guy from Ernest Goes to Camp or both. I guess the details of the story prevent us from having the one without the other, but seriously, at the end it was like, "Oh yeah, we need 5-10 more minutes of content to deal with THAT guy!"
Knowhutimean, Vern?
And then there's the magic. Oh yes, the magic. It's interesting to see EqG magic continue to develop in really chaotic directions, because it's not at all like that on the show proper. Over on the pony-side, we started out with six Elements of Harmony, and only Unicorns get to explicitly use magic; in short, there were rules, and simple ones at that. EqG seems to thrive on a sort of screw-it/rule-of-cool ethos with magic, which... I mean, it's cool, but how does it actually work? We get thrown a particularly big curveball on that front somewhere toward the end of LoE, thanks to the emergence of some items that feel waaaaaaaaaay too conspicuously like the Elements of Harmony. Except they can't be, because Sunset got one too, which would make her the Seventh Element, which...
The dank MLP fanfic tropes! My goggles do nothing!
But look, I think I ultimately care less about the plot being free of things to quibble about than having opportunities for the characters to develop in a ways that feel natural and fun. And really, LoE was fun. It used its camp setting well, which I didn't expect. All the characters managed to find interesting things to do, even if Sunset and Twilight pretty much stole the show. The darkness haunting Twilight was pretty bad-A. There were some really great visuals that added to the outdoorsy atmosphere. The songs didn't suck. Oh yeah, and Derpy Muffins got a line! What more can you really ask for?
...Well, okay, the plot could have been tighter. 
But at least the threatened promised fashion show turned out to be largely a smokescreen, letting Hasbro market toys toward the "target market" while lampshading that aspect of things for anyone who watches it.
In conclusion, I think I'm tentatively going to agree with the emerging conventional wisdom that EqG is a bit like the Star Trek movies of yesteryear: Odds are bad; evens are good; and the series peaked with #2. I suppose this means we're going to see our favorite technicolor teens square-off against an alien pretending to be God in 2017, followed by a stripped-down but serious invocation of Shakespeare in 2018 that serves as the series' swan song. 
What do you guys think about it? Good/bad/Sunset should run for president?
The Seventh Element would be a great title for a story that would probably suck.
And I kind of like how the human magic is more chaotic. It's really reflective of how it's magic from another world, trying to find a place in a world not designed for it. There's no convenient anchors, no hard-coded shorthand for who should and shouldn't have powers. It latches onto familiar ideas of what kind of powers certain folks should have, but beyond that it's a creature of order flailing around in a world that, to it, doesn't make any sense.
I was rather disappointed with how when Hasbro finally jumps into the shipping ring, they ship Twilight with the camp idiot.
4238044 You said it more succinctly than I could. Yes this really is the problem there. Plus, like, how old is Timber? I know that sometimes I'm kind of a Neanderthal in a very progressive world, but their potential age difference at their potential ages makes this something I hesitate to put in front of girls who are significantly younger than that age, if you follow me.
4238038 That's actually a really good way of looking at it. I tend to like a detailed magic system; what can I say, Brandon Sanderson has ruined me forever for anything less. But I think I can support the way you're coming at things here, and I do want to see where it goes next.
It fascinates me how divided people are over how the movie handled Flash and Timber. Personally, I thought it did more for the former than anything before it in canon, while the latter was an actually decent human being when he wasn't trying so very, very hard to be likeable.
As for the future, I look forward to human Twilight asking what a princess needs with a starship.
4238038
Searching for "the seventh element" including quotes yields 55 results. Four of the ones on the first page are named just that, and going by the ratings, at least half of them are pretty terrible.
4238195 Timber may have potential. I'm not ruling out future development. I think he has more personality than Flash did at first, which is good; and it probably helps his standing with the fandom that he's not going after "our" Twilight.
I didn't really like his personality, personally, but I can't deny he has some.
I totally agree about Flash, though. I agree so much that I now have a canon-redundant unfinished story that would have taken him through similar character growth.
But now he's back (for the first time?) as a character that they can do interesting things with, and they've set up the possibility that they might next time around.
To me, I think the end of LoE was pretty explicit that DHX are considering a spin-off show, possibly in the form of the earlier seasons of Smallville (with the Seven hunting down and helping or neutralising the magic-infected human-of-the-week).
As for future villains? The way Filthy Rich just walked away with dignity largely intact the way Principal Cinch did also suggests to me that they're planning a 'League of Offended Authority Figures' villain group who are always trying to find ways to 'cleanse' their world of the 'infection' of magic that makes people (much against their personal prejudices on the matter) be nice with plenty of honesty, loyalty, kindness, generosity, laughter, friendship and, of course, magic. In terms of direct antagonist for EqG5 (assuming that there is another EqG movie when they're working on the Big Pony Movie) will be human!Starlight Glimmer very explicitly characterised as what Twilight Sparkle/Sci-Twi would have been if she wasn't fundamentally nice, possibly with mind-controlled Shadowbolts as her muscle.
4241004 Great thoughts here! Man, I loved Smallville. I'm torn between whether the early seasons, or the Justice League stuff of the later seasons, were better. Either way, I just about had a nerdgasm when they did the JSA episode.