Thoughts on the Equestria Girls specials *SPOILERS!* · 4:01am Jun 15th, 2017
I just watched the English versions on Equestria Daily, since I couldn't stand to wait until July. So here's my thoughts.
Dance Magic was a good, harmless little story. It was cool seeing four of the five Shadowbolts again (though why Indigo Zap was absent is beyond me), and got to see a little more of their friendly side. Also, it was interesting to see the EQG incarnation of Rarity--or any of the Rainbooms other than Sunset/Twilight--get an important role.
Movie Magic was...meh. It was nice seeing continuity with Dance Magic, and I liked the part where the Rainbooms dressed up like the Power Ponies (though I'm confused as to why they are called the "Power PONIES" if they're humans). Other than that, it was so-so. I'm slightly disappointed that A.K. Yearling never appeared onscreen, but I guess it would spoil the experience for the people that didn't watch the later Daring Do episodes of FiM. And as for Juniper Montage, I'll get to her below.
But now for the feature presentation: Mirror Magic.
PROS:
* Sunset Shimmer finally gets to go back to Equestria, even if it took Twilight inviting her there for it to happen.
* Her chemistry with Starlight Glimmer was pretty good.
* There's hope that she might visit Starlight and Princess Twilight in Equestria from now on.
* Funny scenes with Starlight adjusting to being in a human body.
* Starlight, Sunset, and Twilight telling Juniper about their own troubled histories was a great way to show how far all three of those characters have come since their antagonistic phases.
* Good continuity with Dance Magic and Movie Magic.
CONS:
* Sunset's time in Equestria was way too short. She literally spends only two or three minutes there before she goes back to the human world with Starlight. Not even Princess Twilight (the mare who invited her back to Equestria) was there to say "Hi". I know that they only had 20-something minutes to tell the story, but you'd think a major event like Sunset Shimmer finally coming back home would've been reserved for a full-length Equestria Girls movie, since there were so many opportunities that they missed. For example, how's her family doing? Are they even still alive? And what about the long overdue reunion with Princess Celestia?
* Why the hell does Sunset Shimmer's unicorn magic have a red-orange aura now instead of bluish-green like in the first EQG movie? And speaking of which, we didn't really get a chance to see how she felt about being able to use unicorn magic again after so many months. Instead, they spend most of her time in Equestria getting used to walking like a pony again. Which is weird, since she didn't seem to be experiencing any problem galloping in Equestria Girls. And she was in the human world for a much longer time in that movie than she was in Mirror Magic.
* Juniper Montage is the lamest Equestria Girls villain ever. Seriously, not only was the whole reason why she was bad in the first place was because she was a spoiled brat that wanted to play Daring Do in the movie (despite looking NOTHING LIKE HER), but when she gets the powers of the Rainbooms, all she does is turn into a tall supermodel and try to make people idolize her. She doesn't even use her powers to make people like her, either, since they run in complete fear of her. And then Starlight just talks her into giving up her powers, which she didn't even use at all. You know you've got a problem when you make Dr. Doom's defeat in Fant4stic look awesome. The only bad thing she does is trap the Rainbooms in her mirror, which doesn't even last that long. And frankly, Sunset should've seen it coming since she read Juniper's mind and knew what she could do with the mirror. Which leads to my next problem.
* Starlight is left to save the day...again. I'll admit that Starlight's beginning to grow on me in the recent episodes, but it's getting old. Give somepony else a chance, writers!
Overall, i don't hate it, though I'm not exactly overjoyed about it either. I'm also frustrated at the opportunities that the specials (especially Mirror Magic) wasted, and the fact that I had to languish for four long-ass years just for so much as a GLIMPSE of post-redemption Sunset Shimmer as a pony, and they STILL found a way to half-ass it. Maybe if they combined the three specials into a single movie, and added more scenes fleshing out the story here and there, the whole thing would've done so much better. Frankly, I'm surprised they actually went through with having Sunset go back to Equestria at all. They could've easily just had Starlight go through the portal to meet her at CHS instead. So at least I can say I have faith in the writers for making people like me happy to see Sunset as a pony again.
If I were to rate the specials from best to worst, they'd have to be:
1: Dance Magic
2: Mirror Magic*
3: Movie Magic
(*=Only because of the fact that Sunset finally goes home to Equestria, even if it was just for a little while. Otherwise, it'd be #3).
But as I said above, there's still hope that we'll see more of Sunset visiting Equestria in the future, especially if she's going to be friends with Starlight Glimmer.
Finally, someone other than me who notices that aura color mistake.😁