Present Perfect vs. the MLP Movie Trailer · 12:30am Jun 29th, 2017
Because this is the kind of thing I do.
First thing's first: the new animation. It kind of hurts my eyes. It's likely partly to do with the super-hyper trailer cutting, but it's all just flashing and bang boom and holy shit, this is gonna be hard to watch! D: Grats I'm old now. But really, the ponies just look oddly extra-squishy and otherwise? Not bad. The crowd shots sure as hell look 10000% better than they ever did in the show!
I guess I'll actually go through it a second time and comment on shit what I find. tl;dr, I generally like it and remain hyped for the movie. :)
- That first shot of pegasi flying has AJ distinctly yee-hawing over it, which made me fear for a second that they'd all become alicorns. c.c
- Yeah, goddamn, the backgrounds are just loads better looking than anything Flash has ever done for the show. The characters may be extra-marshmallowy, but the scenery is spectacular. Also, is this Ponyville or Canterlot?
- WTF are "pony proportions"? c.c
- Hi Trixie
- Harry and Tree Hugger... this is gonna be a huge cameo-fest, isn't it?
- Yeah, see, there's Bulk Biceps, even. Also, this shot is the one I'm thinking of when I say crowd scenes look way better in the new style.
- Goddammit, Twilight, don't you know you're not supposed to say things like that?
- Did she say "clowns" or "clouds"?
- Party Favor gets a big joke. Party Favor.
- So yeah, Commander Darkhorn Stormblood or whatever looks pretty damn sinister. Doesn't quite sound it, but eh.
- So this is apparently going to be about some kind of attack in/invasion of Equestria.
- I hope that little guy is not a big presence, because he is annoying as fuck. :|
- So merponies happen via magical fish bullshit. :V I like it! Also, Aquastria or whatever they're calling it looks fantastic.
- The universe is shitting all over you once again, Spike. :D
- Looks like the parrot pirates fight them to prove their worth first or something.
- ...Oh dang, that's one of the seaponies in land form, and she has goddamn toes. D: WHY
- Okay, uh, so I thought that Storm Lord guy was gonna be the big, evil baddie for this movie, and he's... hugging Twilight and Tempest. >.> I do not know what to make of this. Maybe Tempest will end up being the edgelord we need.
- So if I haven't ever mentioned it before, I have a lot of problems with Sia pony. First, I don't even know who Sia is. Number two, if I'm not mistaken, she's now the second character, after Countess Coloratura, to be the biggest musical act in Equestria. What is wrong with Sapphire Shores? Why has she been forgotten by everyone but the comics? D: Isn't she good enough for you people?
- That said, whatever song is playing during this part sounds nice.
- "I mean, princess? No pressure." Is Twilight still angsting about being a princess or something? :/
- I adore how their credits cast is a bunch of random celebrities and not, y'know, the people who've been voicing the main characters for the last seven years. :| Corporate Hollywood can eat all the dicks.
And on that note, is it just me, or is the trailer really focused on Pinkie? Like, on Twilight two, she's narrating, but Rainbow Dash gets like two lines, AJ gets one, Spike gets two, and Fluttershy and Rarity are just nowhere to be found. c.c
But yeah, it looks like it should be fun, the extra run time will hopefully give them time to expand on all the new characters and make the plot count. I have a whole lot riding on this movie being good (okay, it's just seaponies), so they'd better not fuck it up. >:|
EDIT BONUS ROUND: Let's see how out of touch Present is with pop culture!
- I already said I don't know who Sia is, beyond a pop singer. I also don't know who Emily Blunt is, I've never heard of her. She hasn't been in anything I've ever seen (though a few things I'd like to see...)
- Kristen Chenoweth is a name I recognize, but likewise I've never seen her in anything.
- Liev Schreiber I would not have recognized by name, but I saw some images of him in the lead-up to the trailer release, so I know he's Sabertooth. :B
- Michael Peña is the funny Latino guy in every movie you've ever seen with a funny Latino guy in it. Seriously, I don't know if he doesn't have range or if it's typecasting (it's almost certainly typecasting), but I've definitely seen him play the same character more than once, most recently in Ant-Man.
- Taye Diggs sounds familiar, but actually hasn't been in anything I've seen apart from Equilibrium, and I don't remember Equilibrium that well. >.>
- Uzo Aduba I've never heard of, but I'm sad they didn't have her character speak in the trailer. You can't go through life with a name like Uzo Aduba without sounding amazing.
- And Zoe Saldana I had to double-check to be sure, because I apparently confused her with Rosario Dawson because I'm a bad person. <.< But she's Gamora and the recent Lieutenant Uhura.
But I coulda told you I'm bad at identifying actors anyway. :B
You mean at around the 1:36 mark? I'm pretty sure that's actually supposed to be a hippogriff...
Could be Sapphire Shores is a victim of that real-world phenomenon, shifting musical tastes.
He's obviously faking that. The Equestria Daily posts on his comic should tell you that he's a strong leader who isn't just malicious and black-hearted. He legitimately cares for his troops as he's pillaging and conquering the planet...
The animation shift is definitely jarring, especially all the 3D contrasted with the 2D characters. Fortunately, it gives more of a Paper Mario vibe than, say, "Spike at Your Service."
As for the trailer itself? Simultaneously not enough to go on and possibly too much given away. So, you know, a typical movie trailer.
And yeah, the focus on the guest voices is more than a little disgusting.
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If only there were someplace I could read the damn comics. :|
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Yeah, by the end, I was going, "Okay, so how much of the movie do I not already know?" No surprise there.
No pun intended. :V
The CG doesn't thrill me, but I think I can get behind the more traditional-looking 2D animation.
But Rainbow Dash fencing with Pirate Zoe Saldana is gonna be worth the price of admission all by itself, I think!
Wonder how they'll nerf the Princesses this time.
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The thrones are empty, that means they just won't be in the movie.
I don't like the proportions, they all look like foals.
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No, she looks like the seapony princess, the one in the credits. :B There's supposed to be a hippogriff, going by the toys, but he looks a good bit more impressive.
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Out of curiosity, can you actually present any evidence that the princesses were ever that powerful?
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*Mumbles something about actual force requirements required to move celestial bodies and inhuman intellect required to ensure said motion does not fuck up the planet they orbit.*
More to the point, I suppose, is that Worfing the princesses has become a common tool for the show to dramatically increase tension. MLP acts like it's a big stakes-raising deal when they get wacked, so it seems pretty reasonable to say they're hot shit in some combative fashion or another.
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Awkwardly, I prefer this to the usual twenty-second (or off-camera
) curbstomp.
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They're in the throne room shot, if you pause right before the jump cut.
I really want to know what species the pirates are -- I thought griffons originally but they're clearly not:
i.imgur.com/QnkxjPL.jpg
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They're just anthro birds. :B Parrots.
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Wingless? Or wings trapped under clothes, so effectively wingless?
I wasn't particularly fond of the trailer, but I wouldn't call it bad. It definitely had some moments, but I can't say I'm completely sold on the animation, Grubber, or Tempest Shadow in my opinion. At least the Storm King looks funny, so it has that going for it. There will almost certainly be more information in the coming weeks, so I'll be sure to check those out.
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Is it bad that I almost had the exact same thought?
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*Mumbles something about 'there's probably a spell for that, and anyway who said laws of physics applied to magic?'*
Honestly, seems more reasonable to say the ponies are just super-unnerved when their supposedly omnipotent leaders get toppled, a trick of hysteria that happily applies to the audience. In reality, all the princesses have done is be competent rulers who lived a long time and sometimes used magic rocks to fight battles they were otherwise woefully ill-equipped to handle.
Looks like it's all Canterlot, no Ponyville. Love the "expanded" Canterlot, though.
Yup... definitely some signs of executive interference here, but that was never going to not happen.
For instance:
This is known as "Dreamworks Poisoning." The movie will be a hit because it has big stars in it... don't worry about crap like story and character. (Hopefully they worried about stuff like story and character.)
But considering all that, it still has a decent chance to be a good film. I mean... pirates, sword fights and airships blowing holes in each other! That's a damn good start. (Plus, not a lot of Starlight Glimmer!)
I agree that pony on the pirate ship looks like one of the sea ponies got transmogrified. I've seen the hippogriff model, and that's not it.
Noted:
Luna finally gets a throne of her own!
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Ah, you're right, my bad.
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Wait... they're standing next to the thrones on the dais. Even Cadance is in the room.
Interesting. Starlight Glimmer is presumably nerfed or captured as well, since she's apparently a princess level threat these days.
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Yeah, I didn't notice that until people started showing screenshots on Discord.
I don't know whether to hope sia has a plot role or not. I don't really want her to, but it would be weird for her not to, but that worked for zootopia, so...
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Speaking of Discord... no Discord! (Unless I blinked and missed it.)
Which isn't that much of a surprise, now that I think about it. Only four options.
1) He fixes things with a snap of his fingers = no movie.
2) He doesn't fix things with a snap of his fingers = confirmed for total douchebag.
3) Anti-magic nerf again = God of Chaos is any decent mage's bitch.
4) Sir Not Appearing in This Picture.
About 300-400 pounds, I think.
Anyway! Action, adventure, hammy villains, airships, pirates... this will be great. I'm probably gonna see this three times in the first week, trying to do my part to guarantee a sequel.
The new animation style will take some getting used to, and anthro-style characters in my bog standard MLP universe flip every "no no no stop" switch possible in my brain. Otherwise, yeah, probably fine.
Good news: No Starlight Glimmer!
Bad news: It's another big bad guy episode. That is just not MLP: FiM's thing. It doesn't play easily to FiM's strengths.
4586083 4586143 By season 10, they're going to have to spend the first half of every bad-guy story rounding up and nerfing all the super-powerful characters except the one who's the hero of that story.
I just hope that there's plenty of time to flesh out these new characters, without deviating too much from our seven main heroes.
Also, that blimp Tempest was riding looked...off. Maybe they haven't finished the CGI on it or something, but it really stood out amongst everything else.
The animation looks fine once you get used to the fact that it's much smoother and more expressive than the show. My bigger issue is the conspicuous CGI and the weird disconnect between the backgrounds and characters.
My bigger(er) issue is the fact that the movie appears to be focusing on what the show is worst at. FIM's most glaring weakness has always been action. It doesn't fit the characters (especially someone as nonviolent as Pinkie or Fluttershy), and choreographing it is awkward (since they're ponies and not humans, none of the combat stylings that fit human characters fit them). Even when the show is trying to sidestep the latter issue and uses magic, it still runs into issues of tone and scale (one of my main complaints about the Tirek episodes was the ill-fitting Dragonball Z laser fight).
overall, it looks to be a rather standard template Hollywood movie, which is disappointing. Not unexpected, but disappointing.
I wondered the same thing. Pretty sure it was clowns
That's kinda how pop music works
That airship looked like total garbage. Like, I'm pretty sure that's Cortex's airship from the original Crash Bandicoot
Also, I feel like a total idiot. Apparently, I've been confusing Kristen Chenoweth with Rachel Griffiths because the latter played Brenda Chenowith in Six Feet Under. I was so excited when I'd heard she'd be in it, too
Liev Schreiber was COtton Weary from the Scream franchise, and he's kinda typecast as the villain.
Taye DIggs was in the seriously underrated horror remake The House on Haunted Hill.
And as I said in my own blog post, the biggest flaw is I can already predict the ending. I'm excited, for sure, but I'm not expecting the next Zootopia or Toy Story.
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But the DBZ laser fight was the best action sequence in the show's run? <:B
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You really can't think of this as "summer blockbuster movie", no matter how they're promoting it. It's just ponies. :B
Yeah. I noticed it last year with the Ratchet and Clank movie. Paul Giamatti and John Goodman get top billing, with Rosario Dawson as third. Giamatti and Dawson, fine, they play the main villain and a supporting protagonist, respectively. But Goodman gets second billing when his character is just Ratchet’s boss and only appears in the first third of the movie, and not even prominently. The voice actors for Ratchet and Clank themselves get third and fourth billing, and the VAs for Qwark and Nefarious aren’t in the advertising at all.
I don’t understand why they do this. Movies like these are obviously for fans of the franchise, and we care far more about the voices we know and love coming back for the movie than we do a bunch of random celebrities we may not have ever heard of being in the movie for bit parts. Pony especially, what is the purpose? Do they really think someone who has never seen MLP is going to see this trailer and go “oooo, Liev Schreider and Zoe Zaldana, the first two minutes bored me but if they’re in the movie I have to see it!”
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I think they unequivocally, absolutely believe that. :|
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I have no idea in hell how Celestia's still in charge of Equestria, given that apparently everything else in the world can roll her up like a soiled carpet if they care to try, and Equestria's military is worse than useless.
The answer, of course, is that these writers do not have a strong line editor keeping them to a series bible, so Celly's become a jobber.
Hoooooly crap. Hype got.
The movie sure does look like a Candy Crush world...To many sweets
I want to know if they will acknowledge Discord. Now that he's pretty well reformed and allied with Equestria, it's hard to imagine some threat taking over the country without him stopping it. The fact that we didn't see Discord in the trailer means he's probably out, and I can see that as necessary for an action movie. But I hope they at least have Fluttershy or someone say "Oh, Discord will be in another dimension for the chaos convention for the next month or so."
Really. Doesn't it basically mean "someone else will take care of your problems for you"? :V It's even started happening to Twilight herself before now.
Yes, or even, for that matter, unrelated professionals who are actual voice actors.
In various ways looks good, even if I kinda dislike the 3-D in 2-D thing it has going on there. But I think I read the first issue of the comic prequel before seeing the trailer, and it doesn't have me the most hopeful.