The Movie (Spoilers Ahoy!)

So I saw the movie today. Unrelated: apparently most movies are really premiering on Thursday, despite the Friday release dates, with the Thursday evening screenings labelled 'advanced screening'.

Anyway, first things first: overall impressions. The movie isn't terrible, but it's not great either. It's better than the 1980s movie I suppose, for what that's worth. However, if I were to consider it like a collection of episodes (I guess it would be 4?), then I'd put it pretty close to the bottom. Not the worst, but not very high.

The music is good, and most of the characters are engaging, but it has some serious problems. Some only seem as such if you've seen the series. This first one might have been an animation thing that the writers didn't intend: Starlight is shown near the beginning, but is not mentioned and gets no lines, despite being one of the most powerful beings in Equestria who would be quite useful during the invasion. After "Mirror Magic", I had assumed she just wouldn't be there, due to being in the Equestria Girls world. That would have solved the problem... if she hadn't been shown.
Discord, probably very deliberately, doesn't show up until AFTER the invasion has been thwarted.
There is also not even a line drop of the other allies they COULD have considered: the dragons, the griffons, and the yaks. The reason they didn't do that is Celestia told them to find the Queen of the Hippos/HIppogriffs, but a name drop would have been nice. In Celestia's favor, she had told LUNA to go South, and she may have intended to send Twilight off to the Yaks or something.

The next is the 5-act structure Climax, where Twilight tries to steal the change pearl or whatever it's called. Yes, the action makes sense in a tactical sort of way, but it seemed out of character for Twilight. AFTER that scene, we see Twilight having a mental breakdown, but there being clearer signs of it before then would have made it more palatable. Her breakdown leading to her saying she might be better off without 'friends like you' worked in the aftermath of her ruining everything, and she was immediately regretful, but that was after. It was also very obvious that that was what she was planning when she sent Spike out with the girls instead of keeping him with her to bounce ideas off of.

Side-note: pufferfish Spike is totes adorbs, to borrow a phrase.

Next is that the whole trip wound up being somewhat pointless. Yes, they made allies, but the allies were, in the grand scheme of things, not needed. They provided manpower in the final battle, but that role could easily have been filled by ponies from outside Canterlot... or yaks... or dragons... or griffons, but regardless the poines were RIGHT there. Especially if Starlight was actually there, though as she has no lines I'm inclined to think that's not something the script writers intended to be in the first act.
In the end, the pearl wasn't used, only half a dozen allies joined them (which again, could have been from anywhere: their specialized skills did not come into play), and the exact same Mane 6 who had been useless in the initial invasion were suddenly bad-A. And the final resolution just involved snatching the staff out of the Storm King's hands once he charged it. Admittedly he still might have won if Shadow Tempest hadn't switched sides, but it was pretty obvious that the Storm King never intended to heal her. It was never definitively resolved if he COULD, but since he couldn't drain magic like Tirek could without an outside tool, I'm inclined to think he didn't have the magic chops. Thus, her turning on him was inevitable from the start.

One thing that was done in a rather new and surprising way is the Storm King's fate. When he tried to freeze the ponies with what I'm guessing is the Misfortune Malachite from the comics (or rather, fragments of it), Shadow Tempest jumps in and gets hit, but her momentum carries her close enough to him that he gets the effects, too. Twilight saves Tempest, but the Storm King falls and shatters on the ground below. Yep, the Storm King is flat-out killed, in an even less ambiguous manner than Sombra. His followers even attempt to piece the statue back together during the credits, but it just crumbles. Hoisted by his own petard, so it wasn't murder, but it was kind of shocking.

Then there's just how useless the other 3 princesses were. Cadence's defense magic (possibly the most powerful in Equestria) couldn't stop the freeze bombs (again, I'm assuming they're made from Misfortune Malachite, because otherwise that arc in the comic was pointless), causing her to freeze first. Ok, fine, she was caught off guard, she had no reason to think that thing could pierce her shields. But having seen what those bombs can do, Luna flies off (rather than, say, teleporting, though maybe she can't do that) and gets hit in the back. Ok, I can cut her some slack there. But Celestia got hit while trying to give Luna instructions, without even trying to dodge or anything. Her giving the mission to Luna suggested she was going to create a distraction, but she didn't. I would say maybe she got caught up with Cadence, but a bomb was launched specifically at Celestia... if it hadn't been, it would have nicely forshadowed the ending by showing the bombs could affect more than one person/pony/whatever.

Twilight also forgets she can teleport. Right at that part it would have been useful, and also later when she's caught. Now, maybe the cage she was in would have prevented her from teleporting, but she didn't even try. That's another one that's only really an error with the show, but they put in SO many nods to the show that the things they missed were weird.

Derpy effectively did more than Cadence or Luna, blocking the attack meant for Twilight. It was nice to see her again, and she even got a line. She was credited as "Muffins", incidentally, so I guess that's official now. I would have liked if her name were written as a picture of a muffin, though. :P

Also, after Twilight yelled at Pinkie Pie, the other ponies all just walked away, Pinkie saying she 'couldn't talk to her right now'. Twilight didn't immediately apologize, as one might expect for Twilight at this point (though maybe not S1-3 Twilight), and the ponies apparently went SO far away that they couldn't hear the noise of her being captured later! In other words, from both Twilight's side and the others, it was as if the trials of Discord, Chrysalis, Sombra, and Tirek, all of which were aobut trusting each other, never happened. Again, I could excuse Twilight's as being a mental breakdown... if we had been shown that. Maybe not to the nth degree like Lesson Zero, but had they shown her becoming INCREASINGLY distrustful, instead of at a constant level, it might have worked. The other ponies, all of them, just walking away didn't work for me either. RD, representing loyalty, and AJ, who is arguably more loyal than RD, just go along with it. I expected AJ, or when he was the only one left, Spike, to say something like "I ain't goin' anywhere, sugar cube." Or to retain the general structure, "I know you didn't mean it, Twi, but maybe we oughta take some time to cool off." It was clear Twilight needed someone with her. It fell to Spike, and he tried, but he was clearly a kid in that scene, while AJ might have had SOME clue.

Well enough on this for now. I'm probably gonna wind up seeing it again with some friends and maybe I'll have more perspective then.