Thoughts on 'My Little Pony: the Movie' (Spoilers) · 3:56am Oct 6th, 2017
Just got back from the first screening of the movie and y'know what? It was pretty good. It wasn't ground-breaking or anything, but as a classic-style family adventure film, I enjoyed it. It was also undeniably cool to see the production staff's name up on the big screen.
Spoilery thoughts below the break!
-Since the movie clearly takes place post Season 7 (Starlight and Trixie appear in the background) this actually functions pretty well as the next step in Twilight's character arc. She's essentially forgotten how to function on a mission with her friends, and she has to relearn her very first lesson; to trust in her friends.
-Grubber is easily the worst of the new characters. He's not funny and he serves no purpose.
-The Storm King is a MASSIVE letdown for a character that's meant to be the chief villain. I have zero idea what his motivations are, where he came from, or what the hell Liev Schrieber was doing with his performance. Strangest of all, despite being such a weak villain, he earns the dubious distinction of being the second villain of G4 to die!
-The Air Pirates are all really fun, as is Capper. "It's Time to Be Awesome" takes the cake as the better song, however.
-"Is that it? Is that all the friends we made on this adventure?"
-Hearing Andrea Libman and Kristen Chenoweth duet was an unexpected highlight.
-Applejack's dry humor was another stand-out. "Now, I wasn't raised in a barn. I just happen to live on a farm where we happen to have a barn. That I was born in. And spent most of my formative years in."
-There's some all-time great Pinkie Pie bits in here, particularly when she has her cannon idea.
-Speaking of Pinkie Pie, let me just say how strangely satisfying it was to see two of the Mane 6 actually yelling at each other in the midst of serious conflict. That Twilight/Pinkie confrontation may just go down as one of my favorite scenes in the whole series.
-Tempest Shadow is kind of perfect and I wish she was the chief villain. Her song is great, she's genuinely menacing, and I was shocked at the brutality of her origins.
-Practically every notable pony put in an appearance. Only two glaring omissions I noticed were Shining Armor (presumably watching Flurry back at the Empire) and the CMC (though Apple Bloom does appear with the rest of the Apple Family.) I was surprised to see Cheese Sandwich show up, even if he doesn't speak.
-Derpy's role was kind of perfect.
-There's a ton of little character moments that just made me smile. Twilight's giggle-snort, Pinkie's squee, Rarity's growing exasperation with the adventure, etc.
-The score is pretty stellar. I only wish they had reprised the epic take on the main theme when the Mane 6 reunite at the end.
-And finally, the princesses continue their streak of being useless. Cadance takes a bullet for Celestia. Celestia immediately turns to Luna and tells her to go for help before being zapped. Luna runs but then gets zapped. And some folks wonder why a major element of the Continuity is pony's becoming disillusioned with the monarchy.
-Overall, I give this movie a solid 8/10.
You and I have pretty much the same rating, though for some different reasons. I found Tapper to be a relatively weak inclusion, even though he was better than I expected him to be. I honestly liked Storm King more even if we don't know much about him, he's like Discord in that he's a mix between silly and serious. Tempest felt like one of those edgy OCs. And I only remember seeing Starlight in the credits animations, if she was in the background she practically blended in. I kind of grew to like the animation towards the end, and I'm glad I got to see this in theater with other Bronies, it's a wonderful experience.
Never learned in the first place. All we've been told was a lie.
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But Discord has a reason to be silly and serious. He's the spirit of chaos. The Storm King is just "I'm trying to rebrand myself and I need a giant storm." Rebrand from what?
Starlight and Trixie shoot off fireworks during "We've Got This."
Hmm, thought that was mainly AJ and her new
cultelectorate.Urrrgh... I now get firsthand why the Midnight Screenings crew hates it when characters in comedies keep spouting off ad-libs and grinding things to a halt (I don't generally watch that kind of movie). Apparently that was literally what Michael Pena was assigned to do.
The argument actually reminded me of- well, probably a lot of fics, but for really well-written and (therefore) hard-hitting stuff, it called to mind a scene or two from Triptych. Don't know if you've read that, but it's pretty good if you don't mind a more
cynicalrealistic look at certain aspects of the universe. So yeah, got some odd enjoyment from that.And the cherry on top is that in the end credits where some pony(s) rearrange the broken pieces of the storm king back together before falling to pieces again, and when you think about, the pony(s) basically defile a corpse.
Not really when you consider the other G4 villain that was killed off has also been accused of possessing a weak characterization compared to the other villains.
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"Never learned in the first place"? What are you talking about?
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Only that Twilight's always been a deplorable person no matter how the cuteness and heroics of earlier seasons tried to mask it, and hasn't improved morally in seven seasons of real time.
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You're full of it.
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You may very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.