Spoilerific MLP Movie Thoughts Part 1 · 2:07pm Oct 7th, 2017
Howdy howdy~ Been awhile, hasn't it?
Though I've not been very active on this site in the last few years, and though life has kept me from writing and reading fics, I'm still very much a fan of My Little Pony. It is a show that changed me for the better and helped reshape my worldview into something a little more optimist. I owe this show a lot, thus seeing the movie in theaters once, if not twice or more, was a simple no brainier. Having just seen it once, I'd like to share my thoughts with you and see what others who have also seen it think!
Since I'm not sure when the page preview for this will cut off, I'll just throw in here how I was the only physically male person in my entire theater. This made me feel like a rare mythical unicorn, ironically. Also want to throw in here that I am not going to do any additional research as I am typing this DIRECTLY after seeing this movie and right before going to work. What this means is that I am not going to look up voice actors' names or the names of the characters they played. I am only going to be listing things that I vividly remember from my viewing. Characters like Tempest's Spike ripoff and the not griffon pirates will probably not be named properly because I can not for the life of me remember them at the moment. Sorry Pirate Lady; you were cool but not very memorable... but I'll get into that later.
Now then, let's go!
I'm going to start by saying that I did enjoy this movie. It kept me entertained and in a good mood from beginning to end. That's the kind of feeling I look for when re-watching mlp episodes, so good on the movie for being able to duplicate these vibes. Nothing felt slow and scenes didn't feel wasted. Everything moved at a nice click; with a hard three day deadline set at the beginning to insure that the ponies wouldn't be lollygagging... or so one would think. There are actually three separate scenes where the ponies do just that; goof off. Once after Capper's (hope I spelled that right) song where Rarity shows him some generosity; another time during Dash's song about being awesome/loyal to your true being, and lastly as Pinkie Pie rekindles the hippogriffs/sea ponies' spirits through the power of laughter. These are rare moments to breath and reorganize that the ponies instead use to unknowingly network with others. If the sole point of these songs/scenes were to introduce and quickly reform these characters for the sake of the climax I would have been slightly peeved over the lack of natural story progression... but thankfully that's not the case.
The other point of these scenes were to foreshadow Twilight's fall from grace.
She remained suspicious of Capper during his song, remained focused on the mission during Dashes', and then there was the sea pony song where everything came crashing down; Twilight losses her faith in her friends and uses them as nothing more then a distraction. I think this part might become a very divisive topic for some of us. Some will think of it as being out of character while others will point out evidence of how it makes sense.... My take on it? Well... I'll to get to that in a bit (Spoiler, I might be in the latter group). Let me instead ask a very simple question that might not have a simple answer.
My question is; When in the hell does this take place?
Starlight and Trixie are clearly bffs here, so it's at least in season 6. Cutie Mark Crusaders and still marked, so thats more evidence there. No changeling empire cameos at all though, which is strange. Fluttershy is also back to being the "shy" one, sadly, so I don't think it being in season 7 makes sense. Sooo... does anyone else think it's sometime during season 6? Any evidence that suggests otherwise? I'd like to hear!
Speaking of Fluttershy's shyness, let's move on to what I REALLY wanted to talk about with this movie; the characters and how much importance does each pony have in the grand scheme of things. While together these ponies have amazing chemistry and said chemistry is on full display during this movie, the group is only as strong as it's individual pieces. Let's talk about them from the least relevant pony and move up into the most relevant, one character at a time, starting with... (drum roll) ... Fluttershy!
Yeah, unfortunately Fluttershy fans didn't get a whole lot to work with during this movie. She is very much in her prior to season 7 persona. She hasn't quite built up her courage yet for this adventure and spends most of the time in the background. A couple obligatory "yay"s, funny background scenes, and a winning smile are all we get out of quiet yellow in this movie. Quite the shame but there's plenty more where she came from.
Staying with Fluttershy at the bottom is Rarity, though she was quite close to a tie with Applejack. Rarity's generosity is on full display here, and it's what ultimately helps change Capper's tune, but beyond that she was regulated to simply being the complainer of the group; arguing about climbing and falling and almost dying of dehydration. Everyone will have a different opinion on whether this was funny or not; I personally thought it was hilarious.
Applejack is sitting in the lower middle for importance during all this. Like Fluttershy her actions didn't affect the lives of any new potential friends. Nope; what Applejack brought to the table for this hoedown was some good old fashioned butt kicking and smart-ass comments. She played the same role she's been playing for years in this group; that of team mom. She was the first to converse with the others about how to advance after escaping Canterlot, first to call out Twilight on her shenanigans, and took up a tiny leadership position once Twilight was captured. Apple horse was a good horse and was the third most entertaining character to watch overall
Dash was an interesting case. She was very much her normal rash and bombastic self. Always ready to fight and defend herself and her friends, though she didn't get much chance to do this until the end. She was as lost as the rest of her friends throughout the flick, only really speaking up with the pirates... oh. I'm sorry. Did I say speak? I mean sing. Dash sings up with the pirates in what is possibly the most memorable song for me. "Dare to the be Awesome" was the musical winner of the movie in my opinion on grounds of it reminding me why Rainbow Dash, who usually sits in my bottom-tier pony list, is still the kind of friend we wish we all had; when something's not right she speaks her mind and if she knows you can do better then she's going to cheer you on until you're as awesome as she is. Dashie had a great little slice of this whole adventure dedicated to herself and her new friends and it was fun... until she bucks up everything royally by blowing their cover in the most explosive way possible. Rainbow horse was not a good horse, and was not the second most entertaining character to watch, but I can confidently say that things wouldn't have been the same without her.
The second most important character from the mane six was... Twilight Sparkle?! Yes, believe it or not folks I think our OG Pony Protag was actually only in second place when it came to importance and screen presence. Most of this movie was about Twilight in her "mission" mode; the mode she enters when Equestria needs her. We've seen her in this mode many times before. The Return of Harmony, The Royal Wedding, Princess Twilight Sparkle and Twilight's Kingdom... basically any two parter that turns this show into the Twilight Sparkle Power Hour. We've seen her act this way before, but she's always ended up blaming herself for each mistake she made. It's the part of her character we all can identify with on some level... This time though she snaps and blames her friends, which makes her MORE relatable. This is not something we've seen from her before however, and... I welcome the change. This is Twilight at her lowest; where a foolish mistake has doomed her and her friends but this time she's seemingly burned a bridge that has always been there. Twilight without her friends and without her faith in her friends, is truly haunting and hard to watch but I think it catapulted her into the frame of mind necessary to save Tempest from her mistakes. Her making the choice to save her over grabbing the staff wouldn't have been as impactful, I feel, if Twi was still spouting her usually Friendship is Magic-shtick at the time. I think her getting on Tempest's level really helped in making her turn around seem more genuine then some we've seen from this franchise. Fallen Twilight was hard to watch a little but I doubt, after the events of this movie, she'll make the same mistakes again. I have faith in our favorite book horse (next to maybe Moondancer, who made a cameo! Did you spot her?)
I want to throw some love Spike's way before I move on to pony #1; little dude killed it this movie with what very little they gave him. Setting dudes on fire, being by Twilight's side in her darkest hour... mad respect my man. Just please stop crushing on Rarity please. That's a bandage that needed to be ripped AGES ago.
By process of elimination, this leads us to pony #1 who was none other then... DERPY FREAKING HOOVES! MAD PONY STRAIGHT UP JUMPED IN-FRONT OF TWILIGHT'S MAGIC BULLET AND ATE THE MOFO WHOLE! SHE IS A CELESTIADAMN HERO AND IF ANYPONY SAYS OTHERWISE WHY I'D OUGHTA...
Ahem
A-anyways, pony number one, to my GREAT surprise, was actually... Pinkie Pie! Pink pony fans got a lot to enjoy from this movie I feel; this was Pinkie at her absolute best. Her portion of the "Not Flawless" song kept ringing through my head every time I saw her. "I may joke around a little too much, but I'm just so happy you're here~" Nowhere else is this more apparent then in this movie. This filly was EVERYWHERE throughout this flick, generally being her normal bubbly self even as danger approached from every corner and even though she literally almost got her skull cracked open (seriously wtf?!) Regardless of this though, Pinkie is NOT a normal airhead here. In fact, she's the one to actually confront Twilight over her rash actions and ends up being the one to eat her stinging retort. This was probably the best example of the duality of Pinkie Pie that this show has ever had; she's the element of laughter, not a clown. She may clown around a little more then most, but there is an actual heart and mind behind the supposed madness. I think Twilight forgot that in all the chaos of her three day journey.
I hope she never forgets it again.
Thank you for reading my thoughts so far! Stay tuned as I try to find the time to write Part 2 of this thing where I talk about the additions to this world that I enjoyed. I'll also talk about the original characters of this movie as well as more things I liked (Like how they straight up murdered the Storm King like holy fucking shit that as metal as hell am I right?)
Have a nice day!
-Derply
Good to see a blog from ya
Neato, Derp, buddy. Glad to see from you.
Going to see the movie with a friend tomorrow, so read, like, 2 paragraphs of that blog post.
Anyway, seems that you have enjoyed the movie, and that's good, I guess ;p At the very least it means that you have some free time and, probably, sooner or later you'll have free time to continue typing stories. Maybe I will read the rest of your thoughts tomorrow, but so far I can only say that it's nice to see another sign that you are still alive ;p Wish you good luck.
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Hehe, wouldn't really say it was FREE time. Had to sneak four towns over after work, around 9pm for my viewing XD
I hope you enjoy it! I'm probably not going to have the time to a part two to this, but I'll try to sneak in some time to talk about it if anyone wants to chat about it. And thank you for being happy for seeing me, well, alive
I'm sure things will get stable enough to see me return to form SOME day.
Hope to see you then!
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Well, several days later I finally have time to honestly say that it wasn't as bad as I expected ;p
Of course, translation to my language was atrocious at best and the whole plot of the movie was made of plotholes and idiot balls, but that's par for the course. Can say, though, that design of new characters was rather interesting(with the exception of the parade of caricatures that the population of the unnamed desert town seemed to consist of). All in all, the movie left a nice enough impression and was enjoyable. Somehow. Won't say that I will remember it for a long time, but it had some nice moments.
I graciously accept your thanks for me being nice enough to be happy to see you alive and kicking ;p
About your question on when this does take place, though - no idea