Spoilerrific Pony Movie Recap and Review · 10:57pm Oct 7th, 2017
Get it below the break.
So, before I begin the actual review, I have to explain my mindset going into this. I went in expecting to be underwhelmed. I could tell from the press releases and trailers this was not the pony movie we wanted. As I’ve said in other places, this was going to be A pony movie, not THE pony movie. The history of alicorns, the origins of the Elements of Harmony, stakes higher than anything seen before, a movie so huge and epic it could end the show if they wanted to. This was not going to be that movie. This was just gonna be a fun adventure with the Mane Six.
So I was going in expecting to be disappointed. I went in with low expectations.
And you know what? Even with my expectations set low, I was still disappointed.
This isn’t even “A” pony movie. This is generic, by-the-numbers kid fantasy adventure schlock pumped out to push toys. There is none of the magic, charm, humor, adventure, that the show can give us. Pick any given two-part premiere or finale, and it is a better movie than this actual movie. Hell, even some of the adventure-centric single episodes like Griffonstone and Gauntlet of Fire are better than this. This movie does not even come up to the standards of Equestria Girls. Yeah, really - I would call the first EqG movie a better pony movie than this one.
Let’s get into it. We open on a cool animation of a spark of magic like Twilight’s star movie along an ambiguous form that turns out to be the movie logo, as the opening notes of the main theme play. And then we segue into “We Got The Beat” for our opening tune. That thunk you just heard in the distance was my forehead hitting my desk as I remember wincing as the cheesy pop song started up in the theatre. We pan over Canterlot with everypony arriving for a Friendship Festival Twilight is putting on. Every cameo you want is here, Sassy Saddles, Photo Finish, the Cakes, spa ponies, wonderbolts, Derpy, Trixie, Starlight, Twilight’s Canterlot friends, Octavia, Vinyl Scratch, Lyra and Bon Bon, Tree Hugger. Cheese Sandwich cameos a little while later and DOESN’T GET A LINE! Seriously, you can’t just call up Weird Al on the phone for a two-word sentence, or just recycle some archived audio?
Anyway, Twilight is nervous about the star of the festival, famous pop star Songbird Serenade. I don’t know who she is nor do I care, nor will the film ever give us a reason to care. She is just some random celebrity that everyone wants to see. I have no idea why this character exists. Twilight approaches the three princesses to ask them to use their magic to position the sun and moon, and create an aurora, to light up the show perfectly. Seriously Twilight? You wanna ask them to fuck with the traditional movements of the celestial bodies to light up a music performance?
Back outside the Mane Six decorate. We get a good joke here with Rainbow zipping down to chug a cup of cider from AJ that she casually keeps refilling for her to do it again as she talks to Rarity. Enjoy it, the jokes in this movie are painful as Spikes “what you talkin’ about?” bit to Twilight a moment ago will prove. We also get a Hungry Hippos joke shortly that they actually pause for the audience to laugh at. Truly the height of comedy - referencing things that exist. We get our first musical number here, and I don’t even remember the tune. Every song in this movie save for the villain song is bland and forgettable. At least Equestria Girls has great music still. By the way, Pinkie makes a Discord balloon animal, while Discord himself is Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Movie. Seriously, how many damn celebrities are voicing characters here, and you can’t get John DeLancie to make an appearance?
The airships arrive and Tempest disembarks with Grubber, the Jar Jar Binks of this movie. Grubber does NOTHING for the plot and only exists to be Tempest’s comic relief foil, undercutting every tense and serious moment she could provide with a bad joke. Grubber could and should be cut from the film and nothing of value would be lost. The fight begins and Tempest uses some sort of crystal grenade to petrify the princesses. Celestia begins to call out to Luna to find “the queen of the hippo” beyond the Badlands before she gets crystallized. Twilight and co escape and decide they must go south beyond the borders of Equestria to seek aid from the hippos.
Tempest gets a Skype call from the Storm King. Really - the potion has a ringtone, she tells the guards to “answer it” and the flames from it pop up with internet connection static. This is the first and last time we’ll see the Storm King before the finale, and he’s one of the few parts of the movie that works, he’s definitely comedic and trying to be, but he’s also an evil jerk and he knows it and embraces it. Literally, he markets merchandise of himself and ponders if the name “Storm King” really works for his “big bad villain” brand he’s going for. But as we’ll see at the end he can be legitimately menacing and dangerous when it’s time to throw down. The Storm King has the MacGuffin staff, which can be imbued with the magic of all four princesses to make him all powerful, and if Tempest captures them for him he’ll restore her horn. So yes, he really is Tirek 2.0 after all, but with none of the threat level implied by being connected to a G1 villain.
Twilight and friends cross the desert to... Town, populated by monsters. In a subtle and creepy moment, a street vendor with assorted cut horns on display on his stall whispers to Twilight to ask if “she’s selling.” The group are cornered by the greedy townsfolk but saved by Capper the anthro-cat. Capper offers to help them and he gets a song that is also forgettable, and it’s rather obvious they were trying to rip off “You Ain’t Never Had a Friend Like Me” from Aladdin but have none of the fun or spectacle of the Genie nor any of the rhythm of the song itself. Capper takes them to his place and whispers to someone to go tell... someone, to come to his place and he’ll repay his debt. Capper has debts? To who and why? Do we care? Do we want to explain this? Spoiler alert - no we don’t.
Tempest arrives in town and beats up the townsfolk to be directed to Capper. At Capper’s place Twilight reads up and finds out Celestia meant the hippogriffs, which live in a mountain nearby. Capper’s coat is sewn up by Rarity and this single act of generosity from her somehow convinces Capper not to sell them out on where they’re going. Tempest arrives and the group escapes to stow away on an airship crewed by griffons. (EDITOR’S NOTE - I later came to the discovery they aren’t griffons, they’re anthropomorphic parrots. Whatever, pft, they’re griffons, who cares?)
In a really dumb moment, the group discusses trusting the crew while crates with the Storm King’s emblem on them are in full view and the same emblem is on the crew’s uniforms. Failed a spot check much? The crew finds them but the lunch bell rings, they only get one break a day so they choose to take it while they can and get rid of the group later. They get talking and the griffons explain they used to be pirates before the Storm King conquered their lands and they were conscripted to deliver supplies. Rainbow sings a song that is really painful since it’s basically just the group repeating the word “awesome” over and over. We get it, it’s her schtick, move on!
The griffons re-embrace their pirate roots and agree to take the six to the mountain where the hippogriffs live. For no real reason but to let the animators do it, Rainbow celebrates by doing a Sonic Rainboom, which is a friggin homing beacon that Tempest sees. She boards the griffon ship to interrogate them while the ponies hide, and Twilight pulls an escape hatch while rigging up a balloon to fly them the rest of the way, in a cute bit she squeezes Spike to make him breathe fire to get the balloon going. They get to the mountain and find it abandoned. They track some singing to an underground lake and disturb the unseen singer, who flushes them into a drain - seriously, complete with swirling water.
Underwater a seapony, Princess Skyla, creates water bubbles for them to breathe and takes them to her mother, Queen Novo. In a rather force infodump, Skyla reveals they’re the hippogriffs, but when the Storm King invaded their lands they used a magic orb to turn into seaponies to escape him, and they do the same to the Mane Six. Twilight thinks this orb can be used to fight the Storm King (how?) but Novo forbids it, and also refuses to fight the Storm King, but allows the Mane Six to live with the seaponies now. I had to go to the bathroom at this point, but apparently Twilight has the Mane Six show Skyla and Novo a good time to convince them to help, actually a distraction so Twilight can try and fail to steal the orb. The furious Novo changes the six back and casts them out.
On the shore of the island Twilight snaps at her friends that they’ve been a liability on this adventure. On the one hand she’s right, the group has gotten themselves into trouble several times and only Twilight seems to recognize the seriousness of the situation. On the other hand, BULLSHIT! After seven damn seasons this kind of outburst from Twilight is absurdly out of character and makes her just look like a bitch. The five trudge off and Twilight is captured by Tempest, Spike escaping.
We now get the best song of the movie, Open Up Your Eyes, Tempest’s villain song. Of course it’s the predictable “friendship sucks” song with a flashback to her childhood, where her horn was shattered by an ursa minor and she was ostracized for it, leading to her running away from home. But at least the rhythm has some intensity and the flashback is good, so again, best song. Tempest takes Twilight back to Canterlot, now occupied by the Storm King’s forces.
Spike tells the five what happened and they resolve to save Twilight, Capper and the griffons coming to help. Skyla also comes, turning back into a hippogriff. I will mention at this time that this is the last we’ll see of the seaponies/hippogriffs. Which led me to a rather surprising revelation as I mulled the film over at the bus stop afterward - the plot of the movie is entirely pointless! The whole reason they went on this quest was to find the hippogriffs/seaponies, and they contribute nothing to the story at all. Why did Celestia tell Luna/Twilight to find them, why make their transformation a plot point? The entire adventure to get to them was just a waste of time with no payoff.
At Canterlot Tempest takes Twilight to the throne room where the Storm King is waiting with the MacGuffin staff. With all four princesses in place he powers it up and has a goofy fun time playing with the sun and moon. Tempest prompts him to give her back her horn now like they agreed but he brushes her off. Spoiler alert, oh like you need me to say it, you know that horn ain’t coming back any more than we’re getting SunLight canon in the EqG spinoff. How much more interesting would it have been if he DID restore Tempest’s horn and she defended him against the heroes? But no, this movie is amazing cliched and tired and that might be interesting and original, so we can’t have that. To prove himself worthy of his title the Storm King generates a massive tornado around the castle.
The Mane Six and their allies comedy fight the guards and the ponies get to the castle via a giant party cannon, blasting the Storm King away and knocking the staff from his hands. They reconcile with Twilight and work together to grab the staff before he can get to it. Twilight and the Storm King are lost to the winds but the storm calms as Twilight comes back, rather lamely framed to look like an angel descending from the clouds. The Storm King sneaks up on them with a petrifying crystal but is tackled by Tempest. The two fall off the balcony but Twilight levitates Tempest to save her while the Storm King’s crystal form shatters on the ground below.
The MacGuffin staff is used to restore Canterlot and free the Princesses, Sia - sorry, “Songbird Serenade” - performs her concert, Novo and the hippogriffs come to join in, and Tempest is accepted by Twilight as a friend and puts on a fireworks show. Roll credits.
Again - I went in with low expectations and was still disappointed. The songs were dull, most of the jokes fell flat, the story is an Excuse Plot, the new secondary characters only appear to get a song before they get shuffled out until the climax. The animation is fine but also looks rather off in places. The only decent part is the villains, Tempest is quite intimidating and the Storm King is funny as well as threatening. But they are not enough to make this movie watchable.
There is one scene that I think sums up the problems with this movie. It’s when Twilight has been taken back to Canterlot and is being wheeled through the city in a cage with Tempest leading the procession. This should be a huge emotional moment, their darkest hour, the ponies of Equestria looking up at their last hope and seeing her in chains. And as they roll through, Twilight sees and locks eyes with someone. Not Starlight. Not the CMC. Not the Apples or the Cakes or Shining Armor (who isn’t even IN the movie) or Trixie or Moondancer. She looks and sees Songbird Serenade. Because strong story and good emotional and character pieces were not what matters to this movie. What mattered was celebrity voice actors for new characters that exist only to sell toys, and that no one will remember or care about come this time next year.
Pick your favorite two-parter and watch it. It’ll provide a story with far more creativity, fun, depth, and heart, than this movie can.
In addition to the poor plot, the Wonderbolts and Princess'es were incompetent while Shining, Discord , and the royal guard were nonexsistent.
Gotta say I disagree with you, this movie was great and definitly followed the spirit of the show with all the charm, humour, adventure, etc... we've come to expect. It's not perfect but keep in mind they started working on this movie before season 5. This was never going to be the big epic possible finale type movie you hoped for because the show was still going so they had to make sure the movie didn't contradict (or was contradicted by) anything that happened in the show during the 2-3 years they worked on it. It's just the consequence of making a movie based on a show that's still on the air.
The point is that it was about the journey and not the destination. Twilight was focused on completing the goal they set out for but ultimately the help came from those they befriended along the way.
I actually liked the way the movie did it, it added to the tragedy of her character. She believed friendship was pointless and you shouldn't trust anyone but she was so desperate to get her horn back thinking it would solve all her problems that she was willing to trust The Storm King even though he was clearly not someone you should trust. Your idea just turns her into a generic villain.
Was the film perfect? Hell no, but I was ultimately satisfied with it and thankfully alot of people were also. That said I will expect more from a sequel they won't get away with this kind of movie twice.
Sorry you didn't enjoy the movie. However, I didn't like the movie either, and these range from things such as the much darker tone in some places to plot holes and other complaints that broke my suspension of disbelief. I'll go over some of my other complaints that also irritated me, but almost everything you said explains why I found it lacking. These include how little development the Storm King got as a villain, the slavery scenes angering me to the point of feeling slightly ill, Twilight's friends seemingly not taking the dilemma seriously, the pointlessness of the seaponies and much of the plot, and how much of the plot felt forced in places. That's not even going into how no one fought back in the beginning, the lack of any Royal Guard, and more. It just wasn't my kind of movie.
Luckily, Season 7 has entertained me immensely, so it's not all bad news.
4690453
I'd cut the Wonderbolts some slack in this instance. Besides Starlight Glimmer, they were literally the only line of defense against an invading army of goons thrice their size once the Mane 6 were out of the picture, and only six or seven of them were present. Even if they were able to KO some of the goons, the fact they were only six ponies strong and going up against an endless wave of enemies who are much stronger physically meant that defeat was inevitable. Honestly, I feel bad for them, even if that's admittedly an unpopular opinion. As for the princesses, they definitely jobbed, so I can't exactly defend them in this case.
I liked it better the second time, I found more to appreciate, mostly thanks to having read the prequel comics, but it's still not good. :/
4690545
My parents have no experience with pony beyond what I show them on YT, and even my mom agreed “it wasn’t as funny as some of the stuff you show me.” A moment ago I showed the Tantabus fight to my dad and said “You see why I’m not impressed with the movie when that’s the kind of stuff we get in normal episodes?” He nodded.
4690504
The issue I have is that no pony tried to stop the fleet from reaching Canterlot, or even noticed them approaching.
I gotta disagree with you on this. I loved the movie. The songs especially. The only part I don't like is when Twilight yells at her friends before she's captured. And like you, I was going in with low expectations and they actually did a good job in my opinion. Though, like everyone can agree, they should've had an in universe reason why Discord wasn't there.
-Dark
It's becoming more and more clear to me that I don't see the primary sources in the way most people do. Most people look at the quality of the storytelling. First and foremost, I look for what I can dismantle and incorporate elsewhere. And the movie had some decent parts for salvage. A few troublesome pieces here and there, but there's a lot I can work with here in terms of people, places, and scenarios. So while, I agree that the storytelling here is by-the-numbers, I was planning on stripping it for parts anyway.
4690636
See I kind of feel the same way. The plot was a very by-the-numbers adventure story, completely predictable. What I and many others enjoy is the characters, the music and even the world building. If all you care about is story then of course you wouldn't like it, but if all you care about is story then I'm not sure why you would like the show either.
4690660
Honestly, that’s fair. But I found the new characters bland and forgettable and the music likewise. Worldbuilding... meh. Did they even name that town in the movie that they visit?
4690669
They didn't use the name in the movie for some reason but it's called Klugetown.
Feels like you're kind of biased against it towards the start since you knew it wasn't going to be this big fandom pleasing thing you'd been hoping for. Most of us already knew that going into it, and to be honest the movie was never going to directly target the fandom. I was surprised at how, in spite of that, there were still plenty of moments only the fandom would get. I will agree on some things, such as Capper's debt, and Grubber having no role other than to be the comedic henchman that was really not needed. It seems like the movie had a hard enough time as it was coordinated between Vancouver and U.S. talent, so it had two voice directors and a few separate studios to record everything. Good luck trying to make all that work with Weird Al and John Del Lancie's schedules.
4690842
I knew it wasn’t the big fandom movie I wanted, but I would have been satisfied if it was a servicable fun adventure in its own right. It was not, unfortunately. As I said, even the first EqG movie, which had a similar struggle to this movie, took time to give Twilight a character arc, even if a weak one, a lot of great songs, and some good animation.
About the only thing I disagree with you on is the Storm King. I honestly felt like he was a joke and underscored everything wrong with this movie.
Imagine her locking eyes with a sobbing Starlight. That'd of been a gutpunch.
I finally managed to watch the movie. I LOVED every second of it. (Except the songs, but that's been the case for just about every show) This was essentially everything I wanted to see that has been lost due to all these later seasons. A threatening villain, showing the power that friendship can have, the mistakes that can be made from neglecting friendship, Ponies Kicking Flank!, and a believable showcase of what caused Tempest to become evil in the first place, (Tempest wasn't just damaged emotionally, she was damaged permanently in a physical way) not to mention a very believable method of her reformation. (Being betrayed by the one she made a deal with)
But most important of all, DEATH!!! DEATH TO THE TRUE VILLAIN!!! HAAAHAHAHAHAAA!!!
Okay, maybe that last part was a bit extreme, but I still LOVED that moment. After watching the movie, one thing that I knew EVERYONE was gonna question, was why the heck Discord made zero appearance in the movie when Equestria was in peril. But honestly, I'M SO GLAD that he made no appearance. Seriously, his very existence as a reformed villain now is such an easy bait for so many plot holes or annoyances that the show can have now. If Equestria's in danger and he doesn't appear, plot hole. If Equestria's in danger and he DOES appear, either super easy fix to Equestria, or 20 minutes of pure uncooperative reformed chaos.
And I'd rather have his non-existence. Discord should never have been reformed, and I still stand by that.
To make a comparison for why I loved this movie so much, I hated the Season 7 Finale purely because of just how nonthreatening the villain was in that Finale.
Twilight had watched the princesses as closed to killed as the series could get away with, spent the equivalent of several episodes fleeing the same fate, was nearly caught due to her friends mistakes, nearly drown, and had the seeming only hope to save Equestria she banked everything on dramatically denied multiple times.
If Twi's actions were still OOC, what more should she had gone through before her break would be adequately/forgivably justified under the circumstances?