Thoughts on the MLP Movie: · 4:00am Oct 8th, 2017
I have a hard time forming a simple opinion on it, because it felt like about five different movies. Some of them I really liked, and others I really hated. But here are some random thoughts I had after the break (which include spoilers, if that wasn't implied):
The animation ranged from absolutely beautiful to some bad integration of hand drawn and CGI that totally took me back to Aladdin/Beauty and the Beast era Disney.
Where was Discord? And where were Thorax and the Rainbow Bugs to help as they crossed the Badlands (or, ya' know, did anything else?)
Did anyone catch the name for the city on the other side of the Badlands? My husband and I have been calling it Mos Eisley all night.
All I can imagine was that someone told Leiv Schreiber that he was playing a cartoon villain, and he was like, "Hey, I fuckin' loved Hercules! Can I just be James Woods?" and the director was like, "Sure. Whatever." That said, it was distracting, but not unwelcome.
Same for Capper. Total stock character, but I have a weakness for that one so I'm not complaining. I would totally be friends with him after that song.
Why was the sonic rainboom more impressive on TV than in the theater?
Queen Novo is better than all Princesses, and she does not have time for this shit.
Can we do some fundraising to pay for the therapy bills of whichever writer was traumatized when their friends stopped playing with them when they were a kid?
I'm kind of annoyed by the background incompetence of the Mane Six. Like, I can give a pass to some idiot ball and things like ignoring that even if Twilight's magic is drained, Rarity has magic that could reach the damned staff, because they're necessary to the plot. But there were a ton of minor points where the Mane Six could have used their own abilities the circumvent minor problems and didn't.
My husband felt that Twilight trying to steal the pearl was OOC. I felt that was an awesome temptation for Twilight, but that blaming her friends at that point was OOC. Discuss.
The Prequel comic calls it Sludgetown.
I went in expecting something average and was pleasantly surprised. I also fell on love with Tempest's villain song and the hippogriff design.
Come to think of it, that's probably how they broke up the movie into production teams. Initial pony setup, arrival of the Villian and fight, the desert and city, the undersea, and the final fight.
Oh, and spoilers.
It kind of was, but they were building to it. I actually found it a bit ironic that they had her do that in this movie, after it was the obvious and appropriate (and probably relatively easy) choice in the original Equestria Girls. So yeah, a bit. As for exploding at her friends, they were, overall, actively unhelpful through the point she asked Pinkie to cover for her (Rarity won over Capper, but only after he sold them out and at that point, there was no reason for them to actually know that or think it would matter; RD flipped the pirates, but after the point when they could have escaped on their own anyway, and then screwed it up; AJ and Fluttershy were pretty much extraneous the entire movie), and her snapping isn't that weird. (See: This week's episode.) I was on her side there, and that all of her friends (sans Spike) left her at that point seemed worse to me.
What seemed more OOC to me was the passivity of the cast upon Tempest's arrival. RD not getting up in their face (maybe with relevant and appropriate rainboom?). AJ just taking it. Have you seen what happens when someone bullies Fluttershy's friends?
Re Discord etc.--Also, where was Starlight? (Apparently in the background at some point?) But granted, even if everyone who should have been there was, that's just more characters who need to be nerfed so there's actually a story.
4690841
See, I felt like the Mane Five were just... being themselves, and Twilight wasn't providing the leadership that she normally does when they actually need to be a directed force. I mean, yeah. we all know that if you leave them to their own devices her friends will go off and do stupid things or work at cross purposes (which is a great and realistic side effect of them all having such strong and different perspectives) but from Season 1 it's been obvious that when Twilight gets her shit together and has a plan, that's when they become an Equestria-saving machine.
Twilight knows this. She's seen Winter Wrap-Up. This should not come as a surprise worth telling them she needs better friends.
I can understand lack of
that idiot plot device that made changelings uncoolThorax, given that production of the movie started before then, but lack of Discord is not forgivable.Overall I'd say I liked it; Tempest's whole arc definitely helped tip the scales. It wasn't MLP in top form by any stretch, but it was a decent pony outing.
So many movie teams would've used a quarter of that worldbuilding to fill a whole movie. First there would be 1.5 hours of pirate ponies, 1.5 hours of seaponies in the next movie, etc. Up until the last twenty minutes I was worried none of this globetrotting and character introduction was going to be plot-relevant at all. I wish they'd pulled back to give the main characters more time to breathe and interact; this thing tended to move at a blistering pace.
To your last point, I like the pearl twist because it felt like a moment of genuine, un-forced Twilight fallibility. She's not having a freak-out moment, she's not making an anthill into Everest, she's got a giant problem and, in her own words, fails friendship. That hearkened back the golden days of unicorn Twilight for me: still learning at every turn, still occasionally ending up flat on her face. I took her argument with her friends after the fact as her frustration boiling over, pure and simple.
I found the animation style distracting for the exact reasons you mentioned. For all the trouble and limitations Flash piles upon the show's production team, the characters and the backgrounds actually suit each other. I'm sincerely hoping that the next movie will cure some of these ills, simply because they'll have a better idea of what they're doing with the tools given.
Personally, I found much of the story relied too much on the Idiot Ball, which often resulted in making capable or strong ponies weak/incompetent in order for the plot to reach its designated destination. While some locales like Klugetown were intriguing, the process by which the characters got to these locations or found themselves in certain situations often felt forced. A good example would be Discord's aforementioned absence, and the same goes with the Royal Guard. Because while Starlight Glimmer may be strong, and the Wonderbolts have shown competence in later seasons, defeating an endless wave of baddies might be impossible for most ponies. Of course, the Mane 5 and some pirates get through the goons, which begs the question of why Twilight and company didn't fight them right away. I personally didn't like the movie, whether it was because of the aforementioned plot holes, events breaking my suspension of disbelief, or certain moments being way too dark in my opinion. Scenes of ponies I've come to love in the show being enslaved and possibly tortured shifting directly to Pinkie's usual excitement made me go from being angry to the point of illness to confused at why the tone changed so quickly. I guess the movie proves that you can't please everyone.
If you're referring to the Sonic Rainboom from the episode of the same name, I'd wager it's because of the episode's context, whereby Rainbow Dash struggled up to that point, pulled off the stunt at the episode's climax, and earned the respect of her idols that would spark one of the show's longest subplots. The Sonic Rainboom in the movie looked pretty, but lacked the narrative oomph that its Season 1 counterpart possessed. At least that's what I'd guess, though I could always be looking at things incorrectly. I'm not exactly the best at explaining these kind of things.
Anyway, even though I'm highly critical of the movie, I'm glad you found some parts that proved enjoyable. I wish you all the best!
The movie was more or less exactly what I expected it to be, which was terrible and amazing and just all around an experience. If one walked in wanting an actually good film with an actually sensible story that uses all the parts of its source material wisely, doesn't rehash character development, doesn't sideline supposed main characters, and doesn't have giant blinders on RE: how the characters solve problems, I would be forced to wonder why they chose to see Hasbro's latest cash cow attempt film debut.
This movie sort of epitomized the best and the worst of MLP for me, having both super genuine emotional stuff (my heart was legitimately wrenched by the scenes of everypony in chains) and just utterly bizarre and nonsensical plot beats and character moments. Throw in some awesome yet simultaneously clumsy worldbuilding and you've just put the cherry on top.
It made me happy, and I was smiling big as the credits rolled. That's all I asked for, and that's what I got.
And lose that gold mine of villain generation? That's crazy talk!
Just think what we could do with Discord's background... He had no friends before--that we know of. When Fluttershy became his friend, everything changed. Obviously he lost his friends at an early aeon and went through a harsh emotionally chaotic millionager phase where nobody understood him. I really, really think this could be a hilarious background story in the right hands. 
And you want to fix that.
About Twilight: I think under the right circumstances, both Twilight's attempted theft of the pearl and her angry outburst are plausible, considering what she was really going through, but not for this movie as it was presented. Like so much of the rest of the movie, this needed more development to become truly plausible.
We already had ALL of the princesses inexplicably powerless and prone to dear-in-the-headlights syndrome during an emergency (despite having been there many times, enough to have learned that lesson). Her friends appeared to be not just more useless in a crisis, but inexplicably thoughtless and damaging to the whole cause at random (aside from AJ & Fluttershy, who were only there). But still we were missing some cues. Too much was either not expressed, or the emotional arc of the story was deliberately flattened where it could have given us some more tangible view of Twilight's personal (growing) angst.
Anyway all of the scenes and actions leading up to that moment weren't developed enough to support her action and reaction. To do that, though, might have made this a darker movie, and it was already riding that edge right from the beginning.
Celestia is the world's biggest jobber. And this is coming from a guy that used to watch WWE during the Attitude Era.
I don't understand how half the cast can be so retarded unless they were merely pretending just to make things more exciting.
"mah horn" villain is so edgy I expected her to teleport behind someone with a katana and a fedora.
I wish it had just decided to stick in not Agrabah or the sky pirates. All these different things are stupid. There was less scene jumping in A Goofy Movie, and that was a fucking cross-country road trip.
Definitely some idiot balls going around. The movie was fun enough but had issues. I kinda feel/hope it could get the same treatment as EQG. The first movie, to me, is still terrible, but they knocked RR out of the park. I feel it could get similar treatment if they do a second movie.
There were certainly some "needs of the plot outweigh the needs of the ponies" moments, but an important thing to bear in mind is that, at least on paper, this was intended the be accessible to people with no prior pony knowledge. That meant it couldn't be dripping with continuity, and characters entrenched fans are familiar with had to be introduced as much as the celebrity voice vehicles. Rainbow bugs and chaos noodles out of nowhere would work for the world, but not for the uninitiated.
Still, while it was a perfectly serviceable movie, The Twilight Enigma did a lot of this better. And there the Mane Six got to stay on the pirate ship a lot longer.
It's called Klugetown. The word shows up in the credits and in the comics. :B I don't know why they couldn't have given us more information like this. I mean, they took the time to have Fluttershy address Pinkie by her full name so we'd know who the hell she was!
Saw the movie with my daughter, made memories that will make me cry the day I walk her down the isle.
The animation was great, it looked almost hand drawn and I got the same feeling, like I was watching little Mermaid back in 1990.
Storm King was disappointing, BUT
Considering the five year old next to me, he couldn't have been too intense because she would have been terrified.
My numero UNO complaint: WHERE THE HELL WERE THE GUARDS? Shining Armor even! I know there painted useless but not so much that they are nonexistent!
The scenes with the ponies in muzzles and chains broke my heart.
But...
The music had me tapping my toes. Enough to buy the soundtrack.
There were funny moments I actually laughed at.
I felt there was a nice balance between the 6 nobody save Twilight got the spotlight for too long.
This was my biggest complaint. The overall under-utilization of her friends' basic abilities as pegasi or a unicorn.
Three simple changes that would've made me very happy:
1) If they'd used the word "hippocampi" when referring to the sea ponies.
2) The Queen of the Hippocampi says that the hippogriffs transformed themselves and took to the seafloor in order to keep their magic pearl away from the Storm King. I would've loved it if the only reason the Storm King came to Equestria was to power up his staff with alicorn magic 'cause the staff was the only way he could get to the pearl.
3) In a similar way, I would've liked the Storm King to devote one or two lines to telling Tempest that the power of the staff can't fix her horn--that nothing, in fact, can fix her horn.
On the other hand, though, I loved that the pearl was such a wonderful maguffin that it turns out they don't even need it at the end to save the day. And I absolutely loved how the heart of the movie boiled down to a season one conflict between two of our main characters: Pinkie with her "friendship is the same everywhere" attitude and Twilight with her belief that "friendship is different outside Equestria".
Reckon I'll hafta see it again at some point.
Mike
My friends all loved it, while I just sort of enjoyed it. A big part of the problem for me was how the princesses were immediately taken out. It's become so routine for Celestia to be taken out of the fight by the first blow that when it happened I turned to my boyfriend and said, "Oh no, they got Worf, I guess we now know how serious the situation is..." Unfortunately, this kind of colored my view of the rest of the movie. Actually, I think I could sum up most of my complaints about this movie by simply saying that it consisted of stuff happening because the plot required it, rather than it making sense in universe.
Along those lines, I actually didn't have any problem with the Changelings not showing up, because the movie was in production before that was a thing. If anything, I treated the continuity of the movie the same way as I do longer fanfictions: The universe is initially like the show was when the story began to be written, and small details that appeared later in the show (Trixie and Glimmer together) can be added in at the author's discretion. Not having at least a throw-away line in there to deal with Discord's absence, however, was distracting.
Finally, was I the only person who didn't love Tempest? I mean, she does have some screen presence, but it really just felt forced to me. Her backstory was passable, by Equestrian standards (I can only imagine the sort of villains Equestria would have if ponies could unfriend each other on Facebook), but her redemption felt trite and inevitable. I do have to wonder how difficult it was for the colorists, trying to color a character that's nothing but edge.
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Agreed for the most part. Her redemption is also pretty much luck; if the Storm King had wasted a half a minute to fix her horn, then... what, fuck friendship? Friendship is Magic As Long As the Villains Don't Figure Out Rational Self-Interest?
I'm just wondering where the hell the Royal Guard were.
Or, well, literally ANYONE. Surely Canterlot isn't the only city of Equestria.
And those OP magic ball things that froze the princesses were never explained.
Why was Celestia standing still like an idiot?
If only someone made a CinemaSins video about that movie, that'd be awesome.
4691509
That would have required changing the whole scenario where the Storm King doesn't know what the staff does, which I think is supposed to be Tempest's whole deal there (that she knows about this thing and he doesn't.)
Though that would have fixed the Evil Overlord ex Machina of her flipping.
4691070
This is a very good point, and makes me a lot more sympathetic to the writers, if not the finished product.
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I wish it had been hippocampi as well (granted, I also wished they were actual seaponies and that the hippogriffs were a misdirection), but that only works once they've already got there, since they, well, weren't until they changed.
Looking back, the only thing I remember the pearl mentioned as being good for was transforming the hippogriffs back and forth, and the original point being they wanted the hippogriffs to show up and help them. If they weren't joining, I'm not sure there was any other way it was supposed to help against the Storm King. Was there, and I just missed it? It certainly seemed like it was assumed TS & friends didn't need to get the pearl in order to change themselves back.
OK, I just watched it and have some thoughts.
First off, I'm treating the movie in my mind as a stand alone thing, not linked to the cannon of the TV show, that allows me to cut it some slack (some being the operative word).
Compared to the villains that we have seen in the show, both Tempest and the Storm king were pretty lame. But since everyone else was de-powered for the movie as well they were a credible threat. If they had turned up in an episode the show however they would have been dealt with in 10 seconds flat (to quote Rainbow dash).
The Storm king is utterly powerless before he got the staff and powered it with the Alicorns, so how the hell did he manage to start his own little empire, and why the hell did Queen Novo feel it was necessary to transform her entire race and flee from him? Why not just turn him into a fish and have done with it?
Tempest can make sparky explosions with her horn stump, that's it? seriously? oooh, scary! The stonifying rock things were a little bit ridiculous as well, there is no explanation as to why they could pass through a magic shield, or why they would even work on the most powerful creatures in Equestria (since Discord wasn't in it).
It seems that for the movie, unicorns and Alicorns have lost the ability to teleport. Something that would have been extremely useful at many points during the movie. The anthropomorphic cat, parrot and fish did not fit with what we have seen in the show either, baring in mind that Rarity has a pet cat and Twilight has a pet owl, it just opens up the whole goofy/Pluto questions from Disney cartoons. Does this mean there are herds of non-sapient ponies wandering around as well?
Next plot hole was how the heck did everyone get back to Canterlot after Twilight was taken? They had no transportation, yet managed to arrive not long after Tempest.
My biggest gripe was centered around Twilight resorting to petty theft and tricking her friends, followed by her outburst at Pinkie when she got called out for it. That was so out of character it felt like a sub-par fimfic story. For another matter, why was she so desperate to get the pearl in the first place? apparently all it can do is turn you into a fish and back, so not the most useful of tools in any situation.
During the underwater song, I was hoping that there would be a shooby-doop thrown in, just as a nod back to the original sea ponies from yesteryear.
The final complaint that is at the front of my mind is the fate of the Storm king. Killing the antagonist should never have happened in any form of official my little pony story. It just does not fit with how things are dealt with in the show or books/comics.
All that being said, my kids loved it and there were parts that made me chuckle. But nothing really hit me in the feels the way that a lot of the shows episodes have over the years. I wish that when they decided to make a movie, the execs had spent some time on this site. there have been some truly epic stories that could have been adapted that would have fitted better into the shows universe.
4691527
Yep, exactly. I was getting frustrated with Tempest for pushing the Storm King about fixing her horn while he was still playing with his new toy. I mean, evil or not, the most-likely best-case response would be "go away, I'll deal with that later." Not to mention, we didn't get enough time with the king to find out if such a betrayal is something that should have been surprising for Tempest. It could've worked so much better if Twilight had actually said something about Tempest's horn after she found out about her backstory, whether that it's impossible to fix, or that she could find a way to fix it if Tempest had merely asked her.
4691070
I definitely agree about The Twilight Enigma doing this better. I usually feel that way about pony though. The episodes are what they are, and they're generally good, but I come to read the fanfiction to see the stories done in a way that's more interesting and complex. Of course, fanfiction has a lot more room to explore ideas from every possible angle than a TV show or movie ever will, so I won't hold that against them.
Don't you love when you posted a decently-lengthy reply, only to accidentally delete the entire comment due to the buttons being so small on the mobile interface? I know I do.
The movie was about as good as I expected it to be. Perhaps exceeded my expectations in some aspects, though it'd be more accurate to say it didn't fall into some pitfalls I thought it would.
As a Pinkie fan...
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Yeah, no surprises here. The film is a triumph for people like me. I hoped she'd get some cool moment. What I didn't expect was her to basically become the deuteragonist of the film. I was EXTREMELY WORRIED she'd become nothing more than the typical comic relief and, while she did have crazy moments, she also had a lot of emotionally heavy moments. I might go into more detail oh why she's so good in this movie another time (this isn't the place for it) buuuut... I mean, after this, why can't she be the Princess of Friendship?! Why?!
That said, the same praises cannot be said from Applejack or Fluttershy fans. I mean, look at the lines of dialogue each character has:
i.imgur.com/v8crEFI.png
Grubber, freaking Grubber had more lines of dialogue than Fluttershy does. She does nothing in this movie, although I heard there was a scene she'd have that was ultimately cut. Applejack does just as little but at least she's orientated for action and has her typical dry snark to play off of.
I can kinda understand why this WIDE discrepancy between character spotlights happened. We've done the same old 'each Mane 6 members has a spotlight to show what they're good at' shtick several times now and I think if that happened in this movie, it'd hurt more than harm it. I'm sure there was a better solution for the problem though.
Other than that I enjoyed the worldbuilding a lot. Songs were okay, though Rainbow's was a bit cringey. One Small Thing is of course, my favorite. The Storm King barely appeared, to the point where I found the typical Storm Guards more fearsome. Seriously, I love their design. Wish they did more to back up their fearsome appearance.
Also the ending was kinda bad. The movie just suddenly... stops. I wanted more of a proper reconciliation between Pinkie and Twilight, really.
I accept this things as inevitable. Discord and Thorax were just busy/put on a bus. It's not a clean, clever solution but that's what happens when you bloat your cast like the show has and continues to do.
I watched this with Merc and he would not let this go. I thought it was a bit bothersome myself but after watching some of the leaked episodes after, it appears that unicorn telekinesis is affected by weight/gravity/external forces. Rarity probably didn't have the strength to grab it with her magic and even if she could, she likely wanted to put all her effort into holding onto her friends.
I think it was very nearly perfectly on the mark. I could completely understand Twilight's situation and she is prone to crack under pressure. This wasn't like the gang's typical adventures in the sense they had to leave Equestria and venture to less certain places with inhabitants that weren't ponykind. I can understand Twilight's cynicism coming to the forefront for the sake of making sure she could save her country, whilst making sure her friends were safe (I think they could've heightened the latter aspect some more).
I think Twilight's argument was so close to being perfect, they just needed a better line than Twilight outright dismissing her friends. I don't think there's enough to justify a jump to that harsh a conclusion. It's tricky though. Calling them all 'my stupid friends!' is arguably just as harsh, if not more so.
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While I don't deny that Twilight is a great leader, they are cases where the Mane 5 can band together and be a formidable force without Twilight's assistance. This actually happens in the movie itself when they go to save her, but it also happens in Equestria Girls 3, when the girls are using their powers to try and fight off the bad guy. I like moments like that because it shows they're more than just 'Twilight's accessories'.
4691516
She's better than Starlight Glimmer, give her that much.
I can see how a childhood injury could cause a person to become that messed up.
4691530
I did find it kind of amusing when Twilight (or someone else, can't recall) was like 'Yeah, we'll take you on, Tempest!' when referring to... simple civilians.
Look how well that turned out!
Hoo boy. I've heard so many conflicting stories about this movie. I'm... sort of scared to watch it.
Tally-ho.
My first reaction is that someone needs to figure out which chemo drugs treat "superfluous comic relief critter sidekick", because now it's metastasized from Disney princesses to pony villains.
My second reaction is to ask "Why does transformation magic hate Spike so much?"
4693313
Wellll....
Jayson Thiessen:
Director: My Little Pony The Movie 2017
Director: Equestria Girls
Writer: "Princess Spike"
Meghan McCarthy:
Writer (Story and Screenplay): My Little Pony The Movie 2017
Writer: "Power Ponies"
(Granted, she was also "Crystal Empire" and "Inspiration Manifestation.")
"Transformation magic." <.<
The Sonic Rainboom looked terrible in the theater not because of how it looked, but because it was a bad thing, whereas every other time we've seen it, it's been a special climactic achievement, here half of it was Twilight saying "no no no NO".
Twilight spends the rising action getting increasingly frustrated with her friends, and then just goes straight for the throat when called out for being a cynic. As the central conflict of the movie, there's nothing inherently wrong with it, and given what had actually happened up to that point, I felt Twilight's anger was justified. It's just that from an outside knowledge perspective, it just feels very unjust towards her friends because they had to be given some serious idiot balls in order to piss off Twi as much as they did.
I've seen a lot of people upset that Twi didn't use some epic magic shit to get them out of trouble, except of course, for the part where she did, (after escaping the airship) but whatever. That she didn't teleport around a lot is understandable because she's got six traveling companions, and I can buy that it's not at all practical to take six people with you on teleports. For that matter, no teleports of any kind were done in the movie, and I'm willing to ... not complain about characters not demonstrating abilities which they canonically have, but which are not used by anyone at any point during the film. I figure the least I can do is judge the story on it's own terms.
Overall, no individual event really stuck out to me as really stupid, (except for the rainboom) there were just a few things that left me scratching my head a bit, because they seemed like things that could have been handled better without much cost in terms of production. Twi being a little more articulate rather than just being like "you're all terrible friends", but I guess that wouldn't have led to them splitting up so she could be captured. No one ever taking the opportunity to question whether it was even possible for the Storm King to restore Tempest's horn, though I guess that for the Storm King to say it would have clashed with his clueless-about-magic character, Twi could have said something though. The completely unexplained stone-bombs. I can come up with rationalizations for how they could exist all day. After all, this is a universe with half-chicken monsters that can turn ponies to stone by looking at them, but the fact the movie itself didn't deign to give us an explanation was strange.
It felt like the production had it's heart in the right place, but was just missing some level of writing quality control. Like, no one going back and hammering out the weirdness after the inevitable mid-production changes happened. Despite that, I was entertained. The fact that there's still an attempt being made to tell epic fantasy stories (in an official capacity) in the FiM universe makes me happy. They made an entertaining product that almost certainly made it's money back at the box office. Maybe this means they'll be willing to try again.
Twilight tried to steal the pearl and then did the equivalent of pointing a loaded gun at Pinkie when she called her out on her bullsh*t
Also, why not contact their new allies, the Changelings, who once successfully invaded Canterlot themselves, seriously what the hell?