MLP: The Movie - rambling non-review, non-essay thoughts · 11:08pm Oct 15th, 2017
I thought I wasn't going to watch the MLP movie in theaters again. but while in California, I met up with horizon, Rocket Lawn Chair, and Caliaponia, and had a really great time watching it with friends! 
instead of alone like usual.
my spoiler free review has been "It's pretty good. It's almost great."
I know everyone's been reviewing this movie so far, I'll try to avoid the usual LIKE/DISLIKE points. here's odd little things I noticed from 2 viewings, things I don't see discussed much. LOTS OF SPOILERS AHEAD!
It's funny to see all those trailers for 3D animated movies before it began, and they all look terrible. I am very thankful that the MLP movie didn't turn out like one of those. even Disney seems to do those now too, though they're a step in quality above the rest.
after watching that Hanazuki short twice, I still have no clue what I saw. trippy animation though.
the group dynamic during this adventure was reversed from how I usually remember it. Maybe I'm forgetting a few adventure episodes, but usually it goes like this: Twilight is the responsible leader, telling everypony what to do. While Twilight freaks out over responsibility and the possibility of failure, Applejack is the grounded 2nd-in-command who keeps the others in line. Rarity makes a joke about beauty. Fluttershy is scared of everything. Pinkie Pie makes annoying nonsense jokes. Rainbow Dash complains about not getting to rush blindly into danger.
in the movie, most of the plot is driven by Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash (and Rarity to a lesser extent) doing, you know, adventurous things. they embrace the danger. Twilight is the cynical and snarky one who can't believe what her friends are doing. I actually find this a lot more fun than the previous dynamic, even if it did leave 2 characters with very little to do. it reminded me in tone of the original Nightmare Moon 2-parter, even with the whole exploration of unknown lands. it doesn't seem like we got a lot of that either, over all these 7 seasons.
early-show snarky Twilight didn't feel OOC when she stole the pearl, but I guess I'm the type that would prefer rewinding the character development a little for the sake of getting the characters back to where they were most interesting.
I noticed that during Capper's song, all the ponies sing except for Twilight, implying she's the only one who doesn't trust him.
I was surprised after Pinkie's underwater song that the whole thing was just a distraction. I don't think I've seen that done before in musicals. the musical number is supposed to be so big and grande, that everything else must stand still while it goes on. to be honest, on my first viewing I was bored during this song, I thought there were too many musical numbers. I could enjoy it more during the second viewing.
Why does it feel like the movie has too many songs? It only has 5, which should be a perfect number (the intro and finale songs don't really count since they're in the background). By comparison, Aladdin only had 5 songs. Beauty & The Beast had 6. When Disney started trying to imitate their old success from the 90s, they went overboard. Princess & The Frog had 7 songs. Frozen had 8. Even though I eat up this kind of animated musical film, I got so sick of Frozen's songs (I rolled my eyes when "Let it Go" began, only to change my mind a minute later when it turned out to be one of the catchier songs).
to be fair, the budget for MLP movie is estimated at $8 million dollars, compared to the $100+ million budgets Disney gets. even in the 90s, Disney films were about $40 million each. adjusted for inflation, that's like $70 million today. so Disney can afford to hire top talent, but still puts too many songs in their movies...
In my opinion, the songs in MLP movie were fine, they just needed some tightening up. the visuals could be more interesting to look at; there were glimpses of inspired directing, but mostly weren't anything special to watch. but most of all, I blame the lyrics. they're mediocre, and Michael Vogel was involved with all of them.... blah. they're still very catchy melodies, I'm actually still humming them to myself, but all I can remember of the lyrics are the main chorus or whatever. there's no interesting wordplay or surprising twists going on.
the one exception is Sia's song, which Michael Vogel had nothing to do with. I'm surprised how much I liked that one, and it wasn't just a ripoff of Zootopia's finale song. for a simple pop song that doesn't progress much, it feels quite melancholy, probably directed at Tempest's character. so that's the one song I actually sing the lyrics (in my head).
finally, I was surprised by the overall arc in this movie, and it made me realize some things. It may have been a little rushed in spots, and everyone has different opinions on this, but it is there as a connected theme about trusting others after being betrayed. the purported moral at the end does match up to the events in the plot. but how often have we had an adventure episode in the show that did the same? a lot of the season finales are pretty bad at this. for example, Twilight forgiving Discord to get the last macguffin key.... unlike the rest of the key episodes, it doesn't feel like she actually inspired him, since they were never friends anyway. another example is the season 5 finale. all the alternate doomed timelines doesn't really match up to the stated theme at the end, how Starlight gave up on friendship because her friend's destiny took him someplace different. despite how much I liked Starlight, even back then, I have to admit this is the reason why her backstory feels so shallow and insincere -- not because it was rushed, but because it has nothing to do with all those action/adventure scenes of Equestria being destroyed. wouldn't it have made more sense if the altered timelines were about the Mane 6 ending up miserable without the sonic rainboom? she could call out Twilight as the privileged one who got to have great friends and a grand destiny, while never knowing that others could find pain and separation by getting cutiemarks.
ok maybe that's just my opinion. It's weird to think that, compared to the show, the MLP movie took a risk by focusing on the story, instead of a random assortment of exciting action scenes. it wasn't perfect at it, but I'll respect it for making this choice.
maybe the movie could've been better, yeah. but after all these years, and seeing those early trailers, I was expecting much, much worse. it was almost great!
Ah man it's so interesting, I feel the exact opposite haha. To me, the movie hardly focused on a story, instead favoring big adventure and snazzy locations and new characters. I'm not saying you're wrong about the story, mind you. Obviously it worked for you and lots of other people.
I'm really glad you enjoyed it too, you know. I wish I could have. And I mean that. I don't like not enjoying it. I just...have so many issues with it. :(
And I'm glad you got to see it with others! Do you not have anyone around to see regular movies with?
Funny enough, the pony movie was one time I wanted to go by myself. I even got to be in the theater by myself! It was perfect to wriggle around and pull at my face in pain, or smile or laugh.
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not that I'm saying it's a great story, or a particularly deep one (I think a simple story works fine for what they were trying to do here), but it's strange how many of the show's adventure episodes skip the story entirely. or i guess i mean "character development" to be specific. the early seasons used to have a lot of that, where the characters' choices mattered more than seeing them win. I got a little bit of that old feeling from the movie.
luckily no, because I never go to see the regular movies either
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Ah yeah okay, I do agree with that. It even often feels like none of the writers even know what character development means anymore with the mane six. I also got a season one vibe, but not with the adventure/story like you did. For me, it was in the return of Twilight's snark/grumpiness. Which I was happy to see again until the fight she has with her friends, where I realized it was actually just the writers trying to set up her character arc, not because they actually felt this was Twilight's personality. Which was a bit of a letdown, but ah well, so it goes I guess.
Oh, not much of a movie guy then I guess?