My thoughts on the MLP Movie · 2:37am Nov 9th, 2017

So I finally had the chance to see the MLP movie, and now I shall convey my thoughts on it. I'll do the basics, and then I'll do the specifics for the ~~few~~ none of you that care.
Was it good?
Yes.
Was it great?
No.
Now for the details:

"You may be entitled to an opinion, but your opinions are a reflection on your expertise on a given subject. If you have no expertise, then your opinions are worthless." -Lily Peet

This statement is true with the MLP movie in mind. Critics likely have a hard time reviewing the movie without seeing the TV show. Anyone on YouTube who has reviewed this movie is probably a member of the brony fandom, and therefore not only familiar with the content of the movie, but also biased towards it. Bronies are more likely to enjoy it because of their familiarity with and enjoyment of the characters. Critics are already against it, because of the taboo with the sheer fact that it's My Little Pony. There's a reason we in the fandom don't call it that, we refer to it as MLP, because how many of us really want to say My Little Pony or even type it out. Even in the fandom, it's taboo.

Either way, I'm saying this because I'm really behind on the show. Out of season seven, I've only seen the first two episodes, the one with Dash's parents, and the one with William Shatner. So it's safe to say that I was behind. On the upside, I never felt confused or out of the loop during the movie. It closely follows the mane 6 and Spike, along with extra characters it introduces throughout the movie. With the exception of the Princesses, who get maybe 10 lines throughout the entire movie. Others, like the CMC, don't get a line, but a visual cameo. The same goes for Starlight, who thankfully doesn't get a single line.

The downside is that the movie seems very dumbed-down compared to the series. I can tell it was meant for little kids. The upside to this is that there is less fan-pandering. With the exception of the Derpy cameo in the beginning, there seems very little catering to fans. This, frankly, is a breath of fresh air. It's nice to have a part of the series without a bunch of fan pandering.

In terms of quality, the new animation looks fantastic. Whilst the characters we know look odd, that's only because we've gotten used to flash animation for the last seven years. But the new characters look fantastic. Speaking of the new characters, we have a lot of them.
Good guys include Capper the Cat, Captain Celaeno the anthropomorphic...parrot, apparently, Princess Skystar and Queen Novo the sea ponies/hippogriffs.
Bad guys include Tempest Shadow the unicorn without her horn, Grubber the...hedgehog, it seems, and The Storm King.
Let's start with talking about the good guys.

Sadly, a lot of them are kinda boring. Capper is a conman who tricks our main characters and then gets on their side again. Celaeno is very one-note and boring, despite being voiced by Zoe Saldana. Skystar and Novo remind me or Arial and Posiden.
The villains aren't much better. Grubber is comedic relief. The Storm King is almost as bad of a villain as Sunset Shimmer, and Tempest feels like Starlight Glimmer, but with 20% more edge.

Despite that, Tempest feels like the only well-rounded new character in this movie. But she suffers from weird plot gaps, decisions that make no sense, and the fact that she, like Starlight, is reformed at the end of the story. Her design feels like someone just went 'what looks dark and egdy?' and vomited out Tempest. Her name, voice, and design combine into someone that just screams 'evil', and that's not a good thing. Subtly is key.
Plus her backstory given to us is so close to Starlight that it's terrible. Just replace 'cutie marks' with 'broken horn' and you have the same basic principal. According to Tempest, she decided to not trust anyone and listen to no one else but herself after being betrayed by her friends. Despite this, she openly trusts the Storm King's promise to give repair her horn and is even shocked that he doesn't, despite claiming that she's hardened herself against others. She even sings an entire song about it, which is actually the best song in the movie, and is still shocked by the Storm King's sudden and inevitable betrayal.

But if you're going to the movie hoping for a fun story and good animation, then you should like this movie. It's fun, albeit predictable, ride and since I know most people don't care about plots, you should like this movie.
Oh and the songs aren't very good.
Except this one: