MLP Marathon Bonanza - Equestria Girls: Legend of Everfree · 11:06pm Dec 1st, 2017
Well, season 6 was pretty fucking great all things considered. That finale alone made me really happy that I started getting back into MLP. I’m looking forward to season 7, but first we gotta do Legend of the Everfree. I hear it’s a pretty decent EQG movie, so let’s see.
Legend of Everfree
Maybe I’m the odd one out here, but I never actually had a school trip where I spent the summer, or even a week, at a camp. I mean, I’ve been camping before, sure, but only with my family. However, if you watch American movies and tv shows you’d think everyone and their grandmother went camping every summer. Actually, come to think of it, both my brother and sister went to summer camps when they were younger… so maybe I am the weird one? Well, anyway, I don’t love camp movies (okay, well I do love camp movies) but I also don’t dislike them just because I can’t relate to them. In fact, this movie did anything for me it was to make me want to rewatch my favorite camp movie: Wet Hot American Summer. But enough about that, let’s talk about the camp movie I actually watched.
Best thing Michael Ian Black has done since “The State”. Everything else has been horrible shit…
Equestria Girls: Legend of Everfree is a pretty all right movie when you get down to it. There’s some interesting stuff going on in this movie, and I can certainly see why people have said this is the best one since Rainbow Rocks. I think Rainbow Rocks is still miles ahead of Legend of Everfree, but at least it’s better than Friendship Games. My main issue with this movie is that it’s 72 minutes long, and it took about 40 minutes for me to start giving a shit about anything that was happening. Once the pace starts to pick up and magic stuff starts happening, then the story becomes pretty enjoyable. Also, Gaia is a fun (sort of) villain, even though she’s not really the main bad guy.
This internal conflict Twilight has is one of the most interesting parts of the movie.
In fact, Gaia not being the main villain is probably the biggest disappointment about this film. Having Filthy Rich threaten to buy out the camp and force Gloriosa and Timber to leave is a fine premise for the film, but Filthy shows up twice (three times if you count the flashback to Gloriosa’s memory) and that’s it. He has basically no presence throughout the movie and so he poses a threat that’s not very tangible or relatable in any way. Meanwhile, Gaia isn’t really an understandable villain either. Yes, I understand her motivation and I think it’s somewhat rational, but the issue is that like Filthy Rich she just doesn’t have enough presence in the movie to really make her feel important.
I have a sneaking suspicion Timber is hated because he’s a waifu stealer.
I can envision a movie where either Filthy Rich or Gaia is the only villain and I can see it being much better and a more tight script because of this. See, if Filthy Rich was the main villain he would need to constantly being showing up at the camp to either bother Gloriosa or just cause problems generally since he’s trying to get the camp for himself so he can turn it into a spa. The problem with this of course is that there’s not tons of room for magic to make its way into this story, which I actually would have been fine with. In fact, when this movie kicked off I was kinda looking forward to the whole camp thing because I was getting sick of them being at the school. It’s been three movies now, so it felt about time for them to leave and go somewhere else. Anyway, they didn’t want to do that, so that’s fine. They want to have a big ending with colorful outfits and pony magic, which is fine. The issue is that’s not the type of movie the actual villain of the story called for.
When are we gonna get an “Equestria Girls: Trixie’s Magical Adventure” movie?
Since Gaia is the villain we actually see and the heroes actually interact with, it would have made more sense for this movie to be about her and less about saving the camp. As a thought experiment, let’s imagine this movie if Gaia where actually the main villain. We could have a story where she’s causing trouble little by little, trying to run the people out of the camp so that she can reclaim it, just like Timber explains in his story. I mean, they set that up perfectly, but then subverted it in a really unsatisfying way. When Gaia finally reveals herself to the campers, it would be easy to say that she had possessed Gloriosa, or something like that, and that’s how she gets the stones. Wouldn’t that be a better movie? Twilight, Sunset and the rest team up and defend the camp, beat Gaia after having their friendship speech and make her realize that destroying the camp isn’t the right answer because both Gloriosa and Timber care about the camp and want to let it and the surrounding forest thrive. Instead we get a mix of this story and the Filthy Rich story and both suffer for it.
Earth-bender Applejack is pretty great.
So, what we actually get in Legend of Everfree isn’t terrible, really, but it’s not great. It could have been so much better, and rather than that it’s just kinda forgettable… unfortunately. As I said earlier, I was fairly bored through the first half of the movie as they’re just doing camp stuff and the only interesting thing is Twilight wrestling with her literal inner demons. That was fairly well executed. However, not much of consequence happens until about 35-40 minutes into the movie. I don’t really like Friendship Games, but at least the swapping back and forth between Sunset and Twilight’s story kept things moving along nicely. In any case, I’m now going to talk about some of the things that I’m still confused about having finished the movie.
“I will fuck you!”
Okay, so first off, it was bothering me throughout the whole movie, but how old are Timber and Gloriosa supposed to be? The fact that Timber and Twilight are crushing on each other, I assume they’re about the same age, but does that mean a couple of teenagers are running a fucking summer camp? That doesn’t seem safe. Also, speaking of Timber Spruce, why the hell did he have sparkling dust in his pocket? As far as I can recall, that is never explained and seemed to only serve to make Sunset suspicious of him. Furthermore, when Sunset and Twilight follow Timber into the crystal caverns, they eventually find out it was Gloriosa doing the magic, but where the fuck did Timber go? He just disappears and eventually shows back up later when they cut back to the camp. Like… what? Was it purely just lying for the sake of creating a fake mystery? I don’t know. Normally these kinds of nitpicky things wouldn’t bother me that much and I’d just wave it off as “because the plot needs to happen” but these really stood out to me. Well, anyway, I’ll name some things I liked in this movie.
Rarity and Applejack stand out in this movie as being the most likeable and amusing.
I like that it doesn’t take place in the school again, and I like that Twilight, being the new Twilight, still isn’t comfortable around her friends. This creates some believable and interesting conflict. I like that Sunset is the one who Twilight connects to the most because they have similar histories, kinda like Starlight and Trixie. I like the design of Gaia quite a bit, and I think she would have been a really great villain had she had more than 5 minutes of screen time. I like Applejack’s super strength, and Rainbow’s super speed. They’re by far the most useful and understandable powers. Also, AJ being strong is just kinda awesome. There’s some decent music in this, but the songs don’t really stand out that much. Twilight’s solo is decent, but is pretty short, though the crescendo is quite good. Also, Gaia’s song is pretty good. In fact, it’s one of the better villain songs in MLP. I like how they play with “Everfree” and “ever free”. It’s kind of clever and interesting. So, yeah… that’s about it. Don’t love it, don’t hate it. Probably won’t watch it all the way through again. 6/10.
This and the title song are really the only ones I genuinely liked.
Meant to put this in the review, but I also liked Sunset Shimmer's outfit she wore during the ending party. It's quite cute and has a good design. img00.deviantart.net/8a5d/i/2016/329/d/7/loe_sunset_gala_dress__thanksgiving_day_vector__by_jongoji245-dapk284.png
Yeah, much like Friendship Games this movie's main plot takes too long to get going. But it has the advantage that you aren't really sure where it's going, while Friendship Games established its pattern of "one of them ponies up, Twi absorbs the magic, portal opens" pretty early.
And yes, Stand for Everfree is a great villain song. Gaea doesn't get much screentime but she makes the most of it by being hammy and hilarious.
You'd better believe there was backlash over Sci-Twi having wings despite not earning the title of Princess, while Sunset Shimmer has most definitely earned her wings at this point and yet has none. I really don't expect them to ever do Shimmercorn, but Sci-Twi shouldn't have them either.
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Yes, that dress is fucking amazing and arguably the best part of an otherwise somewhat forgettable movie.
See also: Sunset Shimmer in general
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The thought never even crossed my mind, but that is a good point. I guess I just didn't question it. Sunset Shimmer should be the princess of, uh, sun... sets.
"I got this!" is my favorite thing to come from that movie. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the movie much. It just speaks more to my really stupid sense of humor.