An outline of how I'd have done the mlp movie... · 10:11am Dec 19th, 2017
It's been a long two months. Nothing good in theaters, long hours at work, a snowstorm, the computer burning out and a bottle of bird dog, it's been down right uneventful. So, I decided to revisit a movie I'd seen and do something I don't usually do... an outline for a cartoon movie I'd seen on how I'd have done it. I admit it's probably rushed and all in one sitting but it's what I've got.
So... yes it's probably pretty rough. But what else would i have done on an old laptop? Check it out below for what it's worth.
The movie’s opening is the first thing that I would change. The original beginning with the three pegasi flying in to the slight reinterpretation of The Go-go’s We Got the Beat does nothing to start or forward the plot. Instead, I’d begin the movie with the morning sun rising and Twilight Sparkle beginning her day. The song starts off with her detailing where she is, who she and her friends are (in general terms) and that they have faced many challenges. However, after all of those now it’s time to relax and have a good time and that she’s planned the perfect festival.
However, as the song progresses her plans begin to unravel. The song gets more and more frantic until eventually she’s buried under the fact that more ponies than she anticipated are showing up, there isn’t enough food etc. In the end she winds up overwhelmed. Once her song is done Spike suggests that she get in touch with her friends to help out. Twilight notes that they’ve been busy and that she wanted to do something so that they could relax and have a good time.
Twilight gets the idea to instead ask Celestia and Luna for help and heads off with her. While she walks off Spike who had a scroll and a quill in hand sends it off before following her.
The next scene opens slightly different. Celestia, Luna and Cadence are there. We catch the end of Celestia ordering some guards to check out some happenings in the southeast. Twilight is surprised all three princesses are there and asks if something is up. Celestia says it’s nothing and the scene plays out similarly to how it did originally up to and including their rejection to, “move the sun and moon,” for the festival which, like in the original movie is disheartening for Twilight.
There’s the sound of a door opening in the background and Celestia offers a reassuring smile. She then tells Twilight that she has all the help she needs and turns her around. When she turns about Twilight sees her five best friends. She’s surprised to see them and they let her know that they’re more than willing to help in spite of her wanting to do something for them. It ultimately leads into the song We Got This which fit perfectly originally and still does.
Things continue to play out as originally scripted with the airship arriving, Grubber announcing Tempest Shadow, and the subsequent attack. There are a few changes in the attack. After the first volley by Tempest and the crowd panicking the guard attempt to dispatch and counter. However, due to the press of the crowd the guard is ineffective. Other ships start to land and the Storm Guard begins their assault en mass firing their weather related wands freezing, shocking, etc. others.
Like in the original movie Twilight is given half of the message to escape and find the Queen of the Hippo (the griff part once again left off). The last of her friends not frozen or caught is Applejack who is running with Twilight and Spike. The bridge over the river gets blown apart causing Spike and Twilight to fall off. Applejack takes hold of Twilight much like in the second episode of season one.
When Applejack lets her go it’s partly because she’s slowly freezing solid. She tells Twilight that she needs to survive and lets her fall into the water below. Twilight lands in the raging waters with Spike and floats along until eventually getting caught off guard by a huge rock. The screen goes black.
(I have two main reasons for removing Twlight’s friends from her journey. First, being separated from her friends raises the stakes of her quest. From episode two and on she’s ultimately been able to depend on them at the end of whatever the conflict was. Second, by moving them off to the side the new characters get the opportunity to shine. In the original version of the movie there were often too many characters on the screen and often characters were pushed off to the side content to go along for the ride and might as well have not been there.)
Back in Canterlot Grubber and Tempest are overseeing their victory. Various ponies are being led away in chains others like the princesses are being carted off. Grubber and Tempest know they missed one princess. Grubber is nervous as they discuss briefly what happened. Tempest isn’t nervous even though Grubber reminds her that the Storm King is on the ship. She finds it odd that he would want to come on this particular invasion at which point the Storm King appears.
The Storm King says he loves the sound of lamentation and asks for their report. They walk and talk up to the three princesses which he counts. They note they missed one and he’s disappointed. Like in the movie Tempest says she’ll find Twilight and the Storm King gives her some time that is limited much like his patience.
The next scene starts with Twilight and Spike unconscious in a poorly lit room. She wakes up first and is in pain. Spike rouses soon after. They wonder where they are and a voice from off camera responds. The voice belongs to a pony named Arbir and they’ve been out a couple of days.
Arbir is an earth pony. He’s a little older than Shining Armor. He’s fairly serious and reserved. At the time of this meeting he’s acting as a spice merchant and has to periodically cross the badlands to deliver his goods. That said at one point he was a royal guard. The fact that Arbir was a guard is something Spike discovers while Twilight and he are talking and he agrees to take them across the badlands. They start to prepare as he gets a few pouches and grabs his spear.
The next scene is back in Canterlot. In this scene we learn two things. First we reinforce that Grubber isn’t evil. This is done with a conversation between him and Twilight’s five friends. I’d imagine that the one or two that were frozen might have some side effect like a cold. Some of this talk would involve how much Grubber enjoys their food and slipping them some of it before the Storm King enters.
The Storm King notices that the food was taken but doesn’t say anything about it as the petrified princesses are brought in along with several unfrozen royal guards. Instead he gives Grubber a withering glare which sends him away but he whispers something to them about being back later. A bit of a back and forth between the king and Twilight’s friends happens and he ultimately dismisses them as untrained nobodies. This leads to a scene and song in which the Storm King explains what he wants and manages to seduce the Royal Guard to his side with promises of fame, fortune etc. He then teleports the turncoats to different major cities that she could have escaped to for aid.
We head back to Twilight and company as they trek across the desert. We get a couple of dissolves of them trekking across the badlands before we cut to a solid image of Twilight and Spike struggling while Arbir notes that it had been awhile since he’d crossed the desert on hoof it’s slower but quieter. He’s also thankful that they have enough water.
Unfortunately for him Twilight and Spike drank most of it and they aren’t a quarter of a way through the badlands. The dragon and alicorn have already started getting loopy which Arbir knows is in part due to their condition after the river and what not. He isn’t mad but admits what he’s about to do will cause a commotion. Twilight and Spike however are out of it. Arbir leaves them the rest of his water and then draws a circle in the sand with his spear before tying off one of his pouches to the end of it. As he swings his spear the contents of the pouch slowly spill out.
Twilight and Spike think he’s gone nuts until they feel the tremor under the ground. It gets bigger and louder until a giant sand worm pops out of the ground. Arbir tells them what it is and that it can take them to Klugetown but that when they get there they’ll have to move quickly and as quietly as possible because the worms are easy to spot. Spike and Twilight get on and they take off.
Pull back to the airship that Tempest is on. The worm activity is spotted. Tempest orders the ship about because there hadn’t been that type of activity while they’d been patrolling. One of her soldiers warns that they can overtake them but it could be unnecessarily dangerous. She says they’ll catch them in Klugetown because they’ll stick out like a sore horn.
Sure enough Twilight and Spike are having a hard time getting passed the various vendors in the market area. Arbir manages to quickly unload his herb stock. However, he keeps them as close as he can and after a bit of bother they make their way past the airship port. Spike marvels at a particularly large ship as they make their way up a hill to a place where Arbir thinks some of the captains might be hanging out.
They enter the bar where Capper is playing cards. One of the big changes in Capper is the fact that he’s not a con artist. He’s a gambler, smuggler, etc. but not a con artist. He also never tries to sell the ponies to alleviate his debts. Anyway, he notices them enter while playing cards and overhears that they are looking for a ship. He looks at his hand and frowns… he’s got nothing. He’s then prodded by a big guy to bet or fold. He sighs and bets it all. When he shows his cards he’s got a winning hand. He then cashes out and approaches the ponies.
He offers them a pitch and Spike asks him if it’s the big one to which he replies that it belongs to captain Celaeno and that they don’t want to travel with her. Twilight seems less than confident in him and Arbir notices the card up his sleeve.
As they’re talking a couple of the turncoats enter the bar and try to make their way over to Twilight. At around this point Capper launches into his song Take a Chance on Me. It’s a smooth but upbeat number that ultimately ends with his cards flying out, something that the guys at the card game notice. Capper starts to make an exit with Twilight and company but is pushed back in by someone he owes a lot of money to. He starts trying to talk his way out of it when the guards approach Twilight and tell her to come back that it’s safe. Then Tempest enters with her crew discrediting that line of logic. It’s a stand off.
The big guy begins to scream about Capper being a cheat to which he says, “Folks meet Mongo,” who proceeds to bowl toward them. Capper grabs the ponies and Spike and clears out with them as Mongo begins the chaos. An extended cart chase scene ensues kind of like Temple of Doom. Everyone pitches in with Spike using fire, Twilight using magic (something that causes Capper to say, “Watch where you shoot that thing.”) and Arbir his spear. The town gets trashed and the four protagonists make their way onto the big ship (Capper’s smaller boat is destroyed in the chaos). Capper waves goodbye to the pursuers and shuts the grate indicating that it’s Celaeno’s ship, which is something he immediately responds to with a “Wait whose ship is this?”
The person who Capper owes money to laughs a bit while the turncoats curse their luck. Tempest immediately freezes the turncoats noting that she hates their type and asks the gathered crowd if they know who owns that ship and that if they can tell her they can have her living statues. The guy who is owed the money immediately tells her he can help.
Back on Celaeno’s ship it isn’t long before they are discovered and brought before the captain. She immediately recognizes Capper and Celaeno have a back and forth. Part of it involves him calling her a “bottom dealing budgie,” which she reminds him it’s not cheating if everyone is doing it. She then looks to Twilight and asks her where they’re going and why.
We get a quiet scene where the characters open up on deck a bit. It’s here that Arbir explains that he left the guard because he was caught off guard during the changeling invasion a few years back. He couldn’t stand the fact that he couldn’t keep anyone safe when it mattered. Twilight mentions that if he’d still been a guard then he might have been caught or worse and they might not have made it that far. Arbir thinks fate is whimsical. It kind of goes like that until one of them notices a ship on the horizon coming up fast. It’s Tempest.
Celaeno orders them below deck which Arbir ignores because she already knows who’s there. Tempest catches them and boards. There’s some back and forth between the Celaeno and her and then Arbir and Tempest. Tensions run high then boil over leading to a fight. Twilight, Capper and Spike escape the same way they did before. Celaeno and her crew escape in a lifeboat. Arbir goes down with the ship while fighting Tempest who barely gets off in time.
Twilight and company fly via hot air balloon to the edge of the hippogriff kingdom and land. Twilight looks down because she’s not only concerned about her old friends but the fate of those who’d been helping her too. Spike and Capper calm her a bit by reminding her that they probably abandoned ship beforehand. She looks back one last time and the trio enters the woods.
Meanwhile back in Canterlot the Storm King is watching the clock. He looks angry. The hands of the clock click over and he sighs stating that Tempest is late and that if he wants something done right he’d best do it himself. He then orders some guards to bring in the crystal. They do so promptly. Grubber is pushed off to the side in the process and spills some fruit. The Storm King then looks at the princesses and notices one of them is saying something. He stands between them drains them of their powers saying it’s not perfect but it’ll do for now.
He then notices one of the princesses is in mid speech. He unfreezes her hand gets the “Griff” part of hippogriff. They talk and the Storm King reveals what he plans to do with their powers and the giant crystal. Basically it’s a focusing tool and she’s determined where he’s going to fire… either griffonstone or the hippogriff kingdom. The princess tries to deny either of them so he just threatens to break frozen subjects until she does tell him. The princess lies and he sees through it. He then fires his power and the three princesses combined power at the hippogriff kingdom.
The blast almost nails Tempest’s ship and she has to make a hard turn to avoid it. Twilight and company watch from a distance as the hippogriff kingdom is blasted. They are shocked. We cut back to the throne room where a screen pops up. Tempest is furious he took that shot. He tells her she was late in bringing Twilight in and that he had to take matters into his own hands. She is still mad so the Storm King levitates Grubber and zaps him in front of the screen. Tempest gets mad and tells him to leave Grubber alone. Fluttershy and company object to this treatment.
The Storm King says that the little hedgehog is betrayed them by feeding the prisoners and that he’s being as gentle as he can be with him. Then says he’ll be much harsher if she doesn’t capture Twilight soon and as for Grubber he and Twilight’s friends are going into the dungeon where they belong. Conversation ends.
Twilight’s time in the hippogriff kingdom is different than in the movie. Gone are the underwater/seapony scenes. They weren’t that great and detracted from the overall movie. Instead when Twilight and company get there they see the petrified hippogriffs standing about. They are fragile however and Twilight has to take great care to move whichever ones she can inside to protect them from the elements.
Princess Skystar shows up after being on a trip with some friends and a detachment of guards. Much like in the original movie she’s very friendly and outgoing… eventually. However at first she’s totally worried about her mom and people. She doesn’t outright accuse them of anything but she does have Twilight and company watched while she administers some healing using the Dew of the Pearl. The effects are slow but amazing all the same.
In a cut away Twilight and Spike reveal what happened to Skystar. She believes them especially since she recognizes that some of the hippogriffs were in places they wouldn’t normally be. However, the process to restoring them will take weeks. Twilight asks if they can borrow the pearl to counteract the Storm King’s magic. Skystar isn’t sure about it and needs time.
Twilight eventually overhears some of the other hippogriffs talking and they blame Twilight for what happened. She makes her way from the city to the beach near the city with Spike. There she finds Arbir laying washed up on the beach. She totally freaks. Spike sends up a fire from the beach. Others start coming to it. He then follows Twilight who is now totally blaming herself for everything .
Like in the movie Twilight is captured and dragged away by Tempest who uses a storm shield to prevent them from following. Unlike the movie Celaeno arrives on the beach as they take off. Spike informs those gathered on the beach of what happened. Skystar and company then show up and she uses the pearl to revive Arbir.
We wind up back on Tempest’s ship. Tempest isn’t happy, Twilight isn’t happy for different and similar reasons. They both hate the Storm King but Tempest is serving him because she feels she has to. Yes, she wants her horn restored but she also wants to somehow get her one ally, Grubber out too. There is a song that reveals her back story. In Tempest’s back story instead of a bear attack just hurting her and nobody wanting to hang out with her anymore her parents and her are set upon by a very powerful blizzard quite suddenly. Her parents died in the storm but she lived … even though she lost her horn.
In the song Twilights lamentations and the Storm King’s joy (she told him she had Twilight) are revealed as well. By the end of the song the three unify in expressing what they think will occur once back in Canterlot.
In the hippogriff kingdom the good guys are pulling together. It requires a little bit of talking from Spike and Arbir who basically say if they don’t do something what happened here is going to happen all over the world. Capper says that while that may be true they can’t reach Equestria without a ship. Skystar says she has one and Celaeno decides she can captain it, however they need the pearl because whatever it was the Storm King fired was way more powerful than anything they have. Skystar agrees but says they’ll need a plan, enough time and a heck of a lot of luck.
Back in Canterlot Twilight is presented to the Storm King. Much like in the movie he drains her magic and denies Tempest the restoration of her horn due to her being late with Twilight. He then has Twilight sent to the dungeon with the rest of her friends and Grubber. Twilight feels like a failure.
The flight into the storm is a song for the new friends. It’s basically a version of Running Wild’s Riding the Storm. Eventually they break through the storm. At that point they decide to split up. Celaeno, Capper, Arbir and Spike take to the ground while Skystar takes control of the ship.
Once on the ground the Trojan cake plan goes into effect. It isn’t long for the ground assault to begin. Shortly after that Skystar begins her attack from the sky. In the confusion Capper and Spike sneak away to the castle, steal the cell key and break out Twilight, her friends and Grubber. A lot of the assault continues through the castle to the courtyard and such. Rainbow Dash uses a sonic rainboom in her fight, Grubber does a Sonic the hedgehog style spin attack with the aid of a slingshot. The others do their own things.
The storm king notices this and starts charging up his magic and the lens. He’ll just recruit a new army. Skystar, using the pearl counteracts the blast and destroys the crystal. This doesn’t stop the Storm King who now begins to create a massive storm of tornadoes and blizzards etc.
Twilight tries to fight him but with her lack of magic is easily thwarted. Tempest, who recognizes what’s going on and that it was apparently the Storm King who had crafted that blizzard that killed her parents. They fight but eventually Storm King beats her back. He calls her a traitor and all traitors deserve to die. Twilight takes his staff while he’s readying it and smashes it.
Now, it doesn’t destroy his power but it does put them on even footing. The fight continues, Twilight’s main friends make it to the throne room in time for the final push. The fight ends in a similar fashion as it did in the movie with Tempest taking a hit from the Storm King and changing into a statue with him as they fall and Twilight grabbing her to save her. Storm King smashes on the ground and the spells are broken.
That night the ponies celebrate their victory. Food is made and pretty much everyone is mingling and having a good time. Arbir and Tempest stand on the edge of the party; both agreeing that it’s not really their scene and complement one another on their fighting skills. They also agree that this opens up a world of danger for the ponies, The Storm King was a unifying force but now bad eggs have free roam to do and grow as they will. Twilight then tells them that she understands but that now is a time to celebrate. Her other friends kind of start mingling about them and Tempest does a little magic trick for them that is cool (however her name is Tempest Shadow… the other one did nothing for me).
All loose ends get tied up at the party (though some of those turncoats might still be lurking about). Celaeno and Capper doing their thing at cards, Skystar reunites with Queen Novu and Grubber eats a ton of food with Pinkie Pie.
I enjoyed the movie but this probably would’ve been tighter overall. This is fun to read either way.
4753765
Sometimes you just wanna throw your own ideas out there for better or worse heh.
4754852
I agree with Coffee minion. Would have been much tighter. Especially leaving the others to be crystalized. They were mostly just taking space during the movie and had very little to do with it.
4754924
Pretty much. It's like Applejack and Fluttershy really did nothing, Rainbow Dash acted like some fixated 5 year old who kept going " I WANNA DO A SONIC RAINBOOM! I WANNA DO A SONIC RAINBOOM!" Pinkie Pie provided a distraction once in the worst segment of the movie (nothing against the character of Skystar but that entire underwater sequence was a waste of time that led to nothing) and Rarity fixed a jacket which somehow made Capper want to lie about where they were headed, I guess cause she was nice to him.
In all seriousness the movie was fan service at its worst and if they'd spent more time developing the plot and characters that REALLY mattered you could have had something that would have been worthy of remembering to submit for Academy consideration.
4755402
Agreed. I do feel leaving them out of the main movie would have done a lot better than leaving them in with nothing to do. I have to say that was its biggest flaw.