Forgotten Friendship (spoilers) · 6:58pm Feb 17th, 2018
A new Equestria Girls special! And it's.... ah... aaaauuuugh! AAAAAHHHHHHHUUUUUUUUGH! This special is what I will call a "mixed bag".
On the one hand, it had some fantastic emotional and character-pushing moments.
1: Sunset's confrontation with Celestia.
2: Twilight wigging out in the forbidden section of the library.
3: Sunset bonding with Trixie (though it was almost identical to Starlight's bonding experience with her).
4: The various chill'ing moments for the rest of the human girls, mostly on the beach.
5: Twilight's automated selfie-bot (though it's... not a selfie if you don't take it yourself, is it?)
6: The songs were kinda cool and well-written.
7: The emotional push for the villain was cool in concept, being another version of Twilight Sparkle with another unique Twist.
8: Confirmation of just how much of a bully Sunset Shimmer was, with one of the fellow students throwing money at her to make her go away.
As far as actual story structure and logic though.... this special might just make the original Equestria Girls movie look solid.
1: Acknowledging the series' musical numbers via meta-jokes is nothing new, but having the characters casually refer to both of the movie's musical numbers as 100% canon everyday occurrences is letting the joke take over the internal logic. The drone even captured Wallflower's musical accompaniment.
2: Why did their superhero outfits need to change again? Are they going to have new ones in every single appearance? What's the point of a superhero outfit if it doesn't act as a uniform?
3: Wallflower in the lab decided to erase their memories of her... but not the stone itself. She could've ended the conflict right there, and with years of mastery over it, I find it hard to believe she couldn't.
4: Why was Twilight's drone in the lab? And when did Sunset have time to reprogram it?
5: I get that "not being around" is Wallflower's thing, but having the villain appear ONCE before the big climax is just kinda... weird.
6: Why did Sunset only resort to physical violence AFTER the scrawny nerd had her bag back? One of them coulda held her down while the other looked for the stone. They had numbers on their side for God's sakes. This is why villains usually have henchmen or magic or cleverness on their side. Without those things, it just makes Sunset and Trixie look like limp-wristed morons for not taking advantage of a critical situation.
7: Speaking of which, Wallflower is just kind of an idiot who creates her own problem (by constantly erasing everybody's memories of her) and blames Sunset for it, and doesn't even have the presence of mind to guard the thing that gives her power properly.
8: Suddenly Trixie's magic is REAL? Once again continuity and the laws of the universe are bent for a joke, but this time it's not just a throwaway gag, but a moment that is 100% integral to the plot. They had to separate Trixie and Sunset so that Sunset could sacrifice herself for her friends, and they do this by giving Trixie legitimate magic powers for one brief moment. Way to go, guys.
This is one where it's kind of like... I like what it was going for, but the execution of it left a LOT to be desired. At least the characters were still good... mostly. For some reason everything that happened within the first 5 minutes rubbed me the wrong way, but once that was over and done with, the special smoothed out on that front and gave us the girls we know and love.
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Not saying it was BAD, I liked the emotional beats and concepts, but as a writer who is always looking for internal logic and structure, this particular special had almost none.
I'm pretty sure Trixie used real magic in the "Good Vibes" short.
She's been having this problem at least since third grade. Her erasing memories of herself ain't helping, but she's been having this problem for a lot longer than she's had the stone.
Notice how she only got her teleporting to work after she had a Friendship Moment...
I really enjoyed it, but if you are listing off plot holes in the movie, the fact that there's a secret restricted wing in the Canterlot Library and also a restricted Starswirl the Bearded section in a library in the palace seems really redundant and nonsensical.
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Not to mention that there was a library that Twilight didn't know existed. Also that she recognized the titles of books in the restricted section of the library that she didn't know about.
Also the name "Cannibals of Canterlot" has glorious implications for pony lore that will doubltessly never be explored.
You plan to put any concept from it into the SA universe?
I'm likely gonna wait for the full cut to watch it, but what I want to know is, does it do anything to give Sunset more of a character or personality? That's my biggest problem with EqG in general and always has been.
I agree that Wallflower was definitely compounding her existing problem with her use of the Memory Stone - effectively erasing herself by erasing all her social interaction with others.
I can already see the Memento and Men In Black memes and screen edits.
I really hope those extra scenes that were revealed to be coming later give a legit reason for Wallflower having a grudge against Sunset.
Holy shit, the idiocy of this girl. Yeah, no shit no one remembers you when you erase all interactions! When they showed she wasn't in the yearbook I thought "So did y'all just never show up to picture day? Or was it some Samson in Camp Lazlo shit where something stops the photo from being in the book?" Then it was shown she didn't like Sunset and believed she didn't change, and I asked why. Then it occured to me, what if in her queen bitch days, Sunset was being mean to anyone and everyone, and ended up making sure Wallflower's picture never got in the book with no care as to who she was doing it to? And then they didn't reveal that's what it was.
Fingers crossed those extra scenes give a very much needed explanation.
Other than that, I really liked this special.
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It definitely gives Sunset Shimmer more of an edge at one point in particular. When pushed far enough the old "fuck it just give me what I want" Sunset emerges for a brief, glorious moment.
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Actually the special's director was apparently told that 6 minutes was cut, but after seeing the broadcast he can't recall anything that was missed. So apparently we saw the full thing.
1) Im convinced that trixie tapped into her unicorn potential and that's why she could teleport in the eqg dimension. All of the humanoid creatures are absorbing the magic and becoming able to channel it! They'll all find something theyre able to do
2) I kind of liked them acknowledging the songs because they already do that sometimes in the main show so why would the mirror dimension be any different? It also added a good bit to the humor that sometimes even they're tired of the songs
4799487 Well shit
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Actually Nick Confalone just tweeted that yes 6 minutes was cut. Apparently the cuts were so well edited that even he didn't notice they were gone until he checked the runtime.
So yeah stuff was cut in the broadcast.
4799721 Fingers crossed again
Just finished watching and while I'm too lazy to spell out that I disagree with some of your criticisms or that those things didn't bother me (there wouldn't be any point to doing so anyway), I feel like addressing the Trixie thing. I guess it's never been implied in canon but it kinda helps my internal idea that the EqG world is closer to a sort of superhero comic world than the real world. I always saw it that way, which is why people not losing their shit at the concept of magic never bothered me.
Twilight did say in movie1 that the magic of friendship is everywhere. Maybe there's some really mild stuff people can do in this world if they're "powered by friendship" of something and nobody really gives small things like that a second thought. I know it's silly but it amused me.
I loved the movie. I know some people had issues with things like Wallflower only showing up once. But...
How do you know she only showed up once? I mean, the whole point is that she's erasing memories of her own interactions that ended on a note she hated. And she was digging herself in deeper all the time, so that she was erasing herself repeatedly.
What I think is a wonderfully understated bit of humour is that even though you're only introduced to her briefly at the beginning before the big confrontation at the end, is that you can't actually say there weren't more scenes, which were left out because she made everyone forget about them.
The idea totally works because they make several meta-nods to the audience with regards to the musical numbers, complete with phantom orchestral accompaniment. I'd just handwave that away as a uniquely Equestrian thing which has been making its way into Canterlot high school ever since the Element of Magic was unleashed. As a result of that, people know about this very pony peculiarity, but for the most part, they just run with it. Doesn't stop them from commenting on it, though.
I just realized upon watching a reaction video to it: Twilight's selfie drone was in Sunset's possession because they had taken their best friends yearbook picture and Sunset was still technically in charge of the yearbook. I do wonder how everyone's minds rationalized entrusting her with it (maybe by thinking she forced everyone to give her the job?), but that seems like a perfect explanation. They were even in that yearbook organizing room from before when all that was happening, and Wallflower was there again too.
Edit: also regarding point 7, we can see in her mind that she'd been "invisible" long before finding the stone, and she doesn't blame Sunset for others not noticing her at all, she just doesn't believe Sunset changed because as far as she was concerned, nothing about Sunset's attitude towards her changed - ignoring is still ignoring. So she doesn't like Sunset because everyone praises her for changing when from where Wallflower's standing that's not even true.