Let's Talk "Twilight Sparkle's Science Fair Sparks" · 5:48pm Jul 8th, 2018
So when I reviewed the first book in this new series of Equestria Girls stories, Rainbow Dash Brings the Blitz, I noted that there were some continuity discrepancies between these books and the ones that came before them and indeed with the various movies and shorts we've seen so far. I hypothesized that Arden Hayes, the author of these new books (dubbed "Canterlot High Stories"), either has not seen anything of the Equestria Girls franchise beyond Friendship Games, or may not have seen anything at all, relying on whatever primer material Hasbro may have given her (or him, or them. I'm pretty sure "Arden Hayes" is a pseudonym) for all the information needed to write the books.
Whatever the case, Twilight Sparkle's Science Fair Sparks seems to confirm that whatever source material Hayes is using goes as far as Friendship Games and that's it. Because there's a bunch of stuff in this book that has either been addressed or outright rejected by everything from Legend of Everfree onward. Once again, no mention of the geodes or the girls having any magic powers. Plus, the CHS rivalry with Crystal Prep appears to be taking center stage again.
The premise of the book is as follows: CHS and CPA are holding their first joint science fair, the awkwardly named Canter-Crys Science Fair. A CHS student is paired with a CPA student to compete as a team in the fair. Winners get to go to space camp. Hooray.
Everyone assumes Twilight will enter, but she's reluctant to do so because she isn't all that enthused about interacting with her former classmates.
I know. Trust me, it gets even more WTF as we go on.
Principal Celestia encourages her to enter, and she's paired off with a newcomer to CPA, Rising Star. This is how he is described:
Twilight turned around, noticing a boy with long gold hair with a white streak in it. He had huge green eyes and was wearing his uniform shirt untucked, which was against the dress code. He strode up to her and smiled the cutest, dimple filled smile.
The sound you just heard was nearly every quality writer on this site smacking their heads in unison. This description is like a checklist for bad OCs. Even accounting for the fact that the book is intended for the 6-8 year old set, it's still eyerolling.
But before we get into Handsome OC and His Perfect Perfections, let's talk about a couple of other bits of weirdness this chapter offers. For example, Abacus Cinch is still the principal of CPA in this story.
I KNOW.
She doesn't have much to do with the plot of this particular story, acting as a judge once again with Celestia, Luna, and Cadance. Outside of her saying hello to Twilight, we don't see her again until the end of the book. No real mention of what she did during the Friendship Games or what her attitude toward Twilight is. Which, again, begs the question why, after the Games, Cinch would even agree to any sort of collaborative event with CHS ever again.
Speaking of, remember that scene where Twilight accidentally cut in line for the bus in front of Sour Sweet and Sunny Flare? Arden Hayes did, because Twilight spots them at the initial mixer for both schools. Yeah, that scene was important enough to be mentioned. However...
Twilight saw the two Crystal Prep girls who has been mean to her by the bus one day, when she'd accidentally cut them in line.
...NOT important enough to bother mentioning their names, evidently. Either that, or these are two different girls that Twilight shivved while waiting for the bus one day, judging by the construction of the sentence.
One last bit of weirdness. Applejack and Sunset also enter the science fair and are paired off with their own CPA students who are not expounded upon in the slightest. The weirdness comes from the description of Sunset's partner.
Sunset Shimmer got paired with a boy with blue hair and glasses named Ember.
Wait.
Hang on.
Sunset Shimmer got paired with a boy with blue hair and glasses named Ember
Okay, on to the actual meat of this story. Twilight and Handsome OC decide to create a Party Mood Modificator. Basically a device that uses music and flashing light patterns to induce a desire to interact with others at a dull party to liven it up. Seems like more a Pinkie thing, but okay. So Twilight and Handsome OC start working on their project. But someone isn't happy about Twilight's pairing up with Handsome OC.
Your Honor, I would like to enter this as Exhibit E in the case that Arden Hayes has no clue what the hell happened in this franchise after Friendship Games, even with all the animation AND the novelizations of same being widely available. Flash apparently still has a crush on Twilight in this story, and yeah, it doesn't exactly paint him in a good light.
The truth was, Flash didn't care about the science fair at all. He wasn't even that good at science. He'd only signed up because he heard Twilight had signed up , and he'd been hoping to impress her. She was one of the smartest girls he'd ever met and he was constantly thinking of ways to run into her at Canterlot High. But now what was he supposed to do? How could he impress her when Rising Star was her science fair partner? That guy had cheekbones that could cut glass.
Flash does what anyone in his position would do. He follows Handsome OC home to try to find proof that he's evil.
No, I'm not kidding. And he actually seems to hit paydirt when he spots Handsome OC in his garage looking at a school map and apparently planning to use the Mood Modificator to brainwash everyone at Canterlot High. The next day, Flash gets all of Twilight's friends on his side by telling them what they did. Sunset does have a moment of acting like the voice of reason here:
"I'm not even going to ask why you were at his house," she said. "Or why you were looking through his garage window. It's probably better I don't know..."
But she goes along with the group anyway. They track down Twilight at the library with Handsome OC and after getting Twilight alone, the girls try to tell her Handsome OC is up to no good, but realizing how enamored with him Twilight is, the girls dance around it for a while and then Flash jumps in with his best Buckaroo Banzai impression.
What he actually says isn't any less crazy.
"He's an evil demon who's going to completely destroy the school!" Flash blurted out. "We have to stop him, or Canterlot High is toast!"
Say, you remember how following Friendship Games, there was that whole period where the students of CHS treated Twilight like a pariah although it was proven Twilight was overwhelmed by magic as Midnight Sparkle and only released all of it at Cinch's prodding? And how the students kept whispering that she didn't belong at CHS and it was only a matter of time before she went evil again?
Yeah, me neither. But according to Hayes, that's what happened. Flash's demon comparison makes Twilight remember all of that (which totally happened in between the two movies, seriously. It happened. Look it up. But don't, because it totally happened.) and she runs off.
But like most conflicts in this book, it's resolved in the next chapter. Sunset catches up with Twilight and explains how they all suspect Handsome OC is using Twilgiht's knowhow to complete his brainwashing device. Twilight, naturally rejects the idea, and gets out her notes on the project. Except it turns out she grabbed Handsome OC's notes instead as she left, and there's all sorts of notes about using subliminal messages with the machine to manipulate people.
She pointed to a note in the margins that read, Once the message takes hold, students won't be able to control themselves anymore. The machine will determine their feelings.
So with this information, Twilight's on board. Except she realizes that Handsome OC has her notebook, which has all her notes on the parts of the machine he couldn't get to work. Later, he texts her to let he know he has her notebook, but just wants to return it. Twilight manages to get him to tell her he's keeping his half of the machine in one of the labs at Crystal Prep. Twilight sets up a meeting with him to swap notebooks.
The actual plan is this: dress all seven girls up in Twilight's old CPA uniforms and search the science labs after school, find Handsome OC's half of the machine and sabotage it. This leads to the most eyebrow raising sentence in the book.
Now Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash looked the most rumpled out of their crew, and Sunset's outfit was so tight it looked like her vest might burst.
One moment please.
Moving on.
The girls find the machine, but Handsome OC catches them red handed. But before anyone can do anything, Flash comes barging in and tackles him to the ground. As it turns out, the machine does brainwash people, but it's not meant for CHS, it's meant for Crystal Prep. The message being sent is one of kindness and inclusion. Handsome OC's plan was to play it at Crystal Prep to make everyone nicer.
Because free will is overrated, and the girls apparently agree, because they decide to work on the Mood Modificator together. They apparently abandon the idea of forcing the students of CPA to be nice, instead focusing on getting people in the mood to dance. So, the Rainbooms do a new song to be played through the machine, and the science fair comes and it works and the four school adminstrators dance, including Cinch, who is properly embarassed by this.
However, much like Rainbow Dash Brings the Blitz, this doesn't end the way you think it would. It also ends with Twilight and Flash dancing together.
Honestly, if you can get past the fact that this story apparently happens between Friendship Games and Legend of Everfree, it's not bad. Yes, the plot is simplistic, Handsome OC is paper thin, and the whole plot hinges on Flash being a jealous stalker and getting rewarded for it in the end, but it's got a charm to it. Hardcore fans will probably do like I did and keep scratching their heads at the various bits of weird that keep happening. (Seriously, what was the deal with mentioning Sunset's CPA uniform was too tight?)
But for the target market, it's okay. While Hayes' writing style is definitely an improvement over Perdita Finn's, their lack of continuity knowledge is going to really be a hindrance as these books go on. We'll just have to see what the future holds in October when the next book comes out.
Rating: 2.5/5. If you're a hardcore EQG fan, you're gonna be annoyed by the continuity errors. Otherwise, it's just okay.
It's nice that the books are moving away from simple novelizations of movies & specials and actually telling some original stories but they really need to get some better writers for these things. It's bad enough the Holiday Special killed comics for EQG I'd hate to see something similar happen with these books even if they aren't my cup of tea.
I'm sorry, I know it's a lot to bring in new writers for a franchise that's been running for a while and expect them to get all the canon right...but at least they should be caught up to date on major details and at least be exchanging notes with other people writing in the same universe so wires aren't crossed. It always irks me when they bring someone new in on something and it's blatantly obvious they didn't do any research on it beyond a basic summary before writing stuff.
I heard the new EqG novels were supposed to be a soft reboot, but this is ridiculous!
Is there any reason to suspect this was intended to happen after Legend of Everfree?