My Problems With Equestria Girls: Friendship Games · 5:07am Jun 9th, 2019
Hello everyone. Equestrian Defender here. And sadly I don't really think this is going to be a fun blog.
So, if you have read two of my stories:
and
, you might notice some similar things about them. They both start somewhere between Rainbow Rocks and Friendship Games. They both introduce Sci-Twi to the Rainbooms (or in Power Rangers just to Sunset and the other main characters) and have her learn about Equestria and magic. And if you scroll through certain chapters of my Spider-Man fic and read the comments, you may have noticed me say/repeat certain things about Friendship Games that basically boil down to "I hated the way they handled it in canon." And I also said I would write a blog where I listed and explained the problems I had with Friendship Games. And here we are.
Now before we get started, I just want to point out the obvious. Everything I point out as a problem is only a problem in my opinion. If you think it's not a problem, then fine. If you like Friendship Games, then like it. I am not trying to force my opinion on anyone.
With that out of the way, let's begin.
Problem 1: The Setup
Equestria Girls and Rainbow Rocks were fairly straightforward: heroes fighting against a villain or villains to stop them from taking over the world. With Equestria Girls it was Sunset Shimmer before she became my favorite character. With Rainbow Rocks it was the Sirens, who to this day remain as the favorite villains for many of the fans. Evil plans were thwarted, song and dance numbers were unleashed, hijinks ensued, and Sunset Shimmer eventually became a hero (and my favorite character.) The antagonists were clear cut, and the stakes were high because if the villains won then the world was screwed.
Then we get Friendship Games, and that goes out the window.
Friendship Games doesn't have a clear cut villain or stakes. In fact, most of the movie focuses on the titular Friendship Games, which boils down to an academic/sports competition that Crystal Prep Academy has won for the past few years.
So, we go from stopping villains trying to take over the world... to a petty rivalry between schools. Why?
Look, I know you can only do so much with the whole "Take Over The World" trope,
but it still would've been more preferable to THIS. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of good movies where the main story revolves around a sporting event. But the past two Equestria Girls specials were focused around stopping evil villains, which is always fun in my opinion. This just feels... meh. On top of that, there's no real villain (except one but we'll get to that.) and the lack of that basically means there's no stakes for Sunset and the Rainbooms. Which honestly means there's no real investment for the audience, because if the girls lose then... the school's reputation takes a hit. That's about it.
The only thing plotwise that I think works is Human Twilight, AKA Sci-Twi, trying to learn about Equestrian Magic. But that kinda leads that to Midnight Sparkle, and trust me I've got a few things to say about THAT.
Problem 2: They Shoved In Too Many New Characters
If there's one thing Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3 has taught me, it's that introducing too many new characters can make your movie feel cluttered and disorganized. Having your main character, the hero, dance down the street like a dumbass while sporting an emo haircut doesn't help, but I digress.
Now, having Sci-Twi in this movie wasn't a bad thing. We always expect at least one or two new characters in these films as they usually bring and contribute to the plot. Having Abacus Cinch in it wasn't bad either, as we needed a villain. Granted she wasn't much of a villain, but I'm saving that for later.
But, because apparently Hasbro never watched Spider-Man 3 and learned that lesson, we also have:
Human Shining Armor (who does nothing and contributes nothing and is essentially just there for a cameo, and not a fun Stan Lee kind. May he Rest In Peace.)
Human Cadance (who while not there just for a cameo, does nothing significant for the plot)
and the Shadowbolts (who are pretty much just slightly darker versions of the Mane 5, but with no life to them and therefore aren't interesting. And they also don't contribute anything major to the plot.)
Counting all of them, there's approximately nine new characters introduced in Friendship Games. And only two of them are central to the plot. So I'm left asking: what was the point of adding them besides two of them being for fanservice?
Problem 3: Abacus Cinch needed to be a better villain.
Technically Abacus Cinch is the villain of this story. And she does kind of sell it, mostly through her facial expressions and her voice. She brings to mind certain old school Disney villains like the Evil Stepmother from Cinderella, and Judge Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame: not so much a fighter but a manipulator. Someone who can get anyone to do anything for them. And we kinda see that with her blackmailing Sci-Twi into competing in the games.
But the rest of the movie essentially has her just... there. She doesn't do anything besides push her students to win because she doesn't want to lose. And pushing Sci-Twi into becoming Midnight Sparkle, but we'll get to that.
So she's a villain who has potential, but it's wasted.
And I can understand not wanting to do another semi-evil pony from Equestria, or another version of the Sirens. It would get real old, real fast. But a prep school principal who's obsessed with winning? That's really the best you got? You could have made it that she knew about magic and wanted to harness its power for her own reasons. I could think of a plethora of ways to make her a supervillain. Hell, I'm doing it in my Spider-Man fanfic, making her a criminal mastermind similar to Lex Luthor. If fanfic writers can make her a better villain than in the canon, you dun f-ed up Hasbro.
And lastly, we get to the moment we've all been waiting for. Remember when I said we'd get to Midnight Sparkle?
Problem 4: Midnight Sparkle was horribly mishandled.
Don't get me wrong, the concept of an evil version of Twilight Sparkle is actually kind of cool. We've seen her for five seasons at this point, and the whole time she's almost as much of a pure cinnamon roll as Fluttershy. To see her or an alternate version of her walk down the darkside, to embrace her own inner darkness and face her friends as a villain, there's just something about it that excites me.
But the way they made this one was just... meh.
I get what they were trying to go for. They made a parallel between her transformation and Sunset Shimmer's transformation. Both characters made a mistake and had to be stopped. And this time Sunset would be the one to pull her out of the crater, bringing Sunset's arc full circle save for eventually making up with Princess Celestia but that's a story for another time.
But the problem is that Twilight is forced into it, courtesy of that bitch Abacus Cinch threatening to make sure she never gets into that study program she wants to get into, and a boatload of peer pressure from the Shadowbolts. Essentially, she's bullied into becoming a villain.
And that kinda undermines the parallel, since last I checked, Sunset was never forced into becoming the She-Demon by other people (outside of certain fanfics.) She CHOSE to put on the Element of Magic, which resulted in her transformation. The parallel would've been a lot stronger if Twilight had chosen to unleash the magic of her own free will, rather than being forced into it by peer pressure.
Even then, Midnight Sparkle is kind of a letdown. Not only is she not really evil, at least by the show's standards. She just wants to learn more about magic at any cost. Even if she ends up destroying both worlds, which would be bad. But she doesn't do it out of malice or anger or hate. She just does it because she wants to learn about magic for... did we ever get a reason for that?
And to think people complain about Starlight Glimmer's motivations.
The final nail in the coffin is that Midnight Sparkle is beaten not by a magic-infused musical number like in Rainbow Rocks, or an Elements of Harmony Friendship Rainbow Laser like in the first Equestria Girls. No, her defeat comes by a powered up Sunset Shimmer (who vaguely resembles a humanized alicorn and has a really cool design.) reaching out a hand for her and offering her friendship.
...
...
......
Seriously Hasbro? You have two powered-up magical girls who were more than likely evenly matched, and you don't have them fight each other? Do you not watch anime? Do you not know how to make a fight scene? Obviously you do because of the Season 4 finale, Twilight's Kingdom, where you have Princess Twilight go full DBZ on Tirek. So why didn't you try something like that here? I'm not asking for a full on fight to the death, I'm just asking you to give us something new other than falling on the ever aggravating and overused trope of "The Power of Love and Friendship!" to solve all of our characters' problems.
All in all, Midnight Sparkle was an awesome concept, and had a cool design. But the execution of it just felt forced and it overall just fell flat.
So that's it. That's four of the reasons that I really don't like Friendship Games. I don't hate it. It does have some good moments. The introduction of Sci-Twi was mostly okay. Even with my complaints against Midnight Sparkle, it was still good to see Sunset Shimmer come full circle. And the animation was great, as always.
But the rest is just a bunch of poorly executed ideas, dull filler, and honestly it was just a bland way to end the original trilogy.
If you guys would like to see a better way Friendship Games could've been done, I highly recommend you read this story by https://www.fimfiction.net/user/341278/Ro994
That's all for now. Equestrian Defender, out.
It's not my favourite but it's also not my least favourite (that honour will always belong to the first one), now onto your points:
Just look at the lyrics:
She was definitely being fueled by her own desires for the magic. As for why she wanted it? Because of her inquisitive nature. Magic was something completely new something she's never seen before and she wanted to know all there was to know about it and as Midnight Sparkle she was willing to go to any lengths to find those answers.
Also, they did fight, it wasn't very long but there was a clash which Sunset only won because Spike managed to get through to Twilight at the last moment.
I have to admit you do make a few good points here, though even then I don’t hate this film and still think it is pretty entertaining. My biggest problem with it was that it seemed Cinch and the Shadowbolts got absolutely no consequences for the way they constantly bullied and peer pressured Sci-Twi, though that was eventually fixed on both accounts when we later learn Cadance had replaced Cinch as the Principal, and the Shadowbolts at least tried to help save everyone and later befriended the Rainbooms. I guess the way they kinda tortured Flash by having him mistake Sci-Twi for Princess Twilight and nobody bothering to tell him wasn’t that great either, but it was still nothing compared to later.
I still firmly believe that the worst EG movie is Legend of Everfree. There is nothing positive I have to say about that film, except that it gave the Rainbooms their magic (which admittedly was pretty fun to see) and that it had a few catchy songs. Everything else though was awful, Twilight’s trauma ultimately being nothing but paranoia, everyone saying how great Timber was despite literally just meeting him and him doing nothing to earn such praise (and in fact making things worse by lying to cover for his sister instead of trying to actually help her), and the way Flash was mistreated and ignored by his “friends” and Sunset giving him the worst advice ever. Timber was definitely the worst thing about the film and his pairing with Twi. That gives off way too many red flags and feels like an insult after being teased by Flash for two or three movies. I was fine with the movie at first but it just feel to have gotten worse for me over the years.
So even though I can understand your problems with Friendship Games, I personally don’t really have too much of a problem with it but still look forward to seeing what you do to change it. But if you ever get to Legend of Everfree in your stories I will probably be even more interested to see what you do to fix that train wreck.
Well, I have to admit, these ARE some pretty good points, both by you AND by everydaygamer.
Yes, the movie COULD have been better, but it ALSO could have been MUCH worse.
And, yes, Midnight MIGHT have won if it hadn't been for Spike distracting her at just the right moment, just as edg pointed out.
And, yes, it WOULD have been better if Dean Cadance actually played more of a role in it (like say, gathering enough hard evidence to get Cinch not only fired, but also arrested for blackmail at the very end of the movie [and Shining might have made a second cameo as one of the arresting officers] and then got selected as acting principal until a trustworthy permanent replacement can be found).
But, well, I'm not going to go into the stuff that you and edg already went into in much better detail than I ever could.
Actually, the series in general has a fair bit of wasted potential, but that's good for fanfiction writers (like, for example, visualizing the EG counterparts to the MAJOR villains [it wouldn't be hard to visualize Sombra's counterpart as a mad scientist who discovers a helmet that grants him potent telekinetic abilities as well as fear-based telepathy, invisibility and intangibility {much like a hybrid of the Scarecrow and the Gentleman Ghost along with a darker male reflection of what Sci-Twi COULD have become if not for her friends}] or thinking of the Equestrian counterparts of some of the EG characters [like pony Cinch being an ex-teacher at Celestia's school that Celestia was forced to fire for unethical teaching practices or pony Wallflower Blush basically being Equestria's answer to the Joker {a mostly ignored nobody who goes completely insane and gets MUCH more dangerous because nobody saw her coming until it was too late}]).
I feel like the movie sort of added more insult to Spike's injury where it turns out his human-world counterpart is a (initially a non-sapient)dog there. Meaning its not just the mirror making dragons into dogs instead of humans(a rather stupid explanation Megan and Co whipped up to justify making Spike a dog with dragons not being the "same" as ponies despite being SAPIENT AS PONIES ARE) but its pretty much the human-world labeling Spike as a pet rather than a equal friend/sibling to the others. That's just not right..
Okay don't you think you missed the point of Fluttershy's line where says outright states "not everything has to be a magic problem to be important"?
And if Cadance and Shining Armor's human counterparts somehow quality as new characters, then the first EQG movie introduced way more new characters with Sunset, the Humane 5, Snips, Snails, Flash, Principal Celestia, and Vice Principal Luna making 11 new characters they introduced in the movie. Way more than what Friendship Games did by your logic.