Equestria Girls: "Sunset’s Backstage Pass" Review · 6:49pm Jul 27th, 2019
Equestria Girls special time. Seems the trend is to get two a year now, one in Spring (or February, close enough) and one in July. Last year, “Rollercoaster of Friendship” was a massive step down from the largely strong (for EqG) “Forgotten Friendship”. With the weak hot mess that was “Spring Breakdown” behind us by 4 months now, will the new (and seemingly last) special, “Sunset’s Backstage Pass”, be a similar drop in quality?
Thankfully, no, this is a fair sight better then “Spring Breakdown” across most matrixes by which the two can be compared (though it’s ironically weak in areas that special fared well in, but we’ll get to that later). It’s also better then “Rollercoaster of Friendship” too, having a lot more successful humour and not just copying plot elements from the previous special. However, the special’s far from great, and to be honest, is pretty much what I feel watching most EqG content – marginally entertaining, but sloppy and doesn’t leave a lasting impression.
So, the special’s set at a music/arts festival that’s been sort-of shown in the recent chunk of EqG shorts, with the Humane 7 (and Spike, though poor guy doesn’t even get a line in this one) being there in Rarity’s RV (does she own it? Is it borrowed? These girls have a lot of money through sources unknown, like how Sunset lives in a sweet pad despite no finances). The characters taking the lead in this one are Sunset and Pinkie, both super hyped about pop duo Post Crush coming out of retirement one last time to perform. However, Pinkie’s antics not only get them constantly sidetracked, but that and Sunset struggling to get her to focus get them ejected and causes them to miss the performance. As Sunset wishes in a hill from afar that she’d gone alone, a pillar of purple light emanates from the woods. Sunset wakes up the next day… and finds out it’s the first day of the festival. Yep, it’s Groundhog Day, Equestria Girls edition.
Sunset spends the first loop figuring out that it’s a loop alongside Twilight, wondering whether magic granted her wish for a do-over. Her disappointment that Pinkie gets them ejected yet again doesn’t last long when the day starts over. Naturally enough, this time, she goes alone and manages to see Post Crush, though at the cost of the others’ disapproval and Pinkie going all Party of One on us. With the loop repeating again, Sunset now wants out, and we get the usual Groundhog Day shenanigans quick; character anticipates what will happen everywhere and prevents accidents in a flat tone that makes it clear they’ve done this many times by now (she mentions this is the seventeenth time), followed by them trying to run away (in this case, by taking the RV for a joy ride). Since we can’t have characters commit suicide here, it breaks down. Thankfully, the next day, Pinkie suggests Sunset write to Princess Twilight for help, which she does, getting back info that it’s probably another long-lost Equestrian artifact, the Time Twirling, which causes the day to repeat but (I assume?) didn’t affect Sunset due to her being outside its range on that first night (the special never clarifies this, big surprise). Just as they’re deducing that whoever’s responsible won’t be doing the same thing every loop, they happen upon… the Dazzlings.
We’re just over halfway through the special at this point, 22 mins in, and I won’t blame you for being surprised at that, because everything above could fill up a lot more time. To my money, this works in the special’s favour. Excepting the plot hole of how it took all day for Sunset and Pinkie to do what they did on the first loop, the script is unusually free of plot holes. Oh, it’s still got contrivances and flimsy characterisation, but that’s to be expected. The time loop mechanics are generally handled well, staying on points just long enough and with some good meta lampshading for both that and the Equestria magic being commonplace that works well enough. Not to mention how subtly it indicates and then eventually disperses with Sunset needing to explain the loop to her friends again every time, always managing to indicate whether she’s done so already. And lastly, when the tone is as unserious as it is here, and the humour is allowed to dominate (there’s some surprisingly sophisticated usage of recurring jokes, recurring as in they happen every loop) it manages to be a pretty decent entertainment.
Oh, and a recurring security guard character supplies and is pivotal to many of the special’s best moments.
Alas, this all falls apart once the Dazzlings come onscreen. They’re kept villains, thankfully, but they’re a complete red herring – the special devotes 7 minutes to suspecting they’re the cause and them turning out not to be, and then they’re never seen again. Not only is this especially odd given the special’s fast pacing, but it also leads the special into actual serious territory that fares much worse, now that the poor characterization and plot contrivances are thrown into focus. It’s like almost every modern vulgar adult comedy; they get much worse when they decide to actually take their plot and characters seriously in the later half (this same problem was also present in the recent Detective Pikachu movie).
Anyway, after all that, Sunset thinks that perhaps the problem is that she’s been unfair on Pinkie, and lets her steer the course of the day’s events. This should be the point where the Groundhog Day ends, when the character becomes a better person and breaks out of the loop that exists to have them learn something. But nope, this time they happen upon the (atrociously visually designed) Post Crush duo and find out they’re responsible, using the Time Twirler every time some minor mistake happens during their performance. They kick our two out and vow to have them banned every day, but the security guard lets them back in because Sunset showed him appreciation earlier. Cue them confronting the villain(s), wresting the artefact from their control, giving the bog-standard speech about them not needing what they were trying to do because the fans love them anyway, and them performing with Sunset and Pinkie, and the loop finally being over.
I don’t need to tell you how much the special suffers in this last part from these villains being used exactly the same as Gloriosa, Juniper, Wallflower and Vignette, getting ahold of a magical artefact that causes the conflict. The special tries to make this less obvious by basically not even having them onscreen until the last quarter, which might have worked if this hadn’t been done so much that we automatically expect new characters to be villains (I did forget about this briefly while watching, but you remember the instant they’re onscreen). There’s nothing to their characters, just vain divas trying to achieve unachievable perfection. The special does try to imply they want this reunion tour to go well so that drove them to desperation, but it’s not enough. Slightly more effective is the two being dark foils of Sunset and Pinkie, one serious and the other driven to have fun, but they’re not in it enough for the comparison to land. “Spring Breakdown” had the right idea having no actual villain, and this story would have fared so much better it if had actually followed through on its Groundhog Day moral implications.
Another major flaw is the characterisation, as mentioned before: the Humane 5 are always just versions of their pony counterparts reduced to their most basic traits (it’s certainly one reason neither “Rollercoaster of Friendship” or “Spring Breakdown” work from a character perspective). Coupled with little nuance in the character writing, this means that EqG Pinkie cannot handle being a co-lead, reduced to being an annoying hyperactive pixie obsessed with food and fun with all the depth taken out, messing up even during the interrogation of the Dazzlings. All the character development is on Sunset’s end here, so Pinkie is just an unchanging lump. And Sunset doesn’t fare a whole lot better, given it turns out they always had the time to do Pinkie’s things before the concert anyway. Not to mention her arc being completely negated of any resolution by Post Crush coming into focus. Far from making Sunset seem likeable, the special makes the duo seem like terrible friends. Kind of the opposite of MLP, no?
So, while this is better then “Rollarcoaster of Friendship” and “Spring Breakdown”, lacking a terrible villain present throughout the whole thing like the former, and not being the whole lot of nothing the latter was (despite having the reverse problem of a weaker second half), this special is still par the course for EqG once the full-on movies stopped: amusing and entertaining at times, but a complete structural and character mess. It does enough that big fans of EqG should be satisfied, I guess, though that’s a bit out of my wavelength.
😁 I liked the special too because Raindow Dash is not being an idiot this time, Pinkie Pie is more adorable, Sunset Shimmer has learn to patient & have fun with her friend. I kinda also like Post Crush, they weren't mean girls, they just needed to learn that too much perfection can ruin your lifestyle.