Equestria Girls Blog 7: “Sunset’s Backstage Pass” · 3:25am Aug 25th, 2019
Well, this was fun. This special is probably the best one out of all the new specials yet. The humor was spot on. It hit all the right emotional notes. The spotlighted characters had great chemistry. I can’t think of anything bad to say about this special off the top of my head.
If I wanted to be picky, I’d say that Pinkie was a touch too insensitive and out of control in this special and that Sunset definitely went a little too far trying to ditch Pinkie just so she can see the band perform. There could have been other solutions, just saying. 
Also, how that magic artifact ended up in the EG-verse needs to be addressed. Then again, the last special implied that the EG-verse had other unaccounted for portals to Equestria, so it’s not too much of a stretch that another one of those was involved. On a side note, how does a classically trained chef who worked on a cruise ship make churros so inedible that they can be weaponized?
I do have a major complaint, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the special. My complaint is that up until last month, I’ve been dependent on the My Little Pony official YouTube channel for access to the specials and shorts, and that channel has been posting squat. 
I had to watch this from the on-demand feature that came with my family’s new cable plan. What is going over there?
I would like to comment on a few noteworthy details before closing. One, the Dazzlings are back. They’re just as nasty as ever, but thankfully, they aren’t holing up in a warehouse trying to rip a gateway into limbo. Two, it might just be the Groundhog Day loop plot, but the whole special felt eerily similar to “Jakhowl Day” from Flash Sentry, Defender of the Peace S4 by Banshee531. The only difference is that nobody died in this special.
So, from what I heard, this is supposed to be the last Equestria Girls special, at least out of DHX. I’m happy to say that they ended on a high note. 
If the series does continue though, I hope that one, the release schedule gets fixed, two, the shorts branch out from their weird social media culture phase that they’re starting to outgrow, and three, we get fewer specials like the last two and more like this one.
Well I heard they plan another special that's the EQG's Winter Solstice celebration, not sure what they'll call it. And honestly they'll have to do the graduation, other than at this a time skip of what the girls will do after and or decide if Sunset will ever go back. We'll have to see.
I honestly couldn't blame Pinkie for how she was, she's always shown to be excitable, but I really can't blame Sunset for some of her actions in the time loop, but I got to admit the use if the day reset by the duo that Sunset and Pinkie wanted to see was a nice subversion of the actual Groundhog Day trope.
I got my work cut for my in my AU's answer to this.
You might want to take a look at this
Also, the one thing I don't get about the special is why did Sunset and only Sunset keep getting pulled back. The first time makes sense since she was in range of it, but the other times I don't buy. The flashback shows they kept using the relic onstage, so then why wasn't anyone around the stage pulled back.
Yeah, this was a good special. It also broke a few trends, like the threat was stopped without the need to “pony up”. I saw a few people complain that the Dazzlings were brought back to act as a Red Herring, but I thought it was a clever twist. Though, before the special was released the Find The Magic music video seemed to imply the Dazzlings had reformed, while here they are just as nasty as ever, and a better word to describe them would be “retired”. I guess in retrospect, they only seemed to have reformed in the music video because they were putting on an act in front of their audience.
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Yeah, that’s the one thing I didn’t fully understand either. The best reason I can assume is because Sunset was in radius of the first time it was activated and she was the only one with magic of her own. It is a big stretch, but it is the only thing I can think of.
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We seem to forget that Sunset is from Equestria, and since she two is from the same world the artifact doesn't affect her the same way, as for the Sirens, they lost all their powers so no natural shielding.
Also one can argue that Sunset was also the only one other that two musicians that was awake when they first used it, as such her day too is reset.
Just a couple of thoughts
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I always figured it was because she was within a certain radius of when the device was first activated. In which scenario, the "startup" process would be a different process than the subsequent processes. That way, all time-loopers can travel together, regardless of their location.
Now, is it as simple as just being within the Zone of Immunity? Or, was Sunset also included because she also wanted to repeat that day?
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I saw it on Twitter yesterday. I'm so excited!