Better Late Than Never. Well, Maybe... · 1:43am Nov 11th, 2020
Howdy folks! First and foremost, as always, Adorable Applejack:
"Whoa Nelly, sugar cube! That was one heck of a fall! Huh? Humans? TV Show? Pfft, y'all are talkin' nonsense! Come on, on yer hooves, we got apple t' buck!"
Now, then, how y'all doing? Good? Good. Look, we're all adults here, right? We've all earned our Big Boy/Big Girl Pants, yeah? Because I think it's finally time for us to have a conversation we've been avoiding for a while. That being...
The MLP movie sucked. Like, it wasn't horribly, offensively sucky. It had it's good moments, and even some critical aspects that were good, and I even kind of enjoyed it... but it still sucked. I am fully aware that this could very well turn out like my Favorite Things blog, where everyone just shouts at me about how wrong I am in the comments. I accept that. These are just my thoughts.
Okay, I know that most people generally agree that the movie was subpar, so I'm not really blowing any minds or stomping any sand castles here. But a few months ago I finally re-watched the movie, and was reminded of how much I didn't like about it. And upon realizing that I never blogged about it when it came out, I wanted to lay out my thoughts and issues with the flick. While the movie has a bunch of problems, they all really boil down to two core issues. For one of these, I really want to believe that 90% was studio/Hasbro interference, and it likely was. But the second issue was more endemic. Funnily enough, both issues are best exemplified by the first two things you notice about the movie: the poster, and the opening scene.
Let's start with the poster. At first glance, it's a pretty good one.
It's colorful, it grabs your attention, the layout isn't terrible, all the main characters are there, the celebrity names are up top, it's nice. But do you notice whose names aren't front and center? Tara Strong, Tabitha St. Germain, Cathy Weseluck, Andrea Libman, and Ashleigh Ball. You know, the main fucking characters of the movie?
Okay, I'm not begrudging the movie too harshly for this. This is one of the things that can be laid at the studio's feet. It's the Robin Williams Genie Effect. Studios only care about stacking their movies with as many celebrities as possible. And usually that's not a problem, because these ensemble casts are usually the focus. Let's take, for example, I don't know... Over the Hedge. Yeah, you had Gary Shandling, Bruce Willis, Steve Carrell, Wanda Sykes, and Bill Shatner. But they were the main characters. They made up the overwhelming majority of the movie.
Now look at the MLP movie. Look, I love Zoe Saldana, okay? Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Trek, she's great. That said, do you know how many lines Captain Celaeno has in this movie? Nineteen. Nineteen fucking lines! That is the extent of her involvement in this movie. And she gets top billing. And again, I get it, Zoe Saldana is a big name A-list actor, and Tara Strong, despite being one of the most famous voice actors of all time... isn't. But I say again, nineteen lines.
Emily Blunt, Taye Diggs, Uzo Aduba, Micheal Pena, these are some great actors... but they're not the main characters. The Mane Six and Spike are, and this brings me to the real problem with having this ensemble cast. Hasbro paid out the wazoo to get all these big name actors... which means they have to justify them by giving them something to do. So you have these seven high profile actors, and we have to make them matter to the plot. This could absolutely work... if they were the main characters... and if this was a two hour movie. They're not, and it's not. The movie is barely 90 minutes, which means you need to have seven new characters make sense in a story where they are not the main characters.
Ruh-roh, Raggy.
So the only way to make this work in the time allotted is to bullet-train railroad the plot along, giving almost no scene room to breathe, and make the actual main characters have little to no impact on the plot(show of hands, who forgot Fluttershy was even in the movie for about half of it?) Seriously, like 2/3 of this movie is, "Go to a new place, meet someone, sing a song, 'NO one expects the Tempest Inquisition,'run away. Go to a new place, meet someone, sing a song, 'NO one expects the Tempest Inquisition,' run away." Lather, rinse, repeat. To be a broken record, again, this could work if it was a 2 hour movie. But as it is, we're introduced to characters so damn fast that by the time we start to get a handle on them, we have to move on.
Like, take Captain Celaeno and the Sky Pirates. Hell, take just those two words: Sky Pirates. How the hell do they figure into Equestria?! DO they actually steal and smuggle, or is it a more heroic thing? Where do these parrot people come from? How did Captain Celaeno lose her leg? Did she lose it fighting the Storm King? Oh... did she lose it to Tempest Shadow?!
"Whoa, hey dude, we don't have time for that shit! We gotta move! We still have two set pieces to get to, and we have to introduce Azo Aduba and Kristin Chenoweth, okay?! Come on, let's go!"
This sonic rainbooming plot means that things become silly just so they can work. Like, Rarity fixes Capper's sleeve... and that's it? That's literally all it takes for him to say, "Know what? You guys are cool. I don't want to sell you into slavery anymore!" I can hear the argument that he really is a kind soul at heart but has never been shown kindness and had to compromise his ethics to survive, and that would be great... if we were ever shown that. Hell, we're never even told that!
To be fair, these celebrities did put in solid performances. Emily Blunt is my favorite actress working today. She got the holy trinity for actors: she's incredibly talented, she's gorgeous, and she's charismatic as hell. Seriously, watch any interview with her and her husband John Krazinsky. Those two are adorable. And I've been a fan of Taye Diggs for a long time. He was in one of my favorite cheesy 90's horror movies, the House on Haunted Hill remake. These two especially just sound like they're having a blast recording these lines. I just wish those lines served a tighter narrative.
Now we come to my second big issue with the movie, and this is the one that is probably going to get a few contracts taken out on me. That issue being... the music. To be clear, it's not bad, but I just don;t think this is Daniel Ingram's A-material. B-material at best. And once more, this issue is best showcased in the opening scene. Again, this is Daniel Ingram! Think of all the absolute bangers he's written for the show! Winter Wrap-Up, This Day Aria, A Kirin's Tale, In My Head Like A Catchy Song, friggin' everything the Dazzlings sang! And now we get to his big screen debut! His time to shine and show the mainstream audience what he can do! And what do we open the movie with?!
The fucking Go-Go's.
Bro's and Bro'settes, I'm thirty-five years old, and I barely remember The Go-Go's. Like, Meghan, my girl, were you just... on an absinthe IV drip that day? You're telling me that Daniel "My Past Is Not Today" Ingram couldn't come up with a catchy, upbeat, energetic song to open the movie with?! And once more, I get the distinct feeling this was the studio saying, "Oh, we need a famous pop song to open the movie and get the kids hyped!" To which I say again... The fucking Go-Go's. What, were The Bangles holding out for more money?!
But even when we get to Danny boy's songs... they just don't really work for me. I mean, they're alright, but they just don't stand out in a good way for me. Even the one everyone points to, Open Up Your Eyes, it just... doesn't work for me. To be clear, it's not the performance. Emily Blunt has an absolutely beautiful singing voice! She was the one thing that made Mary Poppins Returns palatable, and she nailed what she was given here. But the song's structure just makes me wince every now and then. It sounds in places like they tried to cram too many syllables into a verse, and the whole thing comes across as amateurish. And then the lyrics just weren't anything to write home about. Plus it tells her tragic backstory and, well...
Yeah, it kinda be like that.
To be honest, the best song in my eyes is I'm The Friend You Need. Taye Diggs has some musical experience, apparently, and it shows. He nails every note, and he really carries that smooth, suave, Lando Calrissian vibe into the song. Lyrics were good, melody was good, performance was good. Just a good, solid song that I have no problem spinning every now and then.
And finally, we come to the ending. The big pop song written specifically for the movie. They likely spent our several wazoos to get a famous pop singer for this... at least I assume she's famous. I'd never heard of her before this, but then I dislike pop music, so... yeah. Anywho, this is it! The Storm King has been defeated. The Princesses have been freed. The magic of friendship has redeemed the once cruel Tempest... Fizzlepop Berrytwist. Fire works are going off, every one is celebrating and happy, and what do we here?
This relaxing, mid-tempo pseudo-ballad.
Come on, Meghan! Forget the IV drip, you and Jayson must have taken a dive in a swimming pool filled with LSD and tequila that day! This is the ending! The "happily ever after!" We're supposed to be celebrating, not chillaxing with a cold drink! For God's sake, if you had to have some famous pop song, why not do it here?! Look at Shrek 2! They had a very famous pop song at the end, but it was happy, upbeat, and busy, so that the last thing you remember about the movie is being happy and having fun! I really hope you didn't pay Sia too much money. I've heard Klingon funeral dirges more upbeat than this.
Okay, I'm about done. I could go into other things the movie goofed at—like wasting Liev Schreiber and not even trying to make the Storm King intimidating, or not giving actual main characters like AJ and Shy anything to do—but this has covered my main problems with the movie. Once more, I did enjoy watching the movie... but that's because I'm a fan. but even then, it's because of my status as a fan that a lot of my issues come up, so... meh. I just wanted to sort of process and lay out why I was disappointed by the one chance we had to see our beloved poners on the big screen.
Anywho, those are my opinions, and let's recall that opinions are like assholes: everyone's got one, and they all stink. Till next time stay safe, stay free, and stay metal! Jake The Army Guy out!
I completely agree with you. It suffers from terrible pacing that is at breakneck speed 24/7 and it was very predictable. I think they should have thought outside the box a bit more.
You hit the nail on the head. The movie wasn't allowed to be My Little Pony: the Movie. It had to be My Little Pony: THE MOVIE!!! Virtually nothing from the show was even allowed to exist in a cinematic context, which meant they had to establish an entire world even as they raced through it.
To be fair, not giving Applejack a good reason to exist is a recurring issue with the series. There's a reason we call her a background pony, okay?
I agree with you on... most of that stuff. If you take away the context and placement of each of the songs, them on their own are pretty awesome. I mean yeah, Open Up Your Eyes kinda revolved around the movie context, but I'm the Friend You Need, One Small Thing, and even Rainbow I absolutely loved. I was fucking belting all four of them in preparation for karaoke at BC 2019 (which I then never got to do, sadly).
The rest of that, yeah. A lot of the movie felt rushed, and they didn't show any of the Mane 6's development over the course of the show. They basically regressed all of them except for Twilight (to a degree) because she had to be the Princess of Friendship. I'm pretty sure that was done not only because of studio interference, but because they most likely tried to play to the parents/guardians/whomever were accompanying the target demographic so they understood the basic traits of our favorite pones before they actually developed. Which is dumb. Any kid seeing the movie probably watched all of the show— they know Flutters isn't THAT shy anymore and Rainbow isn't THAT brash (still brash, but not AS much).
Gotta say, though— Tempest/Fizzlepop turned out to be awesome fic material.
Many of these things and a few others I've considered can be covered under one major rule and a number of smaller ones:
-- Animated movies cost $X per second, and will return a fixed number for revenue to start.
-Every actor/actress that adults have seem somewhere else will gain $Y in ticket sales.
-Toy sales will most probably not make back your expenses, but they will cushion the blow. McDonalds is your friend. Happy Meals, darnit.
- Adults go to the movie with the kids, they seldom pull the kids with them to the movie, so bright colors and fast action.
- New characters will attract kids to see how they react. Pirates are a good bet. Everybody loves pirates.
- Subtle won't work. They're kids. It's a movie.
- You got Sia to do a song or two. Let her have free rein. She backs out and that spells doom for the movie revenue.
- Songs are what send the kids dancing through the house after watching it on DVD for twelve times. Make them good.
Where's my hitman phonebook?
In all seriousness though, we didn't need to introduce this sheer number of new races with no history. Maybe 1 or 2 but there was a lot you could have done within the show's framework rather making practically every new character be a different race.
Sky Pirates. Griffons, the quest for gold and being so downtrodden that they're reduced to shipping makes sense.
Storm King. Why not a minotaur faction, hell they gave Iron Will an airship cruise ship like 2 months later.
And my number one gripe. Using celebs... You're never going to use them again. Hell, we got Silverstream because apparently Skystar died from a lightning strike or something... maybe fell down a set of stairs? We also never see Tempest again except for the My Little Avengers Assemble moment and lets face it, we all wanted cameo's or episodes where we saw some of them again.
I get it, Genie effect... doesn't make it better.
I don't wanna be contrarian or anything, but I never liked this movie. I didn't like it back in 2017 and time has not improved it in any way for me. Compared to something like the first Spongebob Squarepants movie (which is genuinely a masterpiece, everyone needs to go back to re-experience that shit) or even the Ed Edd n Eddy movie, it's pretty subpar. And God help you if you're watching it as someone who's not a fan of the show.
Were you unaware that Taye Diggs has done Broadway before?
"The Friend You Need" is my favorite song in the movie. It has a certain Disney quality to it.
You didn't know who Sia was. Okay.
You make many valid. Still I liked the movie more than I disliked it.
I'd argue the Lukas Graham song we got after Sia's was the better one. "Off To See The World". It's still on my playlist.
It was the brightest, shiniest collection of nothing I've ever seen. Seriously, it was such a wasteful movie.
Jake, do you have a gun? Will you shoot it?
I disagree with the points about the music, which I subjectively love (and IIRC the Go-Gos was a very late addition/replacement for a different original song to go over the opening credits). But yes. The biggest problem with the movie is what it isn't - we could have had the most epic episode of Friendship is Magic ever, and we ended up with something that's just kind of... there. Ultimately I feel like it wasn't really any better than the Equestria Girls movies, and that was a huge missed opportunity.
Oh, and don't get me started on the billing!
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Just an extra 10 minutes to breathe would solve most of these problems. The movie doesnt get enough credit for being more laugh out loud funny than any mlp episode. These are good critiques you have but im always suspicious people are comparing the movie to their favorite of over 200 episodes.