Cringe Watch 2021

The big moment has finally arrived: the latest, most prospective entry in the Pony-verse. MLP: A New Generation had dropped on Netflix yesterday, and I "celebrated" it by roping my two good buds into watching in: one who has zero understanding of pony period, and the other who has some familiarity and dropped out of watching the FiM moving at the three quarter mark. So loaded up with Alize and a loaf of bread to line my stomach, and going by the promise made by the creepy-ass thumbnail of Izzy Glow on the menu, I was ready to withstand cringe of considerable degree. And you know something? It was a total flop, as far as the intended results were concerned!

The long-short of it, this film is a harmless family flick. Nothing offensive to your average movie-goer who knows nothing about pony, and hardly even in spitting distance of legitimate cringe... however, I have here a sheet of notes pertaining to what's offensive to someone who's been immersed in much of the FiM lore, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let my drunken scribbles go to waste! So here we go: my (mostly) comprehensive thoughts on the film as the official group Brony (cuz I was wearing a Brony shirt, so my credentials check out).

Basically, this film takes place centuries or so in the future, where Twilight and friends are long gone, though their merchandise remains. There is nothing left of the Equestria we know: no Ponyville, no Cloudsdale, no Canterlot, nothing. The three pony races have been separated into three cities, and as far as we know they are the last vestiges of society in this world. Which would suggest, as my good friend Dan brought up repeatedly, that Twilight fucked things up so astronomically that ponykind has regressed to something worse than pre-Equestria times. MLP: Twilight's Twisted Legacy as my buddy calls it. Because when FiM started, all pony races were living together in (relative) harmony, but now somehow, with the disappearance of Twilight, the whole thing goes to hell so that you have these isolated communities, and magic itself has gone away period. And all those creatures Twilight wanted to bring together with her school? Gone completely, possibly even extinct! It's like Fallout Equestria only fucked in a whole other horrible way. Did Equestria really need external threats to keep itself unified? Just what did Twilight do to mess up this badly? What happened to all the other immortals??? I mean, holy hell. It's extremely depressing the more you think about it. So instead I'll move on to the other odd aspects of the movie.

(Sidenote: would an earth pony wearing a fake horn be the pony equivalent of wearing black face in this context? #JustAskingQuestions)

On the topic of hashtags, something my bud Matt pointed out is that most pop songs today, every lyric can be its own standalone hashtag. Watching this movie with subtitles where the song lines are preceded by a hashtag, just about every song in this thing can be a hashtag song. Especially the one Sprout sings about when he goes into dictator mode (it was a Bad Romance).

About that, let's take a look at Maretime Bay and, specifically, Canterlogic. Capitalism at its finest, feeding into the fears of the public to sell product. And it's so weird seeing how advanced technology-wise this age has gotten, with television and smartphones and electric grids. Particularly with Columbia (Zephyr Hills), otherwise Libtopia: where fascism is just two seconds away, given how the public immediately turned on the monarchy the moment their flying falsehood was revealed. Dan said all the advanced tech just takes away from the draw of a fantasy movie: you watch a film like this to escape from the trappings of modern life, yet here we have it being shoved in our faces. FiM did have some tech here and there, but it had a charming anachronism about them. Here, ugh.

On the topic of unstable governments, you know you've gone full fascist when the defense contractor turns on you, as is the case with Sprout and the least-threatening doombot in existence. It can hardly even be considered a bulldozer, although the lighthouse must have been made of some shoddy material to go over like that. But yeah, it's hilarious how this doofus whips the town up into a war frenzy, but they immediately back down the moment he calls them to action. As Dan put it, it's a house of cards, and the cards are made of sand.

Jesus I'm rambling. The reason I'm going all over the place is that I was blitzed out on French vodka and spent most of the movie talking about the aforementioned topics rather than pay attention to the film (which Matt did, even though he was the least interested in pony). So let me get on track by talking about the characters. Uhhh, Sunny is kinda of a well-meaning idiot, in that she promotes friendship and understanding, but the moment she brings a unicorn into her home she begins flinging racist beliefs at her. It's like a white guy inviting a black person to their home and going "So about them basketballs" or "Want some watermelon?" or "A real shame about not being able to swim". Like, da fuq? And I think it's a massive cop-out for Sunny, or anyone, to become an alicorn at the end. Yes, the movie did stick to its message of needing everyone to become friends in order to bring magic back to the world. But you don't need to have a god queen thrown in as well. Oh wait, merchandising, of course. #Capitalism

There's a bunch of other nitty gritty things I'm leaving out, but I'll just leave it at that. Ignoring the many horrifying implications brought up in earlier paragraphs, this was a decent flick. It made for some commentary, some laughs, and wasn't miserable for any of us to watch. And you know, that's probably the real magic of friendship right there: just hanging and drinking with buds you haven't seen in months, cutting loose, parsing philosophical thoughts and learning aspects of the current geo-political climate, just doing the things that make social interaction so wonderful. I guess the real cringe were the friends we reunited with along the way.

As a parting piece of advice, do not drink an entire bottle of Alize by yourself. Even when stuffed with bread, you are living on the knife's edge. Take it easy, party people. All the best.