My Little Pony: Equestria Girls

For years, fans of the weirdly popular "My Little Pony Friendship is Magic" series have been flooding the Internet with fan art of the main characters in human form. In perhaps the biggest piece of fan service ever, the creators of the original TV series have produced a whole new movie with the very premise of your favorite characters in human form and going to high school. Yes, we all want to see our favorite characters go to high school (or turn human if they aren't already). Greek Legends go to high school in Class of the Titans, Rugrats go to school in All Grown Up,Transformers became humans at one point. Heck there was even a "Gotham High" cartoon series planned which recasts Batman and his villains as high school students..

Our story follows Twilight Sparkle as she pursues a previously unheard of rival named Sunset Shimmer through a magic portal in order to recover her magic crown that was stolen. Twilight ends up in another world where she is a human, there are human equivalents of every pony she has known in Ponyville and they all go to the same Canterlot High school. Once again the fish out of water, Twilight must start from scratch to try and fit in with this new world and make friends with these familiar characters all over again. Now here comes the stinker. Sunset shimmer has apparently been manipulating students against each other through social media. an embarrassing youtube video, photoshopped pictures and anonymous text messages are enough to break up a group of girls who have been best of friends since grade school. So Twilight would help to mend friendships that were torn because the most gullible girls in the world believed some fake phone messages over actually talking to each other and ascertaining the truth. Heck even the vice principle is fooled by some badly photocropped (as in physically cut and paste) pictures. Is this the most gullible school or what. fine. Now we have the big prom, which is one huge popularity contest. instead of showing twilight winning over the hearts and minds of her school mates through her honesty, sincerity and helpfulness, she wins them over through the magic of song and dance.

Yes, the synopsis sure does sound shallow. Alas, the movie itself is shallow and that is its main sin here. But before harping on that, one must acknowledge how true to the original series this movie is. Other than cosmetic changes, all your favorite characters are exactly the same as they were when they were ponies. Fluttershy is still the little shrinking violet with an obsession for cute little animals, Applejack is still the country bumpkin, Rarity still the glamor queen, Pinky Pie still the wacko psycho and Rainbow Dash the tomboy sporty one. Their new designs as human beings take bit of getting used to with the whole quasi-Japanese-anime look with their oversized heads, tiny bodies and weird skin colour (including purple, green, pale blue etc) but once you do, they do have a certain adorable quality to them. The animation is smooth and surprisingly good considering it was animated in adobe flash. This pushes the envelope on what can be done with the over-the-counter animation software.

Now compliments aside, Equestria girls is still a disappointment because it has so much wasted potential. When twilight first steps into high school, her culture shock and the montage that accompanies the inner monologue song she sings seems to paint the premise as a clever metaphor for growing up and transitioning from the magical innocence of early years (ala ponyville where all kinds of wonders exist) to the harsher reality of school politics, competition and boy/girl relationships. That is never developed any further. Also as mentioned before, the story has many lessons to teach but glosses over them in the short 70 odd minutes run time. Trivial lessons at that. If you realise, all she did was bring the 5 main friends back together by showing them how stupid they've been in believing anonymous text messages instead of talking things out like sensible people. Or how Twilight won over Rainbow Dash by stroking her ego and losing in a soccer game.

A much greater impact would be felt if the main 5 friends were never friends to begin with and Twilight helped bring them together despite their differences (this is hinted in one of the songs where it speaks about how twilight sparkle helped them look deeper and find the qualities that united them instead of those that separated them). If it were not for the top notch voice acting, the characters would come across as bland and just, once again, shallow.

Thus, wasted potential all around. we get good animation likable characters who are easy to relate to, and catchy tunes by composer Daniel Ingram which hardens back to the best of Disney animated musicals but that's about it. the movie had so much potential yet ended up trivializing many potentially deep themes on growing up, making friends and settling differences. With an all new premise the creators do nothing new with the story.Here we have an opportunity to do something different, to take the franchise one step further. Sadly there is nothing other than the premise to justify a full length feature film. Other movies based on ongoing TV series feature pivotal moments in a character's journey or a irreversible change to the status quo of that show. Nothing changes here. If not for the fact that the ponies are now human, the story would serve well enough as a 3 episode arc in the TV series

Some shows fit as movies, like Firefly. Some shows on the other hand will never make good movies… unless it deviates from the show entirely. Because some of them are too complex and convoluted, like Game of Thrones, while other are the exact opposite: simple shows, which you do not watch for the plot.

That is where we encounter the first hurdle. Equestria Girls does not deviate from the show. It looks and feels like a bad pilot episode of a bad show… and they generally do not premiere in cinemas.

Equestria Girls disregards the strengths of the show: humans instead of ponies, generic high school setting instead of an interesting magical pony land and a bitch that is mean to everyone but obviously will be put back in line by Twilight Sparkle… instead of having none of that. The movie is so predictable, it hurts.

Apropos generic: Twilight Sparkle meets a boy who wears a black sports jacket, is athletic and plays the electric guitar like Jimi Henrix and is the antagonist's ex. And that is that.

There are a few songs featured in Equestria Girls, not unlike the show. These songs are quite different though. Techno and Pop has taken a hold of the score and it sounds like generic radio music. While the songs in "Friendship is Magic" were a part of an actual scene, they now seem randomly placed, just for the sake of it.

Friendship is Magic is animated with Flash and so is this movie. Unfortunately the humans look very stiff and unnatural. The movement of the humans appears choppy, almost as if they skipped frames, which would not surprise me. Lauren Faust's style of the show doesn't fit humans, and they look awkward. Probably, because no humans where originally planned.

One thing that bothered me from day one was the human counterparts of the ponies. It is as if someone (who never even watched "Friendship is Magic") designed them over a weekend, and a colorblind person at that who had no idea how to blend and mix colors. Color theory, what sorcery is this?

Firstly, they deiced to color the skin of the humans like the coat of the ponies. Twilight Sparkle has purple skin, Pinkie Pie is pink and Rainbow Dash is blue. It works for the ponies, but not for the humans. The colors clash like the titans did 1981 and it is not a pretty sight. But how else should we know what human is representing what pony, right…?

There are also small things like every one of the six girls are basically wearing the same things: knee high boots and skirts. Someone truly did an amazing copy paste job, efficiency at its best. Or an insult to Lauren Faust's original and varied design of the ponies. Like the show, the movie was made for girls, but the quality is lacking. It is a badly written mess with lackluster animation quality and laughable design. Equestria Girls is without a doubt the Phantom Menace of My Little Pony. AVOID

Its very easy to complain about a movie that is quite shallow, but i don't blame you.

The Creators and Animators truly just wanted to see the human versions of everyone's favorite characters come to life ... nothing more.

So i found it fun seeing our adored MLP characters in human form and was thoroughly entertained as i think that's the aspect everybody else would enjoy about this film and its aesthetics.

The only thing i would've wanted is a bit more interesting morally grounded philosophy behind the story and emphasize more about the idea of being in high school then just a Hollywood version idea on what a high school is.

I'll definitely watch the rest of the films when I'm bored. But still recommend any fan of MLP to watch it :)

For a start... it definitely did not warrant a theatre release.

No additional effort was put into the animation beyond the TV series other than the opening credits animation, at all. Would have been a nice two-parter to link the existing My Little Pony seasons 3 and 4 together.

Two, it's so obvious the entire movie is a giant advertisement for Hasbro to sell anthro-based dolls based on popular characters. The way the characters are introduced and stylised, it's just glaring and grating.

The basic story? As predictable as ever, even for a MLP episode. Which is fine for a MLP episode, but not for a movie, hence back to my original belief it didn't warrant a theatre release. The fact that it's set in such a tedious and over-used setting as a school formal? Awful. So much opportunity for this to have been done better was wasted on a cliché. The ponies are regressed to teenage years when in Ponyville they are already mares, ie mature. The movie should have reflected this, and used it to encourage girls (and guys) in a more positive direction than what it does.

The writing was about as standard as the series, but I'm disappointed with the whole image of the movie. Everyone is thin and anaemic, with the exception of Snails, and lo and behold, the unpopular "bad guy henchman" is fat. The ONLY fat person in the entire movie. In the series, all the ponies are rounded, or at least full-bodied; all this movie does is perpetuate the stick-insect mentality of fashion that girls are now being encouraged to pursue. Which leads to...

Concepts of friendship are nice to see in this movie, and I'm glad they are there. But the series does a much better job of teaching those concepts in a manner that isn't muddied by imagery that is counter-productive to many children's' self-esteem. This movie is a step backwards for the quality of the show, not a step forwards.

So, overall? Poor. It *could* have been so much more. Instead, we got dreck. It's 4, perhaps a 5 out of 10. For the absolute littlies only, and I say that with hesitation given the body-image impressions it's setting up for them.

I hope this stays a one-off, and is never attempted again.

Yes, it isn't quite as good as the show. Still, that shouldn't be held against the movie. This spinoff still maintains the MLP franchise's tendency to go beyond the stereotypicalness and obviousness of other girls shows and films.

Yeah, the high school format is predictable, but there is something about a pony in a human's body and a battle with a monster at the end that shakes things up some. Dialogue is on point and there are some funny bits.

The songs are all forgettable though, I'll give you that.