My Little Pony: Equestria Girls

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

To me, this just seems like one big episode of the show, not really a movie. But that doesn't matter. The Show MLP: FiM started out as a children's show, (ages 6-11 or so) never mind the fan base, it should be treated as such. If you compare Equestria Girls to any other modern kids show made into a movie, it will be obvious the Equestria Girls raises the bar for animation, voice acting, song writing, and overall quality of the show. The songs are amazing, the voice acting is incredible, and the animation is better than any I've ever seen.

I strongly recommend this movie to families, bronies, and children. That's who it was made for.

10/10 - Fantastic movie.

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.

There's a lot of things you can say about this movie. Yes, it's corny. Yes, it panders to the fan-base. Yes, the concept is silly. Yes, it's basically an hour-long commercial for a new toy line. But that doesn't change the fact that My Little Pony: Equestria Girls is, honestly, pretty alright. No, it's not perfect, not by a long shot, but then, neither is the show (blasphemy, I know but it's true).

If you're a fan of the show and you take this movie for what it is: the pilot episode for what will hopefully be a decent cartoon and an advertisement for toys, then you'll probably enjoy it. Your kids, if you have any, will most likely enjoy it. If you're not a fan of the show, a kid, or both, then steer clear.

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 :)