My Little Pony: Equestria Girls

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.

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

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.

First off, I enjoyed the beginning of the movie where they're still ponies. I like how it picks up right after season 3 ended. Its a great set up but then it shows its true colors, and that would be a movie designed to rival with the Bratz Monster High doll collection. The legs are three-fourths of their body. They ALL wear short skirts and knee-high hooker boots. It only worked for Apple Jack because she would wear cowgirl boots but a skirt? No she'd wear denim shorts or jeans. Rainbow Dash especially was reduced to playing soccer in a skirt. We get it Hasbro, they're girls but they don't all have to dress that way. The skin doesn't bother me just because it eliminates racist thoughts. In Equestria, fur color was never meant to show race. They're all different colors. However, Rarity and Sweetie-Bell look like corpses. I liked seeing all the ponies from the show shown as humans, even though their design overall was done in a much more mediocre way than what I've seen from the fandom. Other issues that really bothered me was the cliché high school drama, which is what turned me off in the first place. The antagonist uses cell phones to cyber bully Twilight, which is far from what I expect from this show. The love-at first sight had my eyes rolling like many other things. Some of the characters don't seem to be "in-character" such as Fluttershy. There's no ways she would break out into song in front of the entire school. I had to skip through some of the songs, which I've never had to do for the TV show. The big turn off was Sunset Shimmer setting out to rule the high school. Really, being princess of the high school, that's just lame! Like it or not this movie was made to sell creepy humanized pony dolls, which will fail in my opinion. Hopefully season four of the show will get it back on the horse.

I haven't been watching the series for that many months, but it left so much of a mark on me that I knew I had to go see this in theaters. And I have no regrets doing so. I mean, it's not one of the strongest things to come out of the MLP G4 franchise, but for what I could've gotten with this concept, which is... let's be fair, odd, a lot of things did exceed my expectations.

Let's start with the story execution. Aside from the whole "Twilight Sparkle is a high school human" dealie, there doesn't seem to be much to the premise, just sort-of a 'win your goal'-type plot. However, they manage to make it intriguing and very entertaining to watch with how character-driven they make the actual storytelling, especially with the characters they have to work with, but we'll get to that later. What's more is that despite there being a lot of small, extra scenes involving Twilight having to get accustomed to her new surroundings, they almost never forget the actual story; and even though the spotlight stays on Twilight like it should, at its core it is still about friendship, which is really what the show always was. Finally, it's just flat-out funny, from character reveals to series callbacks to simple but fitting character-based lines.

Next, the visuals. DHX really knows how to make flash animation look good, and this is among their best work. There are a huge variety of character movements (much less restricted than the pony figures), some really cool-looking effects, and surprisingly, I even found myself getting really accustomed to some of the human designs as well. Not all of them work (ex. Celestia, Luna, and Big Mac), but many of them actually blend with their pony counterparts pretty darn well (ex. Rarity, Fluttershy, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders). Even some of the backgrounds, like the Fall Formal and the Crystal Empire (which I'm usually not all that impressed by) managed to prove appealing as well.

The music takes a different style from that of the series, going more pop-ish and overall more fitting of the high school environment. While I don't think the score is bad per say, it does prove to be a little on the generic side. The same can be said for the musical numbers themselves, and while I didn't hate any of them, the only one I truly remember is "Helping Twilight Win the Crown", which will leave you humming afterward.

Now onto the characters, starting with the main cast. Twilight is just as lovably nerdy but still admirable as ever, even further strengthened by the support from Spike, who's a dog here. Yeah, don't worry, they manage to work that out okay. The human counterparts of her friends are obviously faithful to their originals, but what makes them work particularly well here is that each of them get their own time to shine that never feel out of place, and at least most of them get something new added to their roles as well to fit the setting, which I thought was a really nice touch and it made them all the more interesting to watch in an alternate reality.

For the secondary characters, they weren't as nice. I mean, you've got those that are pretty much just cameos or throwaway jokes, such as Trixie and Vinyl Scratch, which can be fun to watch as little as they add, but you've also got some others that are put in a role that just don't fit, such as Celestia & Luna being the principals and Snips & Snails being the henchmen to the antagonist, Sunset Shimmer. Speaking of Sunset, I find her a decent antagonist with her menacing appearance, reputation, and ultimate goal, but with the bits of backstory they give her and her competence in Equestria, you really wish there were more of those. But instead, it's traded for little more than just menacing attributes and a pointless twist at the climax. The other new character is the love interest Flash Sentry, and even though he isn't a useless character, both him and the romance angle are just weak. If they really wanted this to work, they seriously needed to put much more passion and effort into it, because they really treaded some dangerous waters with this.

Of course, all this is not to say I'm supporting the high school idea in the first place. As well as they handle it, it's so bizarre merely in its existence. I mean, the film was obviously made for marketing purposes (just Hasbro doing their business), but I don't even know what the mindset was with them making the toys in the first place. What did they intend to accomplish with this exactly? Well, for me, it'll probably remain a mystery.

All in all, on its own, Equestria Girls isn't really a good movie, but if you take it as a TV movie like it was originally intended to be, as well as one made for marketing at that, you'll probably find at least something to like about it, even if the movie as a whole doesn't manage to satisfy you. I personally managed to find a lot more to enjoy. If you aren't a fan of the series, you probably won't get into it here. If you are, you should probably give it at least a chance, and be sure to take it for what it's worth.