MY THOUGHTS ON MY LITTLE PONY: THE MOVIE
I know it has been a while since I made an actual post, but school and laziness got in the way.
But here I am giving you guys another movie review!
(Quick side note, I saw this movie due to the HASBRO LEAK, I know I said that we shouldn’t do that but I am so sorry I will never download leaked movies again. I am sorry for being a hypocrite.)
So, oh my god this movie actually happened!
The FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC SHOW came out in 2010, and the show still goes on to this very day! It’s so unreal that the show is still airing! And I love the series so much, it’s actually the best cartoon show airing today. Yeah, I said it.
And when I heard that a 2D animated movie based on this show was going to be released in theaters, I. WAS. PUMPED!
There was a celebrity cast involved, along with the original cast from the show involved as well.
I was so excited for this movie to come out, I was wondering what this movie could possibly be about!
And then, in mid 2015, the plot synopsis of the movie was revealed! From MOVIEWEB, it reads:
“In the movie, a new dark force threatens Ponyville, and the Mane 6, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Rarity, embark on an unforgettable journey beyond Equestria where they meet new friends and exciting challenges on a quest to use the magic of friendship and save their home.”
When I read that synopsis, I felt skeptical. But it was just a synopsis, the final movie can still be good!
And then I saw the movie.
Now look, no matter what movie I’m about to watch, I always give them the benefit of the doubt. Even when I was about to see THE EMOJI MOVIE, while I knew it was going to be bad, I still gave the movie a chance.
And then I saw the movie. And . . . *sighs* it was not good. Really bad, it was. I thought at first it was just okay, but after thinking about the movie and then watching it again with my analytical eyes, I came to this conclusion: THIS ANIMATED MOVIE IS ONE OF THE WORST ANIMATED MOVIES I’VE SEEN IN YEARS.
HEAR. ME. OUT!
I am not hating on this movie just because I can or because I had a lot of plot theories in my head and they didn’t come true (*coughs* Last Jedi). I just simply don’t like this movie, and there are many reasons why.
Before I get into the actual movie, I want to go somewhere else. I want to tell you guys about the behind the scenes aspect of this movie.
Developing wise, the story should have been done better. It was predictable, this movie was.
But lets get into the behind the scenes now.
I DO NOT KNOW THE BUDGET OF THIS MOVIE!
Really, CARTOONBREW said the production budget was from $5 to $8 million, but then EQUESTRIADAILY and other MLP forums said that the movie was around $20-$30 million. So I’ll say that based on that, the movie’s budget is fron $5 to $30 million towards the production of this movie.
And the animation software for this movie was TOON BOOM HARMONY.
It is a well known 2D animation software that was used in this movie, combining 2D animation with 3D CGI animation for the settings and so forth.
I thought the animation would be in-house software, meaning only the company making the film would be using the software that they made, instead of using software that is open to the public. But still, TOON BOOM is still good software for animation from what I have heard of.
And then we go back into 2014 where the current showrunner of the show, Megan McCarthy, announces that the MLP MOVIE will not only get made into a feature length movie, but it will also be released in March 2017, which was eventually moved to October of that same year I. WAS. HYPED!
And then in 2015 at PonyCon Australia, she was asked if the movie was going to have the same tone and feel that the EQUESTRIA GIRLS movies have. She replied by basically saying that the movie would be just ...”straight up pony friendship is magic.”.
But if you would watch the behind the scenes look at the movie, along with that same interview in PonyCon, the main reason for her making this movie WAS NOT because she had a complex story or new story in mind, but literally because that she wanted to go big on scope and atmosphere. (Watch the first five minutes.)
So.... nothing on story and character development and nothing on bringing in more people to know about the show, just the big picture, she wants.
She’s basically saying this:
(Watch from 2:21-2:25)
And now we get into the animation part. Then I will get into the story/characters, and then I will tell you guys my conclusion.
So for the animation, it’s a mixed bag. For one, the animation on the mane 6, Spike, Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Tempest, Storm King, Grubber, and the seaponies are all well done. Granted, there were moments where Twilight and Pinkie Pie would make weird faces, and all I could think of is, “Wow, the animators really like to show off.” LOL. Still, the animators did a good job with those characters.
HOWEVER! Onto the negative side on the animation.
(THE REST OF THIS REVIEW WOULD BE FULL OF SPOILERS! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.)
When it comes to the settings, the buildings, and certain characters that I’ll mention in just a bit, they look out of place and unfinished.
Maybe it’s because the final script was finished two months before the movie was released? (I read the script during the leak and now it’s gone, but the date for the final script when finished said it was on 8/15/2017. August 15 of this year, and the movie was released on October 6.)
But when it comes to the HAN SOLO RIPOFF Capper, Celaeno and her crew, they look unfinished.
Think about this. The movie’s production budget was very low. So the animators probably had some trouble to animate the entire movie. But there have been other 2D animated movies like SONG OF THE SEA where the budget may be low, but can still be animated very beautifully. This movie however, has some glaring issues with that.
The settings, as I said, look unfinished and out of place. When you place two dimensional in a setting surrounded by buildings that look unfinished, the film takes me out of there and I question why these buildings are there. It takes me out of the experience.
And now to Capper and Celaeno and Celaeno’s crew.
They look great in these pics, but whenever they move and interact with other characters on screen, it just feels weird. Think about this: the ponies and the other characters that I mentioned before looked great, but the ponies looked the best because even with the very low budget, the animators knew the show and they knew how to animate these characters in this movie. That’s why whenever they’re talking, running, walking, and doing cool moves, it looks amazing and the animation there feels smooth and fluid.
But whenever you see Celaeno and Capper, they would never run, flip, do moves, or do anything else besides talking and walking, (Celaeno does very little when it comes to kicking the bad guys. And Capper only runs once, but for like 5 seconds. but that’s it.) that’s because with the new character designs, rushed script, and budget concerns with the animation, you would get characters that don’t move naturally.
Now with the story, the most important part of every movie. I am going to give you guys two point of views, from me being a fan of the show, and from me seeing this as just a standalone movie. So right now this is me as a lover of film and seeing this as a standalone movie. Now, onto the story.
*sighs* WHAT STORY!?
It’s just, inconsistent and predictable.
But let’s get into the story, shall we?!
So the opening of this movie has three random ponies that we don’t know flying above the clouds and then flying down towards Equestria, while the pony version of WE GOT THE BEAT is playing. *sighs* The fucking Jimmy Neutron movie used that song, from fucking 2001.
Anyway! The first fifteen minutes in this movie really had no connection to the actual plot of the movie. You would think that because this is this beginning of the movie, this whole fifteen movies would be the whole movie. But here’s the thing, it isn’t the whole movie. So when the actual story happens, it comes right out of nowhere and I’m asking myself, “Wait, what?!”
The whole fifteen minutes is entirely dedicated to Equestria setting up this festival of friendship, this huge glamorous event run by Celestia, Luna, Cadence, and Twilight.
Now with the start of this movie, the setup to the world that we are in is very important. Once the audience gets introduced to a world beyond their imaginations, then we should know about this world and feel like we’re people living in that world. Being immersed into the film. But with Equestria in this movie, you don’t really know much about the world. It’s just, we’re here, and that’s it. Nothing really interesting happens, it’s just Equestria pasted into the movie as the backdrop and that’s it.
Even with the character introductions, again, we as a moviegoing audience don’t know who these characters are. The characters are slapped on the big screen and the filmmakers want us to know who these characters upon introduction (not really.), but we don’t. Only the fans of the show know and when making an animated movie based on a television show that some people may not know about, that is not good. (I mean THE SIMPSONS MOVIE is a great example on how to make a great movie that is based on a television show. It doesn’t rely on references to the show without any context of said reference, fan service, and character introductions that don’t feel like actual introductions. It’s a movie that anyone can watch. In the movie, we get introduced to the Simpson family, we know immediately in the beginning that they are a dysfunctional family. Bart is a troublemaker, Lisa is the shy and musically talented one, Marge is the responsible and mature one, and Homer is the dumb one. They all have arcs in the story that are important and are actually built up upon, but I digress.).
There are even prequel comics that explain who the new characters are and introduce the mane 6! Hey, there’s something! Oh wait, it’s not in the movie, so there’s nothing! Studios need to stop relying on comics and other mediums of entertainment to tell the rest of the story instead of the movie doing its job. If movie studios use that method, then they have no faith in their own movie.
It feels like a movie just for the fans, this definitely reminds me of SUICIDE SQUAD LOL.
And then we get to SONGBIRD SERENADE.
Who is really just a pop star thrown into the movie and is given no character or reason to be there, other than to put a dance number at the end and to have a big pop star that people like (including me) in the movie. She shows up at the beginning for a few seconds, and then we never see her again until the very end.
So after her introduction, we all of the sudden get an introduction to the main villains. And we are introduced to THE HEAVY, TEMPEST SHADOW.
She takes out Luna, Celestia, and Cadence out very easily, even though the three ponies should not stand around like idiots. They should fucking move to the left or right, you know! *groans*
So the ponies get pwned by one of STORM KING’S GUARDS (THE BIG BAD) by one of the guards using his shield to deflect Twilight’s beam, which makes no sense because he used a regular shield which should have been destroyed, but fuck it, lets just move the story along.
So the mane 6 and Spike need to go to the Hippogriffs, part seapony, part eagle. Thinking that they can help them save Equestria.
As a fan, where’s Discord? Shining Armor with his army? Daring Do? Changelings? Dragons? No mention of them? Well, movie could have been way worse.
So the reason why Tempest is bad makes no sense. At first, we hear from her that she’s sick and tired that ponies use their magic just for parties. But then we hear again that she’s doing this in order for the STORM KING to repair her broken horn, and then later in the film which I’ll explain later, something happened to her as a kid, which is really stupid, dumb, and doesn’t make any logical sense.
So the ponies go to this dirty looking village called KLUGETOWN. And Twilight tells her friends reasonably that they need to keep a low profile, they can’t get captured, and they can’t trust someone who will back stab them. But Pinkie is like, fuck it, I’m going to do the exact opposite! And then the villagers surround the ponies and they all want to buy Spike for some reason, which introduces Capper. And just because he saved them once, every character excluding Twilight, trust him now. Rarity calls him “charming” and Rainbow Dash calls him “awesome”. And this brings me to the biggest problem in this movie besides the story . . . it’s the characters.
While the new characters have no development and do nothing of importance, the ponies, excluding Twilight, are jackasses! They constantly fuck shit up in this entire movie and they never apologize for what they did. Pinkie draws attention when Twilight specifically told her not to, because they were on an important mission. Then her friends would trust the pirates that were about to kill them. Also, Rainbow Dash does a sonic rainboom above the pirates’ ship and draws attention to Tempest. Then I swear to god, when hiding with her friends, Dash says to Twilight, “Did you think they saw my rainboom?”
Jesus Christ.
And then Pinkie Pie, again, just jumps into some little pond area where the seaponies live without thinking what will happen if she did jump in the water. And she trusts the seaponies even though she just met them. Lets talk about the seaponies, especially QUEEN NOVO.
To me, she’s the biggest bitch in the whole movie. I know she felt wary about strangers entering her kingdom, which is reasonable, but she doesn’t have to be a rude bitch towards Twilight!
Think about this scenario:
Imagine me as a very rich person, I’m wearing rich clothing, walking with my entourage, and I am holding a very powerful orb that can cure all diseases. So then a homeless man runs up to me:
Man: Please help me, my son is very sick, him and I are homeless, and he’s dying! *looks at the orb* Use that on my son, please! He doesn’t have much time left!
Me: *smirks and smiles* No no no! This is how it usually works! I only help the people I know. I don’t help people that I don’t know. It’s not like I can be a kind soul where innocent people are dying and I can save them, that’s just not me. So fuck off while I use my money on more expensive clothing. So go fuck yourself!
Yeah, that’s Queen Novo in a nutshell. Twilight needs that orb and Novo refuses to give it to her. Granted, I know the ponies to her on strangers. But Novo knows who the Storm King is, she knows what he has done to her subjects, and Twilight is pretty famous. So Novo not giving a helping hand, or fin, to Twilight and her kingdom, she says no, and literally gets out of her throne just because it was time for her seaweed wrap. Fuck her!
Twilight stealing the orb was surprising to me and was big, and stealing is not right. But while Twilight is having stress over being an inspiring leader and a responsible one too, her friends constantly fuck shit up like it’s nothing. So her friends are on the wrong and Twilight is on the right. If you needed to save your family and you need that orb, would you sacrifice yourself to save it by doing everything you can to get it, or just do nothing and not take action. Like a song and dance number instead. Fuck her friends.
The whole, “I don’t need friends like you” was out of nowhere, but still, it’s just to move the plot along, even if what just happened made no sense.
Then her friends leave her (good job, “friends”) and Twilight gets captured by Tempest. And Tempest sings OPEN UP YOUR EYES to Twilight, while Twilight is inside a magic proof cage.
And this is the part of the movie where Tempest’s past, her motivation into becoming evil, makes no sense.
The very underrated youtuber, THE DISHONOURED WOLF, said it best:
(7:27-7:53)
So, she did something TO HERSELF and she blames everyone else for it?!?!?!
And telling Twilight to “grow up” even though she is a princess with a lot of responsibility and wasn’t acting like her friends for the majority of this movie?!?! Tempest should tell Twilight’s friends that they need to grow up instead. (The show’s characters will always be lovable characters and the movie is a huge spit in the face.)
There are also some audio problems with this movie.
Like this scene:
It sounds like Sia was singing in a recording studio and it doesn’t feel like she’s singing in that scene.
This scene from GAME OF THRONES sounds like a person is singing in the woods, while you hear a horse’s hooves, birds chirping, and the wind.
I do like the glance between a torn up Twilight and Songbird, but we know nothing about Songbird and she doesn’t look at everyone else which is very odd and weird.
A whole bunch of shit happens and the Storm King is a weak ass villain, basically STEPPIENWOLF FROM JUSTICE LEAGUE but a thousand times more annoying and with no character motivation or personality.
There’s a scene a few moments later where Twilight has one of two choices:
Take this poweful staff away from the king, to save her kingdom and everypony who is enslaved? Or save the one pony who has been chasing after you throughout your journey, enslaved your entire kingdom, and let the king take her magic away? Which choice do you think Twilight made?
If you guessed the first choice, of course, she didn’t make that choice.
And then at the very end of the movie, Tempest is friends with the ponies even though, again, she enslaved an entire race of ponies. And reveals her true name. Her name is.... FIZZLEPOP BERRYTWIST.
How does that name affect her character? It doesn’t.
THE LEGO MOVIE with Wildstyle, where she revealed that her real name was Lucy. And it works because she wanted to become “the special” and when revealing her name, it shows that she’s just a regular girl, not just a super cool action girl.
FUCK THIS MOVIE.
AN F, THIS MOVIE HAS.
That’s my take.
@elijah-dawg-one @equinox-vixen @renegade-timel0rd @alexboehm55144 @drwolf001
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