Review of My Little Pony: Equestria Girls (2013) by Roy E — 23 Jun 2013

Equestria Girls, ever since it was announced, Bronies worldwide worried about how the spin-off title to their favourite cartoon about pastel colored equines having adventures in the mystical and magical land of Equestria would affect it. Basically the result of a coorporate based decision on Hasbro to create their own toyline to compete with Mattel's Monster High and take a bite of their cake, Equestria Girls, despite being produced by the hardworking and well meaning staff of DHX, still can't help but fall on the bland and boring side of things.

The premise is simple. Taking place after the finale of the third season of Friendship is Magic. Twilight Sparkle is summoned to the Crystal Empire for a summit with the fellow heads of Equestria. But while on her stay there, an unknown unicorn comes in at night and takes away Twilight Sparkle's crown to another dimension. Now the former unicorn turned alicorn princess must venture into this other dimension to retrieve her precious headwear.

Sounds pretty interesting so far. And that's all that's really interesting about it. The rest of the movie deals with Twilight Sparkle in the human world during situations involving overused highschool tropes and cliches. Prom queen, friends that where tricked into no longer being friends, stereotypical school cliques, highschool bitch and guitar playing cute boy.

But I'll give credit where credit is due. What makes this part of the movie bareable is that the human counterparts to the ponies still retain all the personality quirks that make them so loveable in the first place. Pinkie Pie's randomness and Fluttershy's introvertive nature for example. You can actually get a lot of humor out of this.

The villain herself, while having a pretty awesome idea for a backstory. A former student of Princess Celestia who just got fed up with her and left. Is basically the highschool bitch version of "The Great and Powerful" Trixie, even reusing the same henchmen. The villain's plan is highly questionable, and how she knows about the crown is headscratching. She's been in the human world for a few years..how the heck does she know about the Elements of Harmony being active? Which where thought to be a myth by many until Twilight Sparkle and her friends re-activated them. And specifically, how did she know Twilight's crown was an Element. That wasn't even outright stated in the show (Apparently the Element of Magic had reforged itself into a new form now being the crown Twilight wears). And finally, the villain's transformation..why? Why not go for an equine demon? That'd would've been pretty badass and stayed in line with the past villains. Nightmare Alicorn, Chimera Dragon Horse, Bug Horse, Shadow Unicorn.....Demon Horse? That'd be cool! She was originally a unicorn, so c'mon!

That transformation further brings me to the designs. It seems there's room to question the design decisions. Specially after seeing some great fan interpretations of how characters could look in this movie during the wait period. Characters like Luna and Big Mac get their coat color thrown out the window for skin colors that just make you wonder why. Why isn't Big Mac red? Why is Luna Blue? The mane six look rather uninspired and lack a sense of diversity amongst them. All basically wear long boots and skirts. A lack of diversity can also apply to basically every girl in the school as they all have the same body type. While the boys get different body shapes. I guess girls cannot be ugly. Skinny anorexic is the ideal body shape to strive for! Though, certain looks like Trixie's, atleast give a little bit of uniqueness to the overused body mold. Celestia, and again, Luna, look just pain horrible, specially the latter as not even her hair resembles either of her two designs. This two totally lack the grace and strong presence they have as alicorn leaders..they look generic and boring.

The song lyrics are pretty generic and shallow. Basically songs about becoming prom queen, fish out of water and everybody getting together to solve "x" problem. While the lyrics are "meh", the tunes can be pretty catchy. So expect them to get stuck.

"Brad", or how he is actually called, "Flash Sentry", was a total waste of time and sadly ended up being a pile of cliche'd blandness. Heck, he even makes me further question Sunset Shimmer who he apparently dated. She's basically a horse, and a horse that in her sentient society would be considered an adult... Whhaaattt?

Plot could've done without "Brad". He raises more questions than add to the story.

Despite all the negativity I see in the movie, the premise of Sunset Shimmer being a "failed" student of Princess Celestia is pretty interesting to me. Having a fallout with her mentor, she escapes into an alternate world. Heck, you know what, I would've explored more on that aspect. Why did she leave? Why did she have that fallout? Ect. Rather than having the plot be "better become prom queen or the world is doomed". Twilight Sparkle could've been sent to this world to look for Sunset Shimmer and try to persuade her into coming back. Trying to prove the Magic of Friendship and extend a hand to someone many feel is misguided...

And, oh, yeah..and Spike's a dog. That's just wrong...he contributes as much as any pony in the show. So he's relegated to pet?

And actually...with Spike being a talking dog, the plot could've been resolved in the first 30 minutes. You know, go to the principal's office, ask for the crown, explain your situation, show talking dog. I think there's a chance they'll believe you're a former unicorn turned alicorn princess from an alternate dimension.

I have to say, as much as I love Meghan McCarthy, and having had the honor of meeting her twice and seeing how enthusiastic she is about working on Friendship is Magic. I feel this is the lowest of her work on this series. Yes, I even feel the Crystal Empire was better than this. What really made that one questionable was the lackluster villain. Atleast the plot added to the lore and mythology of Equestria and gave purpose to the Cadence character within that world. Equestria Girls really adds nothing except a bunch of head scratching questions.

Anyways, do I suggest anyone to see this movie? Not really. It's just Hasbro's lazy decision to have vehicle to advertise poorly made toys. Was it a waste of time to watch it? Not really either. It was amusing because there was so much stuff that kept me questioning. Haha..