My Little Pony: Equestria Girls (2013) Review

Well, what is there to be said about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic? It was already more sophisticated than previous generations of the My Little Pony brand thanks to its well-written stories, lovable characters, hilarious comedy, and morals that we can relate to. What no one expected were the male followers, dubbed as "Bronies". I could go on about that, but I think everybody gets the picture: it's a "little girl's show" that appeals to both genders.

Early last year, its third season came to a close and after that, a theatrical movie called Equestria Girls was announced. As if the Brony fandom didn't have enough to overreact concerning Twilight Sparkle becoming an alicorn, they overreacted that this would exist: My Little Pony with humans and a high school setting. I will admit I was skeptical about it, but I held my judgment until I finally got around to watching it. So what did I think of the movie? Well, that's what I'm making this blog about.

Taking place right after the season 3 finale, "Magical Mystery Cure", Twilight and her friends visit the Crystal Empire for a royal summit. While everyone is sleeping, a thief steals Twilight's MacGuffin, I mean, crown (for those not affiliated with the series, it's a magic crown) and gets away by going through a mirror, which acts as a portal to another dimension. They learn that the thief's name is Sunset Shimmer, a former student of Princess Celestia.

Celestia tasks Twilight to enter the portal to the other world alone. Her friends can't come with her because... it would disturb the balance of that dimension. Eh, whatever. However, Spike, Twilight's dragon assistant, comes along. As they enter the other world, Twilight is transformed into a human and Spike is transformed into a dog (just go with it).

As Twilight tries to adjust being a human, she comes across Canterlot High and encounters the human counterparts of her friends Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash. One moment even recreates the scene where Twilight first meets Fluttershy in the first episode. Yeah, this movie does have some call-backs to the show, which can be kind of distracting. Take that one scene where the human counterparts of the Cutie Mark Crusaders are posting their "Show Stoppers" song on YouTube. It makes sense if you watched the show, so moving on.

She finds out her crown was turned in to Principal Celestia, thinking it was prop for the Fall Formal. Rather than asking for it back so as not to blow her cover, Twilight decides to run for Princess of the Fall Formal against Sunset Shimmer, with only three days before the portal closes for another... 30 moons? Yeah, I'm not gonna try and figure that out.

All right, so let's bring up the elephant in the room: human versions of ponies. It's strange, I will admit, considering that every human has the same skin color as their pony counterparts (and no, I'm not going to make a Doug joke; it's been done to death), but it's never really bothered me. The human models are actually well-designed, for the most part (Celestia and Luna look a little bit odd).

I'm gonna get the negatives out of the way. First off is the main antagonist, Sunset Shimmer (voiced by Rebecca Shoichet). As I previously mentioned, she was a former student of Princess Celestia, however, she didn't get what she wanted, so she left and resided in the human world ever since. The backstory is decent enough, but she's just a typical, one-dimensional Alpha Bi-- uh, Witch, who rules the school at the palm of her hand. She's not that interesting and there really isn't much going for her.

Next is the "romance" between Twilight and Flash Sentry. Oh, yeah, Twilight has a love interest in this one; a satellite love interest, to be exact. He exists just to be Twilight's crush for the sake of the plot. The problem is that they hardly interact with each other, and when they do, it often leads to awkward conversations.

In addition, Flash is a bland character. He plays guitar, drives a Mustang (haha, get it?), and used to be Sunset Shimmer's boyfriend. Any actual character traits? He's helpful, as he helped clear Twilight from being accused of wrecking the gym, which was resolved in like, one minute. So yeah, he's helpful, but that's all I can name out of him. I don't think he deserves all the hate, heck, I don't hate him at all; he's just very underwritten.

Now, I have nothing against Meghan McCarthy as I think she is a great writer, having written some of my favorite episodes like "Dragonshy", "Party of One", "Lesson Zero", and "A Canterlot Wedding". However, romance really isn't her strongest suit, which really shows here.

Lastly is the climax. I'm not going to spoil much, but it's an anti-climactic Deus ex Machina that just pops out of nowhere just to give us some climax. It's just so bizarre and hardly makes any sense that I felt like this wasn't thought out really well.

Now that I got those out of the way, what did I like the movie? The comedy, for starters. Seeing Twilight adjusting to being a human is great to watch. After all, she's used to walking on four legs and using magic, and seeing her trying to walk on two legs and using her hands (and mouth) is just downright hilarious. We also have some good moments with Spike, with him being all supportive and having a couple of funny lines here and there.

I also like the songs. Oh yeah, we can't have My Little Pony without songs:

• "This Strange World" which plays when Twilight studies the school to see how humans work is all right and nothing too special. I find it strange that this was cut from the TV broadcast version (along with a couple of other scenes) and is nowhere to be found in the official soundtrack. What gives?
• "Equestria Girls (Cafeteria Song)", which plays about a half hour later is my favorite song in the movie. It's just so catchy and upbeat, and it also puts on a smile on my face for some reason. Yeah, it's not going to leave my head, ever. Props to Daniel Ingram! 
• "Time to Come Together" which plays less than ten minutes later is also okay and, once again, nothing special.
• "This is Our Big Night", which plays a couple of minutes later, is my second-favorite song in the movie for the same reason as the Cafeteria Song, though it feels kinda repetitive. They really need to play this song on school dances, though.

Now, even with everything I've said, I say Equestria Girls is just above average at best. I didn't mind the high school setting and new kid in school plot because as far as I know, it doesn't come off as cliched as I thought. And no, I'm not going to bash it for being made to sell dolls because My Little Pony was always made to sell toys.

The humor is nicely done, for the most part, as I got a laugh out of Twilight trying to be human as well as some of Spike's lines. The slapstick can seem a little bit off especially since humans are being used. However, some of the humor relying on call-backs to previous episodes is kind of distracting but not too distracting. Some of the Brony fandom nods, on the other hand...

Human Scootaloo (middle) is doing the chicken dance. I know it's just in the background and only lasted for one shot, but I am sick and tired of those Scootaloo chicken jokes. They were never EVER funny to begin with. Well, at least it's not as bad as the humor in that fan-made episode, Double Rainboom.

The animation, like the show, is pretty good and very fluid, and this was done in Flash. Though for a theatrically-released film, it seemed to fit better as a TV movie. Lastly, the selection of songs are all right, with "Equestria Girls" and "This is Our Big Night" being my favorites in the movie.

Twilight's human friends (the Humane Five, as fans like to call them) don't have a lot of depth. Sure, there was this subplot where their friendships were sabotaged by Sunset Shimmer, but some characters like Human Rarity and Human Rainbow Dash were introduced midway into the movie, not giving them the necessary screentime.

Sunset Shimmer, like most villains in the show, is not all that interesting and is mostly in the background, but thanks to the sequel, she's come a long way from that, and I will go more in-depth when I review Rainbow Rocks next year.

Lastly, the romance between Twilight and Flash was really forced. Take him out of the movie and not much of a difference would have been made. He helps clear Twilight from being framed, but other than that, he's pretty useless. He has potential of being a good love interest, but I've seen fan art of Twilight and Flash that is more believable than in this movie.

My final score is...

THINK FOR YOURSELF

It missed my HEAVILY FLAWED rating but that's mainly because I was entertained throughout and with repeated viewings, it's sort of grown on me.

But the reason why I gave it this rating is this: if you don't like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, you're not going to like this one. If you're a fan and you still haven't seen it, I say watch it before forming your own opinion. Even by its own merits, I only recommend this to hardcore fans, which is a problem with a lot of movies based on TV shows. Now, I've heard this is a pilot for an upcoming spin-off show called Equestria Academy. I don't know how they're going to pull that off, but hey, maybe some good will come out of it.