A lot of people bash Equestria Girls because it kinda... detracts from the more fantastical elements we saw in MLP:FIM and there isn't much character development compared to the main series but my god it's fucking epic. This movie, where Twilight brings back her friends together, then defeats Sunset Shimmer is absolutely amazing.
First off: The music. The music is probably the best in the entirety of the series. Daniel Ingram has been able to capture the hearts and minds of people with his absolutely banging and catchy tunes, it's hard not to get sucked into the songs. Classics like Cafeteria Song and Under Our Spell (this is not the first movie song but close enough) are always pleasant to listen to. A lot of people say that the song THIS IS OUR BIG NIIIIIGHT is garbage but I find it very nostalgic and pleasant to listen to.
The Mane 6, though all humans instead of ponies, are the same as the main series. Their bubbly and complementary personalities and new (very) subtle ships written by the writers such as Rarijack makes it hard not to like the mane 6 in the show. And they retain their drawbacks! Rainbow is still a bragger in this show. The side characters are kinda mid. This was my first exposure to Sunset Shimmer and she was cool, I guess. People might kill me for saying that. The background characters are whatever.
The plot is very basic but works well with the characters and music. Twilight, new girl, has no idea how to do shit in this school but helps her friends get back together, then they defeat Sunset Shimmer's monopoly through the magic of friendship. Yet that simple plot works really well with the personalities of the mane 6 and Sunset plus the songs. Its story is crafted in a way where it uses the personalities as fighting points between characters, creating interesting points of conflict and a solution to resolve these conflicts.
I have seen this movie as well a long time ago. I remember clearly the Dazzlings and Rainbooms fighting each other in the battle of the bands and yes I remember it was great. A lot of people also said that Rainbow Rocks was the only good film out of Equestria Girls so I came with high expectations. I will not lie, even then, my expectations were shattered–in the best way.
My god where to start? The movie begins with a BANGING song (not the op, I mean the first song played “Better than Ever” though the opwas also good). I LOVED the little things added in the beginning that actually mattered later on in the series. For example, Fluttershy’s minor comment about how Rainbow doesn’t play her songs and Rarity’s insistence on dresses where AJ kinda rolls her eyes about it – these small details add a lot more personality to the characters and shows that the cracks were formed in the beginning of the band. Overtime, these small issues get worse and worse, making it make sense on why the band collapses in the end (i.e.“This being my band and all” -Rainbow “It’s OUR band” -AJ but while still being friends and joining Pinkie’s slumber party [this was in the middle of the show]). It’s natural, interesting, and captivating!
To add on a little to the point, I want to describe their respective complaints over other members: Rainbow is a bragger who only wants to show off ->Fluttershy hates how Rainbow doesn’t take into account her songs ->AJ & Rarity hates how much of a bragger Rainbow is, consistently correcting her on “MY band” ->Actually everyone hates this part of her
Rarity cares only about costumes ->AJ takes particular issue with her because she isn’t “focused on the music”
Pinkie’s party attitude rubs everyone else the wrong way ->Rainbow hates how Pinkie screwed over her performance
Fluttershy is afraid of the stage ->Pinkie points out how Fluttershy kept running away from a light(!) and ruined the show
Applejack honesty and non-caring nature of others’ feelings ->Rarity hates how AJ doesn’t give a damn about her costumes and doesn’t allow her to give any creative contribution to the band ->Rainbow argues that *SHE* writes all the songs, not AJ, and thus it should be called “my band”
One thing Applejack does (everyone does this but it’s most notable with AJ) is how she sympathises with Twily and doesn’t blame her at all but it’s done by twisting Twilight’s problem into the fault of Rainbow “I don’t think it would’ve worked anyway”-Twily “’Course it would’ve worked, assuming a certain band member didn’t try to hog the spotlight”-AJ. AJ is still AJ and cares about others but she (wrongly) points the finger at someone whom she doesn’t like. It might not seem like an important detail but I feel that this is what stops AJ from derailling her personality. Okay moving on to the next... 20 minutes of the show. We’re 10 minutes in. Ohhh boy alright let’s do this.
The introduction of the Dazzlings into the cafeteria was done so fantastically; an amazing song where they use their magic to make everyone fight thus creating more magic. Loved the dynamic of the trio initially shown before they entered the cafeteria.
Sunset and co. finds that the dazzlings are a bit fishy and call in Twily with the tele (actually a book). Here it’s kinda shown how Twily is seen as the solver of all problems to the band, while Sunset is just kinda... there, something that will play a role later on.
Stuff happens outlining Twily’s troubles in creating something that will defeat the Dazzlings while Sunset continues to see how she’s just a side character to all of this. Initially, Twily views Sunset in a little bit of a negative light, hesitant to take her hand when Sunset tries to get her back up. At the slumber party, they begin to understand each other a little more with how they feel about the band and their friends, creating a stronger connection between the two.
The emphasis of Twilight in the beginning to middle while Sunset Shimmer at the end really adds to their character development; Twily finds out just how much she’s powerless to bring her group of friends back together in the face of adversity–actually contributing to its destruction due to how badly she’s making the song (and being seen as a “saviour” for the band, causing everyone to blame each other instead of Twilight) while Sunset learns to stand up for her friends and for their band instead of being the side character of the show (not literally, Sunset is a main character in the show). At the end, Twilight cannot defeat the Dazzlings by herself; she needs her friends including Sunset.
From around half-way to the point where The Great and Powerful Trixie~! enters the scene to push them into a hole, it was done extremely well. It could’ve been a boring slog on the members constantly fighting but instead, they showcase their music and show where the continuing fissures within the band come from as they play. It makes it much more exciting and interesting to watch (+the songs are banging). I won’t continue because I already made two whole paragraphs earlier about their band breaking apart.
Finally, when they’re backed into a corner by the Dazzlings and a snap-back-to-reality by Sunset, they effectively compromise between each other and accept their wrongdoings. Rainbow lets loose her braggy nature; AJ cuts Rarity some slack for her clothing choice; and Pinkie’s party nature is restored.
Then comes the best part of the show: the battle of the bands. FUCK MAN THIS IS SO AMAZING I have no words to describe how... shaken up I felt when I watched this. So exhilarating. Through the magic of friendship, Twily, Sunset, and Co saved Canterlot High from the Dazzlings.
If there was just one movie you wanted to watch from MLP:FIM, this would be it. A well deserved 10/10.
What in the actual fuck did I just watch. So many questions are racing through my mind. How did Twily develop that thing? Where did the plants come from? Equestria? Was it [literally] connected to the Everfree forest? How was principal Cinch and everypony else (*everybody else) so calm throughoutthe whole thing? And when spike went through the portal, he was able to speak? But it’s the same spike as the one in Crystal Prep; not the spike in Equestria. IT MAKES NO SENSE! NOTHING DOES! I see so much missed potential with Twily’s growth as a character but that would be a kind of repeat of the beginning of season 1 from being a bookworm to being a frienship master so actually the entire premise was already screwed up from the beginning.
It was written as if the writers found out that they were just copying S1 FiM and went “Oh shit, we’re copying S1 FiM! We gotta change it!” halfway through. Explains why the plot went and twisted fucking... everywhere. They wanted to talk about Twily’s magic at first, then switched to Twily having no friends and her wanting to find out more about friendship, then switched again to her magic, then Sunset’s pressure of finding out about how magic works in this world (which is... how exactly? Not even the end explained how magic works in this god forsaken land) which NEVER ends up getting resolved. And also why are the characters so retarded this time? The movie draaaaaagged on because this goddamn Twily keeps showing the audience that she can steal the mane 5’s magic with her spectrometer. We got it the first time, no need to show it again and again! And so all that precious screentime wasted that could’ve been used instead for, say, adding more character development to this new Twily [scroll down for Twily rant]! Or perhaps more about Sunset’s internal conflict. Or maybe putting more focus on the Friendship Games themselves.
And about the Friendship Games–contrary to what many other people think, I actually truly think it was a great idea with potential. I know that it’s a bit similar to the previous movie with a competition and everything but this time, it’s a friendship competition! I absolutely liked the idea that Twily was on the opposite team than the rest of the mane 5 (sunset doesn’t count) because it showed Twily suffering when she fucks up on Crystal Prep (CP)’s team and because it provides an interesting dynamic between the characters that could’ve been expanded upon. But no, instead, for some unGODLY reason, they didn’t do that and just changed the entire direction of the plot from Twily getting belittled (then helped by AJ which was really really sweet, I really liked that part and I *thought* the show would go that way) to Twily being some horrible crazy monster due to her power which ended up being a copy-paste of the first movie which WASN’T EVEN THAT GOOD TO BEGIN WITH (I gave it a 7 with nostalgia-tinted glasses so that should say enough).
MY GOD I’m frustrated with this film because if it just... FOCUSED on one thing, it could’ve really hit the mark (insert G5 joke here).
Okay okay, things good with this film. I gave it a 5 (edging to a 4) for a reason. First things first, I really liked Sunset’s conflict that she had somewhere in the middle of the film. It’s a bit similar to Twily’s conflict in the previous film but there was potential to resolve it in a different way. The buildup to the conflict was good, with Sunset getting pressured by her friends and Sunset starting to worry about it and all. It was realistic and interesting. However, let’s ignore the fact that this conflict was thrown out the window when all the shit happens.
The opening was goddamn bussin’. So good. It felt very lively. Haven’t seen a single Equestria Girls’ film that hasn’t missed in this department. Rainbow Dash’s solo was also great.
Okay so I’m rewatching parts of the film to complete this “review” (rant) and I keep seeing things I continue to dislike more and more. It’s hard to justify a 5, so I’m gonna update it to a 4.
One last good thing, the opening of this film was really good. It was engrossing, interesting and had GREAT pacing. It genuinely made me curious how the film was gonna pan out and made me think about all the kinds of things that might happen in this “Friendship Game” thing.
For the bad things, there are very many, but I will pick out the few that came up that I haven’t complained needlessly about.
• Principal Cinch’s really morally wrong behaviour is hard to believe. At least in RR the dazzlings used magic on Celestia and Luna.
• I had to suspend my belief for the last 50 minutes of the movie (the movie is 72 minutes long)
• The “growth” of the mean girls from CP to suddenly helping their competitors which they previously absolutely hated was too fast and incredible unrealistic
• The bump-ins with Flash was completely unnecessary because it was never expanded upon
• Twily would’ve NEVER unleashed that magic in that scenario. Felt completely out of character
• The welcome party part was useless and served no purpose
• The leaf monsters
• The device was never explained. Twily made it and she somehow has ZERO idea on how it works? Hello? You expect me to believe that?
• The last... 30 minutes. All of it. The students falling into equestria was a nice concept but everything else was hot garbage
• Sunset’s conflict with Twilight was really short and never expanded; lost potential. To its credit, it was extremely heartfelt
and I really felt how angry Sunset was for her friends. It really showed her character growth. One of the few parts of the movie
I really liked but shame that they never expanded upon it.
• *Sigh*
RANT Yknow how interesting it’d be if the new Twily was in some way different to our current Twily? Maybe how the students in Crystal Prep have shaped her for the worse and she learns, through the power of friendship, what it means to have friends/live independently while having friends. The S1 FiM Twily was only like that because she herself was a bookworm; she had friends! She just doesn’t care about them. This Twily felt like a cardboard cutout fake S1 Twily who is constantly depressed because she didn’t have friends. Make it so Twily has some other incentive to having friends or something? Look, I don’t know; I’m not a writer. It’s just that this Twily is... just a bad character. END OF RANT
I feel especially upset about this film because there was just... so much lost potential. The opening was great and there were some parts that were really really interesting and captivating (i.e. Sunset’s magic-learning and Sunset’s anger at Twily for endangering her friends) but they were just never expanded upon. And the movie decided to throw away its valuable runtime on things that didn’t matter like Flash Sentry’s appearance (I’m not a guy who hates him; actually I like how he adds more to current Twily’s character) and all the absolutely crazy shit at the end. It felt like they wanted to do everything then wrapped everything up (more like leaving shit on the cutting floor) at the end.
This could’ve been a lot more, but I guess not.
WH WHAT HOLY HIST THAT OPENING ALL HER FRIENDS GETTING EVAPORATED OH MY- Equestria girls op never miss, this is no stranger to that.
Okay wow I did not expect I’d like it as much as I did. It’s a really good film. There are some weird things but overall, I think it’s great. Let’s start from the beginning. Yeah, I was shocked to see that opening sequence being so extreme and it effectively introduces Twily’s number one fear which, unlike FG, does end up getting overcome and plays a pivotal part of the story. Also, it depicts (subtly) the importance of Sunset in this film.
Then the opening song. Oh my lord, this OP is the best of the EQG. The song, the animation, just absolutely amazing. It’s definitely not as flashy as the others but the vibe fits it PERFECTLY! I think that’s what this movie does so well; everything fits the atmosphere of a camp. Unlike Friendship Games which goes left-right-centre when it comes to its atmosphere, Everfree manages to maintain the vibe it’s aiming for. To be fair, FG does struggle a bit because it takes the same setting used in the last 2 movies so it’s much more difficult to even have an inkling of atmosphere when so much shit has happened earlier so changing the story to a new setting was a great call. Enough about FG though, this is Everfree.
So yeah, everypony goes to Camp Everfree and immediately calls Twily a demon friend. This, in my opinion, is a great slight push to justify why Twily’s fear of her worse-self becomes greater and greater as time goes on. And as more magic-y strange things happen, Twily blames it on herself, making this dangerous power stronger.
Another nice thing about this story is how Sunset plays a pivotal role in the story instead of Twily. Yes, instead, Twily is a scaredy-cat and lovebird. Even when Sunset is basically the hero here, she still makes mistakes (such as when she suspects the brother when the sister was in fact the bad one) which makes her much more... realistic. I understand why so many people like Sunset, she is one the best girls in the series fr.
Let’s move on the music. Actually, not much needs to be said about the music; they’re fucking bangers. For the first time, I found them ALL to be bangers. They’re amazing. Compared to the rest of the movies, I’d say LOE is on par with RR, which is the best. One thing that bugs me is the FUCKING EAS ALARM IN THE SONG ISTG. I paused and opened my headphones in complete fear when hearing it for the first time. The Dutch EAS alarm sounds very similar to that... sound effect thing used in the song.
Regarding the main plot point of, yknow, the lady being bad, tbh I didn’t see it coming at all but it makes a lot of sense. She was acting sus the entire time and though it doesn’t make much sense to push the camp to “be its best” when facing financial issues, she was just trying to make the last event the absolute best *because* it was the last event. Hence, it does make sense. All her actions are justified and subtle.
Tbh the romance between Twily and the brother was a bit weird but I just assumed they were the same age so it wasn’t weird (the sister is older than the brother, so the brother would be 18; same as twily). I don’t think it’s such an important part of the plot and maybe a bit too focused upon (though it did give Sunset a reason not to tell Twily a lot of the things happening, so I’m definitely not against for its removal) but I’m sure the reactions to many brony’s waifu being reduced to atoms would’ve been perfect.
I liked Sunset’s different perspective compared to Twily. Twilight saying how all magic needs to be hidden to have things to be okay is a very Twilight thing to do. Sunset saying the exact opposite, that everyone should be SHOWING and using their magic is a huge breath of fresh air in a series of movies where magic was shown to be nothing but bad. This is an excellent portrayal on how magic can be a great thing and it makes Sunset to be a much more interesting character with her unique ideas.
Onto the side characters; bulk biceps; lyra and bonbon; Vinyl Scratch; and derpy. Very nice to see all of them in action and I feel like they added a lot more fun to the film. Why? They are all really good depictions of “different” people. It shows how anypony can be part of it and it makes it feel more... inclusive? If ya know what I mean.
One big thing I disliked in this film is the use of the dock as a gag. That dock was what drove the side-plot-kinda for like half the film and for it to be relegated to breaking again instead of being used for the last concert thing is just sad. On top of that, Rarity’s fashion show never taking place as well is just depressing when it was something she was clearly looking forward to. I feel like the completion of the dock would serve as a symbolic reminder to how they completed the thing they promised to create when arriving to the place, almost as a closing to the film. Having their performance there instead of the cave where the sister turned into a demon would’ve been a much better idea. But oh well.
I’m sure there’s plenty more to say but overall the film was great. I liked it a lot. It was interesting, focused more on Sunset (which is always a plus), clear, sensical, and fun. Sure, it had some problems. For one, the plot took too much time showing the romance between the brother and Twilight. Another being how they didn’t end up using the dock. But other than that, it excels in every other field. Listening to the opening, it almost feels nostalgic. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.