So on the back of the stratospheric success of MLP:FiM comes the
first feature film, released theatrically in the US so that bewildered parents
can look at the multitudes of [insert your own stereotyping adjectives] bronies sharing the cinema with their families with great concern, and likely have
their kiddies get disapproving looks right back, what with the presence of the
target audience being an unfortunate distraction.
The Equestria Girls project has had little approval in fandom – set
in an alternate universe, it has the ponies represented as teenaged schoolgirls
attending ‘Canterlot High School ’. Not, as I had expected, a completely
alternate-universe setting, it is in fact not only within the timeline of the
show but directly follows on from the end of season 3, with Twilight newly
alicorn-ified and quite sweetly having difficulty adjusting, with a sweet scene
of her unable to get comfortable in bed with the new limbs that sprouted from
her back. The other world is much like our own…only with nobody at all alarmed
by blue, orange or violet skin – anything as long as it isn’t a dark shade,
slightly worryingly. Just look at Luna!
After her sparkly princess crown is stolen by a mysterious former protégé
of Celestia’s by the name of Sunset Shimmer – clearly she selects student with
light-phenomena-at-times-of-the-day themes – Twilight has to follow the
ne’er-do-well through a magic mirror to another world, with only her loyal
dragon Spike as company. On the other side of the portal, Spike has turned into
a dog, and Twilight into something weirder – a human teenager. After some
obvious culture shock, she makes her way into the ‘castle’ – actually a high
school – and finds that not only do all her friends and acquaintances have
counterparts here, but the crown was picked up by this world’s Fluttershy and
given to Principal Celestia. Unable to talk her way into getting the crown back
as her property in an inelegant scene that would have been much clearer if they
stressed that Twilight’s crown looked just the one that was to be given to the
prom queen that year, Twilight of course resolves to be that year’s prom queen
– but will have to become popular first to win the hearts of the student
populace!
Like most in the fandom, my reaction to initial leaks of the ‘Equestria
Girls’ concept was scepticism. Much of the appeal of the ponies was – to me at
least – their distinctive, stylised design, bright colours and despite all that
clopping business, rather abstract, non-sexualised forms and simple world
without the baggage of real American high schools. And of course, like just
about all media based on life in American high schools, it focuses on issues of
popularity, that weird and quintessentially American need to be very tribal,
and the rife bullying that I’m sure is partly just a media representation but
is clearly a big part of life there. You see, Sunset Shimmer has made her place
in that world, established herself as the dominant bully of the school and
always gets her way – because she’s a terrible bully. With Twilight having such
quirky behaviour, she is of course an easy target for ridicule and the film has
a chance to explore overcoming bullying…but sadly cops out with Twilight
reuniting her best friends’ counterparts in this world after Sunset set them at
odds with easily-undone tricks, they do a deeply embarrassing flashmob-style
dance in the cafeteria in furry ears and tails, and suddenly Twilight doesn’t
have to deal with the ridicule any more. It just…never gets mentioned again and
she’s abruptly popular. And because her friends all belong to the different
cliques (except Applejack, who hangs out with her little sister and the CMC,
apparently either much older than they look and act or child prodigies accepted
to high school at about ~11 years old),
there are some throwaway lines about uniting all these disparate peoples.
Unlike many, I actually quite like the humanised designs – except Rainbow
Dash, who looks kinda like some weird alien, and Vinyl Scratch who looks like a
zombie. They’re skinny and idealised, but I expect that anything else would
result in board members worried that dolls wouldn’t sell. Twilight’s human form
is very sweet and there’s something less annoying about Rarity when she’s a
teenager. I guess I kinda picture her as mutton dressed as lamb in the series,
for some reason.
The problem here is really that the project clearly isn’t big enough in
scale for a feature film. Even South Park and Beavis and Butthead knew
that if they made the transition to the big screen, they couldn’t just churn
out the animation of their series for the entire running time, but that’s what
happens here. In fact, at the end, where it ought to get all epic and the
animation stops pulled out, there’s a noticeable drop, with lazy transformation
sequences (yes, really), and an altered Sunset Shimmer who looks a lot like the
rather clunky early attempts at a Dofus animation. In story terms, it is
also unsatisfying, with the aforementioned skirting of issues of popularity,
the easy-out of the power of friendship, and the way Twilight relies on it so
much despite, y’know, this super-magical friendship being based on a group of
girls knowing her for a couple of days, and the way that while her pony friends
are fretting to the point of tears about her back home and suffering terrible
anxiety, she has a party and flirts with a dishy human boy (who has a pony counterpart,
oh the drama!).
But we all know this is dished out for the monstrous fandom. I can almost
see /mlp/ frothing at the mouth at all the ‘pandering’. Look, there’s Derpy
dancing with a muffin, and there’s Scootaloo doing a chicken dance, and totally
unneeded cameos for Trixie just because of her popularity with a leading news
site. They must hate it. Yet…well, doing this humanised thing wasn’t really
what the fandom wanted. It was much more what the little girls probably wanted.
And beyond the thin plot, it takes the Pony concept somewhere a bit
different, and I rather like that. Plus it comes a step closer to defining the
characters’ ages and introduces a bit of romance beyond puppy crushes and
secondary characters getting married. I don’t have as great a connection to the
franchise as some and don’t care if it goes in new directions, so I quite
enjoyed this for what it was – flimsy, light-hearted entertainment about some
cute girls doing cute things.
And there’s a darker question here. I wondered what happened to Twilight’s
counterpart, which was answered by Pinkie mentioning her being in ‘the city’.
So where is Sunset Shimmer’s counterpart? Just what did she do to her to take
her place?
I was waiting to comment here since today was the first day the movie hit my neighborhood =) I didn't know it went way out to England where you are...or did someone actually manage to get a camera rip and that's what you watched? (I assume that's how you got all the screencaps here at least).
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, like you, I enjoyed it. A lot of parts were quite funny, especially Twilight's "culture shock," and there were also a lot of sweet and cute parts too. All the shout-outs to the fandom and background characters were fun to spot XD The songs weren't the best but they were alright. I think without the already established loveable characters and talented writers, it would have been terribly cliche and boring. But they were able to make it good ;)
As for problems with the movie, I agree that it wasn't long enough to flesh out all the themes it brought up about bullying and becoming popular. I would have liked to see more background for Sunset Shimmer and Flash Century, especially why the former became so wicked. And what were the CMC doing in high school? If they wanted to give them a cameo so badly, they should have made an elementary school down the street for them to pop up in XD And yeah, I can't understand why they made Sunset Shimmer turn into that weird demon looking thing instead of something more normal, like a villainous pony design similar to Nightmare Moon.
I could nitpick a few more things, but overall, for the type of story they had to work with and the amount of time allotted for it (72 minutes? Why so short?) I think the writers did a great job. It's not as good as most of the TV episodes, but I would say it's better than some of them at least ;) I look forward to seeing if Twilight's crush on Flash Century continues in season 4.
Mebbe my screencaps came from someone's screencap thread! ;)
ReplyDeleteI fully expect that Flash Century will at least be on the sidelines of season 4 - doesn't seem one they'd just drop, but who knows? I found it fun, but as I say, I think of other big-screen adaptations of popular cartoons and this one just seems to be on a pretty small and unimpressive scale by comparison.