My Little Humans

 

My Little Pony: Equestria Girls

2013

D: Jayson Thiessen

**********

Pros: Maybe the Reason We’re Getting the New Movie Now, Some decent lines

Cons: Bad Premise, Character Designs, Music, Story, TV-Grade Animation

      When I first heard of this, I was rather annoyed, even more so when I found out it was getting a theatrical release.  I was upset that, instead of a legit movie adaptation of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, we were going to get this thing.  The animation was decent but on the par with that of the TV show when it should be a noticeable improvement.  I thought it would be more appropriate as a Direct-to-Video special.  It was defended as non-canon, but an episode of the show in which Twilight enters a human realm could expand the universe and be more interesting if anything.  

       The movie is a combination of two fanart tropes I hate: High School A.U. and poorly done human versions of anthro characters.  The latter is interesting when done right, in that the personality and other attributes are thoughtfully interpreted so as to imagine what the character would look like as a human.  More often than not, I see it done poorly.  Most of the time people simply transfer the character’s color scheme over to some generic animesque template no matter how little sense it makes.  Most noticeably is the use of hair colors that don’t come naturally on humans.  Twilight Sparkle, for example, does not have purple striped hair because she personally styled that way, so logically she wouldn’t have that hair color as a human.  Rarity might dye her hair, but I imagine she’d only dye it something that could be passed off as natural.  Pinkie and Applejack get a pass because Applejack is blonde and I’m pretty sure Pinkie might dye her hair pink.  As for their clothes, the alternate universe Mane Main Six all wear similar outfits with skirts.  Rainbow Dash’s clothes are particularly incongruous.  Also anthros translate into simpler art styles better than humans do.  For all the style problems I have with this movie, I do like the presence of  (somewhat) identifiable cars, which I wish more cartoons would have. 

       As for the high school setting, I’ve always hated this trope.  Most of the time setting your story in high school is a cheap means of relatability.  Even complete garbage like Glee receives disproportionate and undeserved praise because so many people relate to the setting on a visceral level.  Many people apparently haven’t grown out of the petty disputes from the day since they don’t mind how many cliques in these stories (usually the jocks and cheerleaders) are reduced to caricatures.  It seemed especially inappropriate for a fantasy like My Little Pony to go down this route. 

      The timeline doesn’t make much sense either.  The ponies are said to be about 13 years old in the show (adults by their reckoning), but in the human world the characters are numerically the same age but proportionally much younger.  You could say that the timelines don’t coincide proportinally, but that would make a strange coincidence in that one generation overlaps perfectly for the story.  The Cutie Mark Crusaders (Michelle Creber, Madeleine Peters, and Claire Corlett) are also in high school as younger teens when as fillies they should be much younger children.  Also, unlike her pony version, Granny Smith is morbidly obese (must be the cafeteria food).  The movie also includes Peter New as Big Macintosh and Kathleen Barr as Trixie.

       The story begins with the newly christened Princess Twilight Sparkle (Tara Strong, singing voice Rebecca Shoichet).  In the opening scenes she’s still getting used to her new wings, amusingly having trouble sleeping with them in the way.  This is one advantage over the show, which has her flying without practice.  She travels to Canterlot with her friends Rainbow Dash (Asheigh Ball), Applejack (Ball), Fluttershy (Andrea Libman), Pinkie Pie (Libman), and Rarity (Tabitha St. Germain) to attend her first Princess Summit.  She’s introduced to Flash Sentry (Vincent Tong), a Pegasus royal guard whose name sounds like that of a company that makes flashlight attachments for handguns.  During the night a mare named Sunset Shimmer (Rebecca Shoichet) steals Twilight’s magic tiara and makes off into an oddly unguarded magic mirror.  Princess Celestia (Nicole Oliver) reveals explains that Sunset was a former apprentice of hers who had gone bad.  She explains that Twilight must go into the alternate dimension through the mirror to retrieve her crown because Sunset might harm the residents of that world with its power (but she had no problem exiling the Sirens to that world in the sequel).  The portal in that world is only open for 3 days so Twilight must get back before that time.  She specifies that Twilight must go alone, but Spike (Cathy Weseluck) rashly goes in after her. 

        It turns out Princess Celestia was right because Spike ends up being more trouble than he’s worth in this movie.  He’s dead weight throughout the film, and his greatest contribution to the plot is getting caught and used as a bargaining chip by Sunset.  At least he builds a bookbed for Twilight when she’s sleeping in the school (nobody questions this, by the way).  But even more annoying (and I’m not the first to point this out) is that as a dragon he’s transformed into a dog instead of a human like Twilight does.  It’s very clearly established that humans are the only people native to this world.  Hell, even the Diamond Dogs, the characters who are literal dogs in the show, are humans in this world, but not Spike.  This isn’t the only time Spike is implied to be a lesser being, but at least the show has been getting better about portrayal of his species.  It’s also a bit disturbing considering Spike’s possible status as Twilight’s slave.

         SPIKE: Hey, uh, Twilight….I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.  You how I have to hang around you and do work for you?  
         TWILIGHT: Spike, is this about your “freedom” again?

         SPIKE: Well, um…yes.

         TWILIGHT: Spike, do you remember when we went into that alternate dimension were wall the people were pink, fleshy things?

         TWILIGHT: Um, yeah….

         SPIKE: No other species was a person?

         TWILIGHT: And I turned into one of those things while you turned into dog.  What do you think that means?

         SPIKE: Uh…

         TWILIGHT: It means the toilet still needs to be cleaned.

Anthropomorphic dogs are nonexistent in this universe, as revealed in one line (although that line is blatantly contradicted in a sequel).  Spike responds to said line by saying, “Seriously? The talking dog is the weird thing about all this?”  I personally never liked lines like “clever” observations like that, though.  Just because something seems plausible in comparison that must mean it’s true.  It’s like saying that the existence of platypi, buttheaded monkeys, and deep-water creatures must mean there’s such a thing as a jackalope.

         When Twilight enters the new world, she finds herself at a high school called Canterlot High that’s a microcosm for Equestria.  She finds out that Sunset Shimmer is the “popular” girl at the school.  In other words she’s the bitch who treats everyone like crap and unofficially runs the school like a mafia boss in classic high school drama tradition.  She has surreptitiously replaced the fall formal crown with Twilight’s so that she could win it“legitimately” and thus be able to use its power as its “rightful” owner.  I’m not sure how that would supersede her theft from Twilight but I suppose magic recognizes the rules of ownership differently.  Because of her control over the student body, Sunset’s victory is practically assured.  After sorting out a dispute between Apple and Rainbow (which could have been easily solved by the two talking to each other for two seconds because the rift was a result of Sunset’s lying to them) and accepting a pointless soccer challenge from the latter, Twilight has the help she needs to challenge Sunset’s bid to win the formal.  Thus we have a magical conflict reduced to banality.  Granted Twilight could have left the human versions of her friends alone (they’re practically different people) and just stolen the crown back at night (she’s sleeping at the school, so it’s not like she needs to break in), but then again there a risk that a possible doppelganger version of Twilight could be implicated.   

         While Twilight’s efforts pick up steam, Sunset uses her loyal minions Snip (Lee Tockar) and Snails (Richard Ian Cox), two characters whom I’m not too big a fan of, to sabotage her.  They trash the formal decorations and use edited photos to implicate Twilight while Sunset plays the victim to manipulate Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna (Tabitha St. Germain).  The human version of Flash Sentry, Susnet’s ex-boyfriend and Twilight’s current love interest, finds evidence that the photos were faked, exonerating Twilight.  You’d think that, since computers exist in this world, Snips and Snails used Photoshop, but they didn’t.  They literally cut and paste the pictures.  With scissors and tape.  And somehow Luna fell for it.  Probably because she keeps her office impractically dark.

            Unfortunately, the formal has been postponed until after the critical plot deadline because of the damage, but Twilight and company quickly fix the decorations so that the formal can be held at the original date.  This makes Twilight more popular in the school.  It also helps that she’s been campaigning successfully through bad songs (Shannon Chan-Kent provides Pinkie Pie’s singing voice while Kazumi Evans provides Rarity’s) and she’s a generally pleasant person unlike Sunset.  Twilight ends up winning the formal, and Sunset turns to desperate measures.  Kidnapping Spike, she retreats to the school statue (the location of the portal) and threatens to destroy both of them.  She inexplicably lets Spike go while still threatening the port, not realizing that Twilight cares more about him than going home.  Probably suggests that Sunset has limits, but she could still use Spike as a bargaining chip and she’s still willing to use the crown’s magic to hypnotize the student body to attack Equestria so that doesn’t make sense.  Also, pretty weak plan for conquering a magical kingdom; I don’t see how hypnotized non-magical children would be a match for a magic kingdom.  Not to mention the powers of one princess versus those of Princesses Celestia, Luna, and Cadance (Britt McKillip).  Anyway, a scuffle over the crown ensues, and Twilight accidentally tosses it into Sunset’s hands.  Sunset Shimmer then uses the crown’s powers to transform into a demon and zombify the students.  I thought the crown had to be handed over legitimately to use the power.  If not, then why did Sunset go through all the trouble of a formal in the first place?  With all hope seemingly lost.  The Un-Mane Six huddle together and activate their friendship powers.  They transform into the equine equivalent of catgirls and bombard Sunset with a friendship rainbow, inexplicably reforming her.  Forced redemption is a trend in this franchise, but Sunset does play her role as a reformed heroine in the sequels convincingly (Starlight Glimmer pretty plays the exact same role in the canon continuity).  Twilight returns to her world, leaving Sunset Shimmer with the school and her new friends.  Might not be a good idea, considering Sunset’s history in the human world.  It would be easier for her to star with a clean slate in Equestria.  Also I’m not sure if Sunset is ever revealed to have a doppelganger like everybody else.

         Overall, Equestria Girls is underwhelming and it has a few flaws that would be more forgivable in a better movie.  It also has consistently bad music.  Eschewing the enjoyable show tunes of the show, it instead uses admittedly appropriate teen-pop and it’s pretty bad.  As if that’s not enough they momentarily make fun of the Cutie Mark Crusader theme, one of things that was good and holy from the cartoon.  I haven’t seen the sequels, but the franchise seems to have improved.  In the first sequel, Rainbow Rocks, there are a few good songs, naturally all sung by the villains and the other sequels have some decent songs, too. Also, the third movie looks like it has a good premise.  I like the irony of Sunset Shimmer’s being reformed by someone from another dimension and then having to face off against that her own worlds version of that person playing the role of an anti-villain.  I really hated this movie when it came out, but I’m a lot more charitable toward it now that we’re getting the real movie in theatres.  Perhaps Equestria Girls was their way of testing the waters, and we have this project to thank for My Little Pony: The Movie. 

           Still kinda sucks, though.            

MEMORABLE QUOTES

HUMAN TRIXIE: [theatrically] THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE…needs some peanut butter crackers.  [places coin in vending machine and takes out crackers]

TWILIGHT: But the fall formal formal has to happen tonight.  You see…

HUMAN PINKIE: You're from an alternate world and you're a pony princess there and the crown actually has a magical element embedded in it that helps power up other magical elements and without it they don't work anymore, and you need them all to help protect your magical world, and if you don't get the crown tonight, you'll be stuck in *this* world and you won't be able to get back for like a really, really long time!

HUMAN PINKIE: If only I had some crazy party cannon that could decorate everything really fast.

FLASH SENTRY: We must stop running into each other like this.

[final lines]

TWILIGHT: Don’t be ridiculous.  I don’t even know him.  He just…

PINKIE:  Totally reminds you of a guy you met in the other world who played guitar, was in a band, and helped prove you didn't destroy all the decorations for a big dance, so you could still run for princess of the big dance, and asked you to dance at that dance! [deep breath] Right?

TWILIGHT: How did you know that?

PINKIE: Just a hunch.