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My Little Pony: The Movie (2017) |OT| Big Screen, Small Horse

Here's a bevy of official Hanazuki promo images for the five minute short in front!
I'm still grateful that Hasbro was willing to follow the trend of boldly pairing a short with a feature.
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*goes to buy ticket online for the earliest showing on Sunday, at theater with reserved seating*
*a bunch of seats are already reserved*

Hmm.

*after buying ticket, checks the earliest showing on Saturday*
*half the seats are reserved already*

Well, I guess I have more bronies in the area than I expected.

My theater was a little less than that. Then again, it was a little late. If I went to an earlier showing, I may have seen more people.
 
Here's a bevy of official Hanazuki promo images for the five minute short in front!
I'm still grateful that Hasbro was willing to follow the trend of boldly pairing a short with a feature.
Wow, that really does look fantastic.

By the way, some QOL questions for everyone, particularly for those who don't also post in the season 7 OT.
* How do you like the opening post?
* Does it give you the information you want?
* Do you have any issues with the look and feel of the opening post?
* Did you click any links in the OP?
* Did you look at our episode guide?
* Is there anything you want removed from the OP?
 
Checking Rotten Tomatoes, it looks like the movie will settle in the 65-70% range, which isn't bad, but yes, that does mean Cars 3 beats it.

I've had a hard time pinning down what I like about the show's comedy, since it really isn't particularly funny, but this Slate review defines it perfectly.
The screenplay, by Meghan McCarthy, Rita Hsiao, and Michael Vogel from a story by McCarthy and Joe Ballarini, is light on jokes, which is fortunate because the few that are there are terrible. The real humor comes from the sitcom-style satisfaction of seeing familiar characters behave like themselves.

That makes me think of moments like in "It Isn't the Mane Thing About You", when Rarity is walking through the forest with spooky eyes in the background, and she yells at the eyes, which shames them into leaving. Not that funny in and of itself, but it was incredibly charming because it was Rarity acting like herself.

It definitely does seem that, in retrospect, they either should have gone for a smaller, more personal story for the movie, which would allow characters like Rarity and Fluttershy to shine more, or go balls to the wall crazy and discard any attempt to make things easy for new viewers. Have Ember and Thorax join in on a fight against Celestia and Luna's evil brother!

You might recall me posting in the Community thread a while ago about my idea for the finale of the show, basically adapting Star Trek: TNG's finale, "All Good Things". Twilight finds herself being flung between three time periods: the present, the first episode, and 1000 years into the future, where she's a Celestia like figure. If you have Discord as a traveling companion, complaining that this is a lot less fun when he isn't causing it (referencing Q's role in the TNG story), then you could have a really neat story that explores how the entire immortality thing interacts with their friendships. The story could mainly focus on those two characters, and maybe Fluttershy, without it seeming odd that the others get small roles. I still don't expect FiM to last too many more years, so if they work on a sequel now, this could come after the show ends. Plus, this would allow the actual final episode to be slice of life, as is probably more appropriate.
 
I believe the bright sights out things at least is that RT’s audience score boosted from 62% to 92%. That’s critical dissonance right there, but that makes me optimistic.

Just gotta see what the Cinemascore will be.
 
first showing of the day thankfully wasn't crowded. there were maybe twelve people in the entire theater.

overall, i liked the movie. it was good. i feel like the best way to sum it up is by saying it was the show, but bigger. i went in honestly expecting the worst, but was pleasantly surprised

i'd be interested to see what they could do with a longer movie, though really, they probably just need a tighter focus rather than more time

Okay so I saw the movie, does anyone want to discuss how
they straight-up murdered the Storm King

yea, i was kinda shocked when that happened. wasn't expecting it at all

She uses Derpy as a human shield

this didn't happen.
twilight was standing still while saving, i think luna, from hitting the ground after being petrified when derpy rushed towards her. i have no idea if she was purposely trying to save twilight or just being derpy, but twilight certainly didn't use her as a "human shield" . . . for more than just the obvious reason lol

You know what I found really interesting? This movie is just a massively shit time for Twilight. She spends the vast majority of the story looking worried, or stressed, or sad or suspicious. The rest of the Mane 6 quip and sing and caper around like they're having a grand old time, while Twilight seems like she has the weight of the world on her shoulders... because she does.

When she ultimately snaps at Pinkie, I was kinda like "...yeah, I get this." Everyone with any rank or power is gone, and so the whole of Equestria is depending on her. Can you imagine being a character as fundamentally anxious as Twilight and then having that kind of pressure dumped onto you? She's being crushed by it, and you can see it on her face half the time. This is kinda the first time she's acted the way a real person might act under those conditions.

this is a good perspective,
my only real problem with the scene is that i was too caught up in it lol. she didn't apologize right away and i was internally screaming at her "twilight nooooooo, what are you doing? apologize! nooooooo!" but that's obviously not going to happen lol
 

Jawmuncher

Member
Just got out a little while ago. I liked it. Was pleasantly surprised that I basically liked every new character they introduced. Including the new villains. Since From where I left off with the show they could be hit or miss. I was rather surprised how little fan service there was in the movie. They really took the "stand-alone" thing to heart. You only needed to know the basic character's if anything and even that wasn't needed. Since i'm currently only half-way through season 5 and I don't feel like I missed anything. The music as well was all on point. There was no bad song I felt. Hell I think the villain has the best song (With it's only flaw being that the song without the accompanying visual kinda drags in one area of it).

Overall was pleasantly surprised and I look forward to seeing more the new characters in the future. Aside from that I gotta say that I really liked seeing something on the big screen that wasn't typical 3D animation. Not quite sure how they did a lot of the animation but it was nice seeing something more reminiscent of the older 2D arts from the 90's. Which was especially apparent in the exaggerated expressions here and there which were always great to see. If I had any real grip with the movie it'd be that a few bits of the background CG stuck out more than others. Stuff such as Apple Jack's cart or a few of the city sections. But it wasn't anything major that ruined the movie or anything.

Question:
Where was Discord? Yeah there was the balloon thing but is he off doing something in the later seasons? Or did he just sleep in his alternate dimension during all of this?
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Question:
Where was Discord? Yeah there was the balloon thing but is he off doing something in the later seasons? Or did he just sleep in his alternate dimension during all of this?

He was playing "Sir not appearing in this film"

Seriously though,
If they're worfing the princesses in 15 seconds, why not worf him too just so the question isn't there. The other demi-gods don't get to fight back, it's clear the writers weren't concerned with just taking out the power players in the most lazy way possible.
 
Question:
Where was Discord? Yeah there was the balloon thing but is he off doing something in the later seasons? Or did he just sleep in his alternate dimension during all of this?
They just left Discord out so there would be less to explain. In the past, Discord's absence was easily justified by him being a jerk, but he has actually gotten nicer in recent seasons, so it makes less sense now. There are a couple of other characters they could have called for help that they just don't for reasons.

By the way, I'm thinking we can go without spoiler tags starting Sunday. Any objections, anyone?
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Well, I'll spoiler post mine now and remove on Sunday then.
This was disappointing in every way that I thought it would be.


The story was just bad. Let's get it out of the way. Meghan does the same thing she always does and has the Princesses get captured. I'm not going to spend much time on this. You've heard what I say about this. We know if Meghan had put some thought into the script she could have done something better, but she's in charge of this franchise now, and they are to be Damsels in Distress, there to build cheap tension and that's it. Just need to learn to accept it. Won't stop me from ranting about it in 3 weeks when they no doubt get captured by whatever villain is in the S7 finale. But let's move on.

It's still a very disappointing story. Storm King was just an awful villain. There is absolutely nothing threatening about him.

- Nightmare Moon could bring eternal darkness.
- Discord can screw with reality (and as a side note, if you're going to worf the princesses, why not worf him too so we're not wondering where he is?)
- Sombra made an entire empire disappear for 1000 years.
- Tirek can suck magic from anyone
- Chrysalis has an army of shape shifting bugs.
- Hell, even Starlight figured out how to screw with time

Storm King is menacing because we're told he is. He's threatening because we're told he is. And no, the comics really don't help establish him as a threat. It's pretty much just more "he's threatening because we say he is. Hell, just make Tempest the main villain. She at least had some set up. Equestria effectively surrenders for the sake of the plot. Few airships come in, and 1/3 of the population forgets they can control the weather. The finale has a dozen characters fight off Storm King's army without magic, but a few hundred ponies at the start of the film do squat. The entire set up for this film was just awful.

But it gets us to the adventure, which was OK. Ultimately there's just not enough time to get to know any of the new characters. I would have cut Capper and Anthro-town. I liked the pirates (Pirate Uhura was my favorite) and the seaponies (Skystar is absolutely adorable). Capper wasn't bad, but he and that town just felt so out of place. I imagine he intent was for it to feel so alien compared to Equestria, but the Seaponies and Pirates at least felt like they belonged in this world. Cut that town and just let the ponies find the aiship pirates and spend more time with them, and with the seaponies.

I didn't really mind the scene where everyone walks away from Twilight. They know she just screwed up everything, and she knows she screwed everything up. It worked for me, and I appreciated it as a good character moment. Even Twilight's moment of anger and yelling at Pinkie.

I will give Meghan some credit for this though. Another issue I've had with her 2-part stories is that she dumps the rest of the cast to focus on Twilight. I think a much better job was done here trying to give time to the entire main cast. Wasn't perfect. I thought Applejack, Fluttershy and Spike all kind of got short changed. Unlike the others, they didn't really have a new character to play off of. Twilight had Tempest, Dash had the Pirates, Rarity had Capper, and Pinkie has Skystar. But overall, I think they all at least got a few nice moments.



What I would have done:
Spend some time making the storm king a real threat and having him take over Canterlot, but let the Princesses flee with citizens. Have Celestia send Twilight and the others to get the magic hippogriff mcguffin, but while away the other Princesses forma kind of resistance movement. During the film maybe have a few quick scenes showing what's going on in Equestria, hell maybe even have the other Princesses slowly get captured, but at least let them do so while fighting back and protecting others. Don't have them get turned to stone, let them talk to the guards, and maybe slowly start sowing seeds of friendship themselves. Most of all, when the finale comes, don't have the entire fight fought by a bunch of new characters, let the ponies fight back. Do what they did at the end of "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep" but bigger, and just have everyone rise up. This is a big screen event. Let everyone get to see their favorite ponies doing something to save their land.


Few things I did like.
-The orchestral score was fantastic. I might buy that if they ever release it.
-Songs were hit and miss. I liked "One Small Thing" a lot. Tempest's song was also pretty good. Others weren't bad, but kind of forgettable.
-Liked the movie artstyle, and I think they did a great job with the new look (though some of the CGI stuff, like the airships were kind of meh)
-The Credits, and ending on best-pony
 

PaulloDEC

Member
Best part of the movie visually?
The end credits. Not even joking, I actually love the way these look more than I do the way the rest of the movie looks.

Question:
Where was Discord? Yeah there was the balloon thing but is he off doing something in the later seasons? Or did he just sleep in his alternate dimension during all of this?

He actually does make a sneaky cameo in the credits, in DJ PON3's audience.
 

Jawmuncher

Member
He was playing "Sir not appearing in this film"

Seriously though,
If they're worfing the princesses in 15 seconds, why not worf him too just so the question isn't there. The other demi-gods don't get to fight back, it's clear the writers weren't concerned with just taking out the power players in the most lazy way possible.

They just left Discord out so there would be less to explain. In the past, Discord's absence was easily justified by him being a jerk, but he has actually gotten nicer in recent seasons, so it makes less sense now. There are a couple of other characters they could have called for help that they just don't for reasons.

By the way, I'm thinking we can go without spoiler tags starting Sunday. Any objections, anyone?

Ahh ok cool. Thanks for the heads up.

Best part of the movie visually?
The end credits. Not even joking, I actually love the way these look more than I do the way the rest of the movie looks.



He actually does make a sneaky cameo in the credits, in DJ PON3's audience.

Damn I missed that.
 
From DrForester's post, the biggest bummer I've heard about this movie is that
the other ponies don't join in the fight against the underlings at the end. That's like half my bingo spaces!

I was imagining things like them seeing Starlight and some other ponies in cages and Applejack says, "If we need firepower, I know the first pony we're rescuing." Then Pinkie rushes over, and comes back with Granny Smith, and Applejack says, "What? No, not her! No offense, Granny."

Flim and Flam pulling out a new Super Speedy Cider Squeezy and sucking up bad guys. Trixie putting on a magic show with Starlight as her assistant, until Starlight gets bored and blasts them all. Filthy Rich shooting high pressure gold coins out a fire hose, which only draws more enemies to him. Vinyl and Octavia blasting shockwaves. That sort of thing.
 

PaulloDEC

Member
Ahh ok cool. Thanks for the heads up.

Damn I missed that.

It was a very brief moment, but a nice touch I thought!

They were good, and ended on a high note.

I think I especially liked the consistency of the art. The rest of the movie looks good, sometimes even great, but it also has some pretty low lows. The mix of painted backdrops and 3D environments stood out on occasion, and I think they could've pushed for a more stylised look overall.

From DrForester's post, the biggest bummer I've heard about this movie is that
the other ponies don't join in the fight against the underlings at the end. That's like half my bingo spaces!

I was imagining things like them seeing Starlight and some other ponies in cages and Applejack says, "If we need firepower, I know the first pony we're rescuing." Then Pinkie rushes over, and comes back with Granny Smith, and Applejack says, "What? No, not her! No offense, Granny."

Flim and Flam pulling out a new Super Speedy Cider Squeezy and sucking up bad guys. Trixie putting on a magic show with Starlight as her assistant, until Starlight gets bored and blasts them all. Filthy Rich shooting high pressure gold coins out a fire hose, which only draws more enemies to him. Vinyl and Octavia blasting shockwaves. That sort of thing.

Sequel maybe? Fingers crossed.
 

Jawmuncher

Member
So I asked in the Season 7 thread but I guess that's kinda dead.
Is there not a Discord Server (The client not the character) for this community?
Just a suggestion. Seems like a good fit.
 
So I asked in the Season 7 thread but I guess that's kinda dead.
Is there not a Discord Server (The client not the character) for this community?
Just a suggestion. Seems like a good fit.
That thread's going fine, and there's a new episode this Saturday. We're just usually not that active during the weekdays. To my knowledge, we don't have a Discord server.
 

Jawmuncher

Member
I need to catch up. For whatever reason I kept expecting Chrysalis to show up in the film. Dunno why.

Everyone that posts there is also posting here, so talking about it here is fine.

Ahh.
Well the idea's out there. Whoever is leading things these days should consider it. Especially for older members people might've gotten out of touch with since they can't post any more here for example.
 
I was a little disappointed that
Grubber(sp?) wasn't acknowledged at the end as the first "real friend" Tempest had. He was certainly more of a supporter for her than just another lackey for Storm King.

Definitely.
There were hints of him being a lot closer to her then the movie really mentioned in a lot of the prequel stuff and it would have definitely added a much-needed dimension to his character. As far as characters that eat a lot he was surprisingly funny for me but he feels fairly one-note when he could have been a lot more then that.


You know what I found really interesting? This movie is just a massively shit time for Twilight. She spends the vast majority of the story looking worried, or stressed, or sad or suspicious. The rest of the Mane 6 quip and sing and caper around like they're having a grand old time, while Twilight seems like she has the weight of the world on her shoulders... because she does.

When she ultimately snaps at Pinkie, I was kinda like "...yeah, I get this." Everyone with any rank or power is gone, and so the whole of Equestria is depending on her. Can you imagine being a character as fundamentally anxious as Twilight and then having that kind of pressure dumped onto you? She's being crushed by it, and you can see it on her face half the time. This is kinda the first time she's acted the way a real person might act under those conditions.


The movie in general does a pretty good job at planting the seeds for that move I feel if you look for them. Especially during the scenes with the pirates she's having absolutely none of it and is purely focused on the task at hand. I can understand why she would view the escapades with Capper and the Pirates as a waste of time given how focused she is on finding the Hippogrifs due to Celestia saying how important it was to find them, as well as why she would go to the extent of stealing the pearl since she felt that it was the reason they were sent there. It's a bit annoying that she's essentially learning the same lesson she's already learned several times before, but I feel like her actions are backed up by the movie. Also this gif is too perfect


One thing that I think is interesting thinking about it is that a lot of people might say it was a plot hole that Tempest didn't turn Twilight to stone after capturing her. I feel like it actually makes sense in-character for Tempest to not turn her to stone so she can gloat over her instead. In the book prequel Tempest dreamed of becoming a princess at some point but had her dreams crushed when her horn was broken. Near the end she had a ton of resentment towards Twilight who essentially ended up living the life that she thought she deserved, so seeing that Twilight's friends had abandoned her was seen as validation and allowed her to get revenge on her. Now it's worth mentioning that the prequel book is horribly inconsistent with the movie and many of the other prequel stuff (for one thing Tempest was the one that tried to steal the pearl from the Hippogrifs and was the one that forced them into hiding, rather then the Storm King as depicted in the movie) but I think the idea that Tempest would be jealous of Twilight makes sense.


I've had a hard time pinning down what I like about the show's comedy, since it really isn't particularly funny, but this Slate review defines it perfectly.


It definitely does seem that, in retrospect, they either should have gone for a smaller, more personal story for the movie, which would allow characters like Rarity and Fluttershy to shine more, or go balls to the wall crazy and discard any attempt to make things easy for new viewers. Have Ember and Thorax join in on a fight against Celestia and Luna's evil brother!

That's what I was sorta getting at earlier. One of the best episodes of the show is essentially two sisters getting in a fight with each other and then the older one making it up to the younger one. Overall that's not very high stakes and it's fairly common, but we end up caring because we care about Rarity and Sweetie Belle. If any normal character reacted the way Rarity did when finding the picture that Sweetie Belle drew of them you would think they were being melodramatic and that the whole thing was silly. But since the character is Rarity your reaction is "lol that's such a Rarity thing to do."

The trouble with the show in general is that it's really hard to show off why it's so special to people that aren't informed because a lot of that is due to how it causes you to bond and relate to its characters and get invested in its world, and that's not stuff that will just immediately happen. Now it's worth mentioning that I feel like the movie could have done a better job at trying to do this (the amount of people that claim the Mane 6 are trying to defend Ponyville in the movie in the promotional stuff for it is way too damn high) but it was always going to be near impossible to do that.

I think that they tried a bit too hard to escape the stigma that it was just a super long story from the show, which they ended up getting anyway. Since the show itself often tackles major stories like this I feel like there wasn't much they could have done to escape the comparison. As I said before, I feel like the next movie should be focused on a fairly small cast of characters and really develop each of them over the course of it. That would be the best way for them to tell a cohesive story that allowed even the unitiated to develop bonds with these characters. The trouble with doing something like that, of course is that A: the scaling back of things will likely draw complaints that it's just an expanded TV episode (which just strikes me as nonsense. Apparently "We got to save the Orphanage" is suitable for being a feature length movie but this felt like it was for TV?) and B: This will draw complaints that people's favorite characters aren't playing a role in it. Many fans and kids especially will likely be extremely disappointed if their favorite characters don't appear/play a role in the movie that they feel that they deserve. MLP's cast of likable characters almost acts as a detriment in a movie setting because the writers really want to make sure that people that are fans of these characters end up happy.


Also the whole Celestia and Luna had an evil brother thing was really stupid and I'm incredibly glad they didn't go down that route.


From DrForester's post, the biggest bummer I've heard about this movie is that
the other ponies don't join in the fight against the underlings at the end. That's like half my bingo spaces!

I was imagining things like them seeing Starlight and some other ponies in cages and Applejack says, "If we need firepower, I know the first pony we're rescuing." Then Pinkie rushes over, and comes back with Granny Smith, and Applejack says, "What? No, not her! No offense, Granny."

Flim and Flam pulling out a new Super Speedy Cider Squeezy and sucking up bad guys. Trixie putting on a magic show with Starlight as her assistant, until Starlight gets bored and blasts them all. Filthy Rich shooting high pressure gold coins out a fire hose, which only draws more enemies to him. Vinyl and Octavia blasting shockwaves. That sort of thing.


I feel like for people that didn't watch the show that kind of thing would have been extremely confusing and would have taken them completely out of the movie. The actual fight scene is really short anyway and I feel like the whole thing could have done with a rewrite as what we got was not very good, largely because it's fairly short. Barely any of the characters get to do much of anything because there's so much of them so each one gets like one scene of them beating up the bad dudes.



On the subject of Discord, as Sigma said the normal thread is usually pretty inactive outside of big news and episode discussion and from my experience the MLP community on Gaf is really only big enough to be able to support one thread at a time. Adding in a discord would either mostly kill the discussion on this board in general or it would be completely ignored. I would prefer that the discussion happened here so it's a lot more easily noticeable for people and aside from one (temporary?) exception I imagine all the people that would want to post in these threads is capable of posting on Neogaf.


Going to be doing one (final?) edit on the 2nd post with a foreword saying that the general consensus is that the movie is strongly recommended for people that are familiar with the show but may be lackluster for people unfamiliar with the show.
 
I think we could try out Discord, if there's enough interest. At the very least, I could start posting fan art as I come across it there, before my fan art collection posts. There would be some doubling up with discussion, but it could possibly result in more overall.
 

Koomaster

Member
Well, I'll spoiler post mine now and remove on Sunday then.
(SPOILERS)
This pretty much mirrors my thoughts on what went wrong with the movie.
Storm King is just not a villain. Really we get that 'phone call' from him early in the movie and he's set up as a goof. Then we finally see him at the end and he doesn't really do much but screw himself over. Like this huge storm he causes even starts taking out his own minions. He's played for laughs and you sort of feel a little bad when he basically screws himself over. I think movie would have worked better had Tempest basically screwed him over and took the princess magic for herself. Called him a fool for believing she wasn't just using him for his armies or whatever. She's way more threatening and we actually get to follow her through the movie. Makes me wonder if they just didn't want to do another villain redeemed thing for the movie and just needed someone to kill and so brought in Storm King.

I also think it's time the show addresses the fact that Celestia and Luna are just not that powerful. At least Cadance tries to shield the princesses. Celestia and Luna don't do anything but stand there and talk. Hell Celestia basically just wanted to send Luna away to get something/someone to fight for them. Even when Storm King gets their powers all eh does is control the sun/moon. And while yes that's powerful in itself - what good does that do? Whatever powers they possess seem fairly limited and lack any show of force. I think if the show would point this out at least it would be understandable how they get captured and taken out of commission so easily and basically rely on Twilight and crew to save the day when bad guys come along.

Other than that, I have to say as a fan of the original cartoon back in the day I'm disappointed the Sea Ponies aren't real. Maybe there are still sea ponies out there but the ones in this movie aren't them. Similar to how I felt about the Flutterponies being turned into breezies (sp?) on the show.
 
Well it's now down to 59% on RT. Bummer...

As for me, it doesn't seem I will be checking out the movie this weekend, due to lack of a convenient means of heading to the theater. Might have to wait until Tuesday, as another theater is only a 10-minute walk away from the college I am attending currently and I will be out at noon that time. So I'll most likely have to avoid this thread in the meantime.
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
I also think it's time the show addresses the fact that Celestia and Luna are just not that powerful. At least Cadance tries to shield the princesses. Celestia and Luna don't do anything but stand there and talk. Hell Celestia basically just wanted to send Luna away to get something/someone to fight for them. Even when Storm King gets their powers all eh does is control the sun/moon. And while yes that's powerful in itself - what good does that do? Whatever powers they possess seem fairly limited and lack any show of force. I think if the show would point this out at least it would be understandable how they get captured and taken out of commission so easily and basically rely on Twilight and crew to save the day when bad guys come along.

Doesn't really work when two of the times they're taken out its because the bad guy wants this incredible power they have. Them getting captured is not for any narrative purpose, it's purely a lack of imagination on the writers parts to utilize them.
 
Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus: Charming and sweet, My Little Pony: The Movie will please its dedicated fanbase, even if it's unlikely to encourage non-devotees to gallop along for the ride.

The impression I'm getting is that the movie works well if you watch enough of the show to already be familiar with the characters, even if it's just a few episodes. However, losing that context itself does a huge impact to your impression of the film. This can be seen in the Double Toasted review, where they assumed the ponies never had any conflict in their lives and were lording over everyone, when we know they regularly run into hydras and manticores and worse-than-death diseases that turn you into trees. So you don't have to watch anything close to the whole series, but you should watch a bit before watching the movie.

Other than that, I have to say as a fan of the original cartoon back in the day I'm disappointed the Sea Ponies aren't real. Maybe there are still sea ponies out there but the ones in this movie aren't them. Similar to how I felt about the Flutterponies being turned into breezies (sp?) on the show.

To address the non-spoiler part, the Breezies are actually pre-existing concepts from G3, not attempts to redo the flutterponies.

As for the spoiler, (SEASON 8 SPOILERS)
we know that there is going to be a seapony in season 8, though it's unknown if it's a hippogriff->seapony, or an actual seapony
.
 
Hoot.

The only Scootaloo I saw was half a Scootaloo in a cage next to Applebloom.
To be fair, I spotted zero Sweetie Belle.
 
Huh, I guess we had a Discord this entire time. Who knew? It even has a ton of people who don't actually post in the OTs anymore. Adding to the OPs.
 
D

Deleted member 10571

Unconfirmed Member
Hoot.

The only Scootaloo I saw was half a Scootaloo in a cage next to Applebloom.
To be fair, I spotted zero Sweetie Belle.

Also, Applebloom being caged tips the scale positively.
 

JSevere

Member
so I've only seen a handful of eps of the show but I'm decently familiar with the characters and world since I was around on the internet when it was really popular a few years ago. this movie kinda was a bunch of episodes stitched together and it didn't really try to go above and beyond so I can see why people would find it underwhelming but I thought this was really charming in its simplicity. at its core it's just a movie about being optimistic and the formative power of friendship, which is something I can't find any fault with. went with my little brother and we both had a good time. there was a family sitting next to us and they had a little girl who started crying during the
Twilight/Pinkie Pie argument
and had to sit on her mom's lap and hug her until the scene was over. poor thing lol

also the Hanazuki short before was really great. art design and animation were gorgeous, everyone involved with it did a phenomenal job. it was just wonderful to see 2D animation on the big screen with these
 
Hoot.

The only Scootaloo I saw was half a Scootaloo in a cage next to Applebloom.
To be fair, I spotted zero Sweetie Belle.

CMC actresses: *excitedly* So as essential characters to the show, do we get to have a role in the My Little Pony movie?
Meghan: Eh, not really, no.
CMC: Oh. But we do have at least a line or two, right?
Meghan: Um...
CMC: Please tell me our characters at least APPEAR in the movie!
Meghan: Yeah, you do. You're in a cage at the end.
CMC: ...
Meghan: ...except Sweetie Belle. She's not in it at all.
Claire: *squeaking*
 
Just got back from seeing it with friends. I stand by my statement earlier in the thread (for the most part; I haven't seen Clue). I had a good time. Tempest Shadow is my new favorite villain, and I loved
her villain song.
 

Ogodei

Member
It really feels like it would have been better if they had just set this movie outside of canon entirely, made a general pastiche of "Mare in the Moon," "Magical Mystery Cure" and "Princess Twilight."

Apparently it's set between seasons 7 and 8 but it really has the characterization of early season 4, with Twilight unsure of her role in the kingdom (and also Discord out of the picture because he's not completely reformed yet).

Detailed thoughts below

Twilight's request at the beginning is out of character. She respects Celestia and Luna too much to ask them to use their powers for a show, no matter how important the show actually is.
As much as Dr. Forester has hammered on the point, yes, it is disappointing at how little of a fight the other Princesses put up. Granted they came up with a novel power to capture them, but i would have been satisfied seeing more of a struggle, like them blowing a couple of Storm King's airships out of the sky. That could have worked better, in fact, if Tempest Shadow quickly found herself overpowered, but got them to surrender by using her powers to threaten civilians.
I liked the first town they visited, it shows how bad things were on the outside, and the threat of them being sold into slavery seemed, to me, more menacing than any other threat they faced in the movie.
The pirates were cool but unnecessary.
I see where they were going with Twilight's treachery vis-a-vis the sea-ponies, and they did try to foreshadow it, but they could've done a better job. Like Twilight obsessing over needing more *power* to fight the Storm King and her friends worrying that power is never what's won the day for them before. You could have also established this by having Twilight lose a power struggle with Tempest earlier in the film, so that then when the audience is shown the pearl, you know what Twilight's going to do next.
They did the right thing in terms of story simplicity to push aside the secondary characters, but it raises too many questions in canon, like Shining Armor not being there for his wife, the absence of Discord, and the glaring absence of Starlight and Trixie.

It's enjoyable enough, but i'd argue it's not meant for the superfans, although it also does some very intriguing worldbuilding stuff.

And i don't think it counts as a spoiler to say Starlight and Trixie aren't in the movie. Unless they were there for maybe a second as background ponies in one of the opening or closing scenes, but i didn't see them.
 
And i don't think it counts as a spoiler to say Starlight and Trixie aren't in the movie. Unless they were there for maybe a second as background ponies in one of the opening or closing scenes, but i didn't see them.

Their (1-sec) scene from season 1 is in the movie I'm pretty sure.
 

PaulloDEC

Member
My Little Pony got an A- Cinemascore, and made $2.97 million on Friday. Disappointing that it's doing that badly. Note that the Cinemascore is self-selecting, as it only polls people that went to see the movie in the first place, but it's still nice.

Is that all that bad? The full quote goes:

Lionsgate and Hasbro's My Little Pony is coming in a bit ahead of Mojo's forecast with an estimated $2.97 million on Friday, looking at an opening slightly over $10 million.

I'd be surprised if the MLP film cost more than 50 million to make, which would mean they'd made back 1/5 of their budget in 2 days.

Plenty of guesswork and conjecture in there though, so I guess we'll have to wait for some more info to sneak out.
 

dafortune

Member
Just left the theater, saw it as a parent not as a fan (although I admit the show is better than 90% of the crap my daughter makes me watch). Yeah I didn't think it was that good. The animation looked kinda cheap, I'm specifically talking about the parts that are supposed to look high budget to let you know it's a movie. They should have just made it look like the show.Also for a show that's typically smarter than other kids shows the plot was kinda paint by numbers. My daughter loved it though, it was the first time she's ever sat through and watched an entire movie in a theater (she's 3).
 
Just left the theater, saw it as a parent not as a fan (although I admit the show is better than 90% of the crap my daughter makes me watch). Yeah I didn't think it was that good. The animation looked kinda cheap, I'm specifically talking about the parts that are supposed to look high budget to let you know it's a movie. They should have just made it look like the show.Also for a show that's typically smarter than other kids shows the plot was kinda paint by numbers. My daughter loved it though, it was the first time she's ever sat through and watched an entire movie in a theater (she's 3).

It's pretty clear if you compare the final movie to what's seen in The Art of My Little Pony: The Movie (something I plan on doing here after watching the movie myself), they originally had a really ambitious story that relied heavily on continuity, but they kept whittling down at things they thought would scare away new viewers in order to make it more stand-alone. From the Sony email hacks, you can see a ton of Sony's responses to the original script were "WHAT IS THIS? WHAT'S GOING ON? WHY AREN'T THEY GOING TO THE REAL WORLD?!" Plus, I imagine they probably wanted to save the original villain for the actual end of the show. It was originally
Celestia and Luna's evil brother, King Cosmos, who takes over Canterlot with an army of shadow creatures.
There was also going to be a Sailor Moon style power up at the end, but they got rid of it, because they assumed fans would have gotten tired of that, even though we haven't gotten that in the main show since season 4 three years ago.

EDIT: Midnight Screenings review, they didn't like it.
EDIT: They didn't like the Hanazuki short either.
 
I for one miss the Super Saiyan Ponies that were never used since the end of season 4.

Shows how much of a filthy casual you are. True fans know that the last time that the Rainbow Powers were used was in Luna's nightmare back in Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep.
 
Estimate from the box office thread.
Weekend Studio Estimates

1) Blade Runner 2049 - $31.5M
2) The Mountain Between Us - $10.1M
3) IT - $9.7M - $305M total
4) My Little Pony - $8.8M
5) Kingsman The Golden Circle - $8.1M - $80M total
6) American Made - $8.1M - $30M total
7) LEGO Ninjago Movie - $6.8M - $44M total

IT is now at $604M worldwide

About to head off to the movie, but ugh, these really negative reviews from YouTube reviewers I like are really bugging me out. Even if I enjoy it, I won't be able to help but analyze how it could have been improved to make it more appealing to a wide audience.
 
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