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(Spoiler warning)
In case you were wondering my thoughts on the movie...
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BEST PART
The best part was definitely the animation, everything seemed magical and breathtaking from beginning to end. Combined with the audio, it was very easy to get sucked in, strong escapism. The second best part were the songs, though the earlier solos overshadowed the later songs when all the characters sing together, and the main villain song (with accompanying choreography was atrocious). I'm not talking about the singer who was fine, it was the lyrics and flow was just terrible.
I am pretty glad they got rid of the Elements concept, giving the characters a fresh, different, and more freely open exploration.
I also give big kudos to production for staying away from modern social and political issues and, while I think they were silly and could've been improved a lot more (i.e. making earth ponies strong in heart and/or muscle and determined but be misinterpreted as caveman bullying or being dull) sticking to their own fantasy problems.
Also was really glad that Hitch wasn't a male doofus. I was really afraid he was going to be more like Sprout. Turns out he's letter-to-the-law heroic, skilled but imperfect (if absent-minded) in final execution.
MEH
I do not like Zipp's voice. It's going to take me a long time to get used to it. It felt forced, I think the voice director was asking the actress Liza Koshy was fishing for something that was raspy and deep but it didn't work out well with the character, sounded too old, mature, and tiring. Everypony else seemed spot-on.
As far as the world goes, this originally started as a G4 reboot and production knew they wanted separated pony types. Then it evolved to have new character cast (a very, very good decision, something I fully encouraged). The tie-in to G4 was a late bone toss (also a good idea to a degree, something I also suggested). But I was fully aware we weren't going to have Hippogriffs, Dragons, Discord, etc. I think keeping that connection might've helped save this production and keep it relevant to the fandom, even if most of the fandom (including myself) were a bit taken off by the extreme distance of G4 and G5.
So questions like what happened in deep history, where everyone else went, and all that didn't phase me.
THE BAD
Even that aside though, the fact these 3 pony civilizations were so close to each other (seemingly only a few hours, or 1 day's journey) the fact nopony bothered trying to invade, spy, get close to, or observe the others was really off-putting. Maybe such a detail was cut for time, but I think something more prominent preventing the pony types from reaching each other would've been better. It got weird with the different characters catching up to the main group.
For an MLP movie, It was the best produced, but it just... I don't know, seemed lacking somewhere. I think it was the fact everything leaned on so many tropes and references that, even though the story flowed well, it seemed too predictable. And nothing really jumped out to me to get attached.
Sure it was funny, laughed a lot, even gasped a few times. But it was just a good movie. I think the premise was fine, the execution was excellent, but just missing that spark. Like, none of the new characters were developed in a way that made me want to rearrange my 'Top 20 Fav MLP Characters' list. Hopefully the following series changes some of that.
OVERALL: 7.5 / 10
Gift Limits
What was wrong? Really? Do you know what wrong is?
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My Disturbing Darlings (Ep 00)
Eh, it may not be award wining per se, but I didn't really need it to be. It just needed to be a fun MLP movie that shows it gets what MLP (of any generation) is all about and that it can still continue that further...and this definitely does that.
And I rather liked all of the G5 cast. They weren't preset to fit specific roles from the start like the Mane 6 and instead allowed to evolve as they needed to fit their specific roles, whatever that may be, and that lets them be their own thing from the start, something I think works well for G5 and something even G4 realized was the better approach (as it started favoring that itself towards the end).
As for why the pony cities were all so seemingly close together yet not interacting...we can only speculate, but I suspect it's due to a number of things: part of it is that they're really further apart than they look but a bit of movie magic was employed so to blur through travel time between two points; G4 routinely showed towns and cities very close together to the point that travel time between nearly anywhere was quick and usually within a day or so tops but didn't necessarily intermingle on a regular basis (granted, there was no demonizing of each other but still) so there is a precedent for this; and finally, the pony tribes had demonized each other in such a way that they all feared each other, not so much hated each other, so they kept apart because they didn't want to interact out of fear of what the other might do to them and thus motive for the isolation despite being close together.
I'm actually am rather curious as to what had happened to cause them to not just split up, but to split up in precisely that manner, because it was truly only their own paranoia that was keeping them apart and nothing more, and what's more, Sunny and her dad had plenty of evidence to suggest the paranoia was never justified to begin with...so what the heck gave them such a paranoia in each other in the first place? There must've been a reason.
Yet I'm not terribly surprised the film didn't get into it, because that backstory wasn't super relevant to the story it wanted to tell--why they fell apart is just in the past and not so important if they learn staying apart was wrong and reunite again in friendship.
No, I suspect if the answers to this are ever given, it'll be in the forthcoming TV show--that'll be a better place to explore it in more depth.
And even then, I don't want it too be too much of a major focus--G5 needs to still be allowed to be G5, not just G4 continued. 