Rainbows Really Do Rock · 3:39pm Sep 30th, 2014
Now that I've had a few days to think about it, I think it's time for that Rainbow Rocks blog post I promised last week. There will be lots of unmarked spoilers past the break.
Let's start by talking briefly about Equestria Girls (the first movie, not the franchise, since Rainbow Rocks is technically and Equestria Girls movie). As anyone who has ever heard me talk about EqG knows, I really hate that movie. I could write up a rather lengthy explanation of why I hate it (and I have done so before), but I'll spare you all from that. All you really need to know is that I hated it. But there were a few things that I did really like about it. And those were Sunset Shimmer, Spike, Rainbow Dash, and Daniel Ingram. And at this point, anyone who has seen the movie probably has a good idea of where this is going.
Basically, I loved Rainbow Rocks. A week ago, I wouldn't have believed that I would ever say that, but it's true. Rainbow Rocks basically took what I think are the best parts of the first movie, Sunset Shimmer and Daniel Ingram, and built the entire movie around them. And the result is everything I could have hoped it to be. Actually, when the previews started coming out, I came up with four things that I wanted in the movie: Sunset Shimmer as the hero and/or being redeemed, Vinyl Scratch being an important character, awesome songs, and human Twilight showing up. Overall, they did a pretty good job of hitting those.
So now let's do a rundown of all the good and bad stuff, starting with the good stuff:
1) Sunset Shimmer. Like I said before, she was one of the few bright spots in the first movie. Before watching this one, I was a bit apprehensive about her, because the previews showed that she had completely traded in the confident jerk personality she had in the first movie (which I actually liked) for a much more nervous and submissive one (which makes sense, seeing how she's trying to be good now, but almost everyone hates her). But even with that change, she's still fantastic. She gets redeemed in the end, of course, but unlike all of our other redeemed villains, she seriously works for it. So when she does get it, you know that she really does deserve it. And she gets to play a major part in saving the day and really is part of the gang by the end of the movie.
2) The mane six minus Twilight. Remember how these girls weren't friends until Twilight showed up in the first movie? Well, in this movie, that fact is very obvious. They've basically still got personalities that their pony counterparts did back in season one. Rainbow is an egotistical, self-centered jerk, AJ and Rarity can't stand each other...It's all exactly what it should be, and it's great. This is one of the things that I was worried the writers would mess up, but they did it perfectly.
2.5) The mane six. Let's combine points one and two and look at what we have now. Remember how the show started off in season one? Twilight knew nothing about friendship, so Celestia sent her to Ponyville, where she made some friends, defeated evil with the power of friendship, and then spent a lot of time learning how to be a friend and helping her friends learn to get along. Now over at CHS, we've got five girls who have decided they're best friends, but barely get along together, another girl who is their friend now, but knows nothing about friendship, and one princess who...isn't actually that important, all things considered. Once again, the girl who knows nothing about friendship figures some stuff out, pulls her new friends together, helps them to all get along, and then leads them in their vanquishing of evil. Basically, This movie was the first two episodes retold, but with Sunset taking Twilight's role and Twilight basically taking Celestia's. And Sunset even gets to send Twilight friendship reports now. I'm not sure what it says about the rest of the mane six that they can't stick together without someone there to help though.
3) The villains. I thought I would hate that 2/3 of the Dazzlings are, as the other 1/3 described them, idiots. But they actually turned out quite well. They had good motivations, they were competent, they were a legitimate threat, they almost won, they were basically everything you could ask for. And I really like their designs (other than Adagio's hair).
4) The side characters/cameos.
a) Spike. He really didn't do much in this one, and he didn't shine nearly as much as he did in EqG. But he still helped to save the day, and they would have completely failed without him, so that's worth something.
b) Trixie. Sure, she was at least partially being mind-controlled for most of the movie, but she was still a good character. She was back to her season one personality too, but while ponyTrixie's magic wasn't really too impressive, humanTrixie is quite the musician. So she was a legitimate threat too, and played the role of secondary antagonist beautifully. Plus she got a great song and two assistants who aren't bumbling morons.
c) Flash Sentry. I can't believe I just wrote that. Admittedly, it helps that he doesn't really do anything in the movie, so maybe I'm just glad that he basically wasn't there. But he did have that one great scene where he told off Twilight. Sure, there was that mind-controlling magic going on at the time, but the scene was still great and really showed the effects of the Dazzlings' magic.
d) Vinyl Scratch. When I saw the "Let's Have a Battle" preview last month, I predicted that Vinyl wouldn't be affected by the mind-controlling magic because she was listening to her own music instead, and that she would then help the mane seven save the day. I was exactly right. She wasn't in the movie quite as much as I had hoped, but she was and important (and awesome) part of saving the day. And she was with the group at the end of the movie, so she might be an unofficial eighth (or seventh, if we don't count Twilight) member of their group now. She's almost definitely part of their band now too. And she didn't get any speaking lines, so everyone can stop worrying about that. Oh, and she has the greatest car ever.
e) All of the other minor/cameo characters. Derpy plays the saw. Bulk Biceps plays the violin. Lyra and Bon Bon play a piano together. Maude and Boulder make an appearance. Octavia plays her cello (or bass or whatever it is), of course, and she gets one speaking line! (Though I don't actually remember what her voice sounded like because I was too busy being amazed by the fact that she talked.) They are all just fantastic. Unfortunately, we don't actually get to hear any of them play those instruments, other than a bit of Derpy's.
f) Some new background characters. Specifically, Trixie and Photo Finish each got two new characters for their bands. And even though they don't say anything, I really like their designs. Photo Finish's are especially unique. (I've heard that Photo's, at least, also get names in some merchandise, but I don't remember what they are.)
5) The music. By now we should know better than to ever doubt Daniel Ingram. The entire soundtrack ranges from "pretty good" to "absolute awesome." I really need to go and buy myself a copy. And I can't wait for the remixes to start pouring in. We got songs from the mane six, Rainbow Dash, the Dazzlings, Trixie, and one song that even included Sunset Shimmer.
6) The climax. Words don't do it justice. There was an epic back-and-forth song battle between the Dazzlings and the mane six, including a few transformation sequences, and the greatest magical friendship laser beams ever.
7) The facial expressions. Yes, this is a small one, but I really enjoyed a lot of the facial expressions the characters had. So many glorious smirks. You really can have very different facial expressions with humans than you can with ponies. The animation quality seemed really good overall, but I'd really need to watch it again closely to say for sure.
8) The humor. It was fantastic.
9) The stinger. Perhaps the best piece of evidence that this movie was good is the fact that I am now looking forward to seeing the third movie. And a big part of that is this stinger. Like I said earlier, when the previews first came out, I was really hoping that the Twilight we were seeing would be humanTwilight and not ponyTwilight. I was a bit disappointed when more previews came out and it became clear that that wasn't the case, but now I'm all excited again. I'm putting my money on the next movie being about the entire mane cast meeting their doubles (and if we're really lucky, that might include Sunset and Vinyl).
10) EDIT: The Outfits. Specifically the fact that they didn't wear those awful 80s hair metal glam rock outfits from the merchandise and whatnot. I didn't really care for the outfits they did wear in that final performance either, but at least they were better than the merchandise ones. Oh, and Rarity's Daft Punk outfit was the greatest thing ever.
Now let's try to come up with some bad stuff:
1) Twilight can open up the portal whenever she wants now. Personally, I want the pony and human universes to be separated as much as possible, so this bugs me. And how did Twilight get that portal anyway? Wasn't it in the Crystal Empire, last we saw?
2) The transformation. They never really explain why the magic rainbow pony powers activate when they play their instruments. That kind of seems important. Also, Vinyl didn't get one.
3) Flash and Twilight still have a thing for each other. Luckily it doesn't really come up at all in this movie, but the feelings are clearly still there. But seriously guys, even with everything else about their relationship put aside, and even if Twilight can open that portal whenever she wants, I still think you should stick to finding romance in your own universe.
4) That book. It's an annoyingly convenient plot device, but at least it's not a big part of the movie.
5) Celestia. Twilight gets Celestia's book at the beginning of the movie. So it looks to me like either Celestia has finally given up on Sunset for some reason, or Celestia's being some sort of omniscient chessmaster with ridiculously good foresight again. Or she just thinks that it's best for Twilight to deal with Sunset now. Personally, I don't really like any of those options, especially since Celestia did it without even telling Twilight or Sunset about it. Oh, and humanCelestia either hates Sunset, or just doesn't have any tact.
6) Twilight. She really doesn't do anything of much importance in the movie, but I'm okay with that. What bugs me is that I feel like Twilight should know to trust her friends enough to go to them for help by now. But apparently not. At least, not her human friends. But I guess that's why Sunset is taking her place. So maybe this one isn't really that much of a problem.
7) Time. The Dazzlings have apparently been in the human world since Starswirl's time. Are they immortal or something? It does seem incredibly likely that time in the human world passes much slower than in Equestria (in some ways, it seems likely that RR doesn't take place more than a few weeks after EqG, but season four almost certainly took up a few months), but still.
8) Obliviousness. How has the entire city not noticed the two giant magical rainbow laser shows that have happened at Canterlot High in the movies?
9) The Dazzlings clearly hate each other, but still work together really well. Not so much a problem, but I feel like there's a missed opportunity there, especially since the mane six can't get anywhere until they learn to get along.
10) Snips and Snails. They are idiots and no one likes them. They even try to rap. Obviously it was a joke, but still, nothing good ever comes from putting those two onscreen. At least their total screen time probably only adds up to about two minutes.
11) The other bands. Specifically, the fact that we didn't get to hear most of them play. Couldn't we have replaced Snips and Snails with Lyra and Bon Bon or something?
12) Being trapped under the stage. That scene worked out great and all, but it seems a bit unrealistic to me that they wouldn't be able to make enough noise for someone to notice them and let them out. I guess that mind control had something to do with this?
13) Adagio's hair. I will never not hate it.
TL;DR Go watch Rainbow Rocks. As someone who hates the first movie, I cannot recommend Rainbow Rocks enough. It's not perfect, of course, but the vast majority of the problems I pointed out are trivial, and the good things about the movie both outnumber them and are far more meaningful.
The Dazzlings being alive for a thousand years in the human world does seem really terrifying. I'm sure they'll be an angsty fanfic written about how they are dealing with their newfound mortality. But I also thought that was strange and a little on the fridge horror side.
As far as the transformations and stuff goes... this entire show has a terrible magic system. It falls under the "It's just magic" kind of magic. This problem is summed up very well by Brandon Sanderson:
The My Little Pony universe, along with the Harry Potter universe, just doesn't have a clearly defined magic system and thus we're stuck with really random methods of solving our conflicts. They come out of nowhere because no explanation has been given. Contrast this with Magic systems like in the Avatar:The Last Airbender universe where we have hard and fast rules that make sense when we see those rules applied in strange amazing ways.
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Well I don't know about angsty mortality and all that, but I have considered writing a fic just based around the idea that Twilight realizes that the Dazzlings have met Starswirl the Bearded, so she tries to get them to tell her all about him. I'm not sure where it would actually go though.