My Little Pony: A Very Minty Christmas (Review)

Now we’re in REAL trouble. I’m done with the short ones, time for the long ones. And the first of them is the 44-minute long garbage heap known as A Very Minty Christmas. And here’s a fun fact: the rest of the specials in my line-up are technically feature-length, so at this point, they’re direct-to-DVD movies. Before I review it though, a here are few things. In the first review, I did a plot summary, but the plot was so bare that it didn’t feel like I actually summarized the whole thing. In the second one, however, there was more of a story, and as a result, I ended up doing a full plot synopsis when I was just trying to do the same thing I did for the first review. I don’t usually like doing those in reviews.

That brings up another problem, though: reviewing these individually was a bad idea. They’re all bad for basically the same reasons, so I just end up repeating myself. That, or I say “see the first review for my thoughts on X”, which might as well be the same thing. So if I don’t summarize the entire plot, I don’t have much to talk about. Thankfully, this is the last review in which I have to worry about this, and you’ll see why when I get to the later specials. So for this one, I decided to summarize the plot in a more broad sense and bring up specific moments later if necessary. As a result, this review won’t be organized by specific elements of the special, but I don’t actually have to do that. Now, on with the show!

My Little Pony: A Very Minty Christmas (Review)

There are no new characters to mention, but this is the first one I’ve reviewed with Minty. She’s still bland and cliché, but for some reason, she likes socks now. And only in this special. Moving on. The ponies are celebrating Christmas, and they have a special large candy cane that they put on their town Christmas tree, because they apparently need that for Santa to come. Because Minty’s a one-dimensional klutz, she manages to break it, resulting in a major plot-hole. There’s no reason why she can’t ask the other ponies to make another one, but that never comes up once. Instead she tries to be Santa herself, fails, and when she gets caught, she drags everyone to the North Pole to get Santa to come anyway. I changed the plot summary so that it ends after the catalyst causes the characters to go on their adventure, which usually happens early in the story (as it should). When does it happen in this story? My brain is doing too good of a job erasing these specials from my mind, so I can’t give you a precise answer. It was more than halfway through, though.

So what happened before then? Lots and lots of filler. We get treated to a song that goes on too long, generic Christmas visuals, bad dialogue, animation that’s somehow worse than in Dancing in the Clouds, due to the outlines on the ponies making them look 3D in a 2D environment, and everything else you’d expect out of a bad G3 special. Actually, no. Just any G3 special. They’re all bad. As for what happens afterwards, still not a lot. Instead of bringing us actually giving us some sort of adventure while the ponies travel, we get to the North Pole right away. Like in Friends Are Never Far Away, there were a few pointless mini-conflicts, and that was it. The actual conflict is solved by a friendship-related Deus Ex Machina. Friendship is Magic created the Elements of Harmony and made friendship literal magic, so it has an excuse as for why this can happen. Here, we get nothing. The special also reuses animation, rehashes the first song, and has credits go on for four minutes because the writers are incapable of telling a story that fills up the time on its own.

I also mentioned songs a few times, because this is the first special I’ve reviewed with musical numbers. The first one is about Christmas, and it’s actually okay. It’s not good by any means, and I would never go out of my way to listen to it, but it sounds rather nice at times. Too bad it goes on for longer than it needs to. Then there’s Minty’s socks song. Yes, Minty sang a song about socks. It’s just as dumb as you would expect. The lyrics are awful, the visuals still suck, and the song is too slow for its own good, resulting in it just being forgettable and boring.

Actually, that describes G3 as a whole: forgettable and boring. It’s hard to remember what happens in these specials, especially when I’m reviewing them several months after I last saw them. They aren’t even annoying (for the most part), they’re just a chore to sit through because it takes a lot out of you to not quit and do something more fun. This is especially apparent when they start becoming 40+ minutes. A Very Minty Christmas is no exception to these issues. It’s undoubtably worse than Friends Are Never Far Away, but whether it’s worse than Dancing in the Clouds is something I’ll have to think about for a while. Yeah, it’s over twice as long, but it wasn’t QUITE as boring. It doesn’t really matter, though, because I’m staying away from all of them and you should too.