Some Simple Thoughts and Impressions of the Movie [Spoiler Warning] · 10:42pm Oct 8th, 2017
So I saw horsemovie2017 yesterday, and like everyone who's seen it, I've got my own set of thoughts on it. I won't be touching on things in too much detail, and this certainly isn't going to be an analytical follow-up; what's provided below are simply my impressions, what I think the movie did well, and what I thought it did wrong. Put as much weight into them as you want, because everybody has different opinions, and these are the opinions of an author who is in love with the mere concept of worldbuilding. As such, my thoughts are colored through that lens, and probably aren't going to be the same as all the different types of fan who've gone to see the movie.
In case you hadn't figured it out already, spoilers follow below the waifu horse:
I'll get the overall opinion out of the way first: I enjoyed the movie. Did I think it was the best thing ever? No. Did I expect it to be? No. Did I have a good time? Yes. And I think given the reactions from certain corners of the fandom leading up to the movie's premiere, that's the most important thing. Too many people treat the show as a sort of disgraced and disappointing thing nowadays because they demand it to stand up to or even surpass those rose-tinted Faustian glory days of the first few seasons, and when it doesn't they say that the writers are out of ideas/are terrible/whatever. I'm not going to go into my thoughts on that attitude and many of those peoples' relation with the show here, but I will say that I feel those people are missing the point. I watch horse to enjoy a simple and fun time with colorful characters, colorful settings, and good morals and life lessons.
Did the movie deliver on that? In my opinion, yes.
There's a lot to like in this movie. Starting from the most superficial, the animation is drop-dead gorgeous. Honestly, if they animated the upcoming S8 in ToonBoom, I would be happy with that. The models are a lot more detailed than the Flash versions, and that gives them weight and presence that the show can often lack. Plus the backgrounds were pretty... usually. There were some times where I felt like the backgrounds didn't mesh well with the colorful, lively character animations, and the less I say about Tempest's skiff, the better (the lack of outlines and details on a glaringly CG airship, especially when compared to the attention they put onto the pirates' ship, was jarring and felt awfully budget). But overall, the smoothness and liveliness of the characters was something I adored. It really made them pop out of the film and seem real in a way we haven't seen in the show before.
Perhaps the biggest thing this movie does right is also the thing it does the worst. I'll elaborate on that later, but the new settings we see outside of Equestria (Klugetown, Mt. Aris, and the Seapony Kingdom) blow the lid off of our self-contained little pony world. Klugetown is an amazingly vertical and steampunk-esque city full of anthropomorphic creatures in the middle of the desert; it's exactly the kind of seedy and dirty urbanscape you could frame any number of gritty and brutal stories in. Mt. Aris, the home of the hippogriffs, feels like something out of Tolkien. You can feel the impression of great power and great wealth in an era come and gone, where now only ruins and cobwebs remain. With the conclusion of the movie and the destruction of the Storm King, it leaves something to wonder if the hippogriffs will return to their home or remain beneath the waves. There's lots to play with here in this setting before, during, and after the Storm King. And finally, Seaquestria, the seapony home, finally gives us something fans have been waiting for for ages. There's a strong impression of eerie beauty and an almost alien sense of isolation and differentness here when compared with the rest of the world. Now that we have an official place to set up our seaponies, as well as some knowledge about their history, I expect a lot of fanfic fodder to be taken right from this mysterious and hidden place.
And then there's Tempest. Hoh, Tempest. I think this horse is honestly the best thing about the movie. Emily Blunt does a wonderful job giving the major antagonist a menacing, competent feel. When Tempest relies on her underlings to capture Twilight and friends, they fail repeatedly. When Tempest herself takes charge, she succeeds. And throughout the movie, we catch glimpses of a wounded mare hiding beneath the armor of an evil lieutenant, and we see pretty clearly what she wants and why it's driven her to such dark ends. And, of course, this being MLP, she finds herself on the path to redemption in the final act and ultimately saves the day, willingly sacrificing herself to do so. Though she's saved by Twilight in the end, we see her redeem herself and get placed in uncertain waters by the end of the film, with Twilight being there like a beacon shining through Tempest's confusion and listlessness, like a lighthouse in the fog.
There's little wonder I left this movie shipping Twipest.
The bad for this movie mostly boils down to a lack of time. As I mentioned before, the diversity of settings in this film is both its greatest strength and greatest weakness. We see all these wonderful and awe-inspiring locales... for about 10 minutes each. Seaquestria in particular suffered the most from this. After arriving in the Queen's underwater throne room, the ponies are transformed into seaponies for all of a song and dance number before Twilight tries to steal the magic pearl thingy and they get kicked out. Mt. Aris is seen as something in the distance many times throughout the film, but upon their arrival, the ponies spend fewer than 5 minutes searching through the ruins before they get shuttled along to Seaquestria. Klugetown had the most time devoted to it, and as such we saw the most of it out of all the locales, which was barely enough to get to know the city and get a good feel for it. When I look back on the movie, I'll likely remember Mt. Aris and Seaquestria for their potential more so than what actually happens at each, but I'll at least have something more to think about with regards to Klugetown.
But this was a kids' movie, after all, so the writers tried to keep it down to about an hour and a half. Which, why being objectively the right choice for their market demographic, is a shame for us. A two hour movie would have given each of these locations more time to be explored and developed, and they all would have benefited from it.
And then the lack of time translates into the plot as well. It's not all that well paced because of the time constraints; the characters are blurring through locations awfully quickly and winning over allies and friends with either token gestures or songs instead of any real development. Near the end of the movie, Twilight is kidnapped and abducted by airship, taken back to Canterlot while her friends are left behind. Despite falling behind early, her friends somehow show up within hours of Twilight arriving in Canterlot despite having no means of transportation of their own, and this is never explained. They show up for the sake of the plot because they had to be there when they were. That's more or less it.
There were a bunch of other nitpicky things, but that's nitpicking and not really what I want to do here. I thought the pirates were largely boring, while Capper and Skystar were much more memorable and likable. But that's largely all I have to say on the movie, other than that they really used that PG rating. At one point, Pinkie starts losing it and ends up talking to a bleached griffon skull in the middle of the desert, and at the end of the movie, they turn the Storm King into stone and knock him off a balcony, where he shatters into big chunks of stone at the end. Make no mistake: they showed a character dying on screen in a horse movie for kids (and that doesn't even count the background shot of one scene where a stormbeast quite literally burns to death. Seriously, he stops moving as fire consumes him from head to toe). I was surprised by the little things the animators and writers were willing to push to show it's not all sunshine and rainbows in this movie.
So yeah, uh, tl;dr:
The Good: The animation, the new settings, Tempest Shadow, a few of the songs.
The Bad: The obvious slimming down the writers did to fit everything into 1:30:00, a few of the songs, largely uninspired plot (it's basically the original Spongebob Movie to the letter).
The Ugly: Spike continuing to be the perpetual butt of all jokes when he's turned into a pufferfish for some reason in Seaquestria.
Rating: 6.5/10
I could say more, but this is already long and rambly, so I won't. I still consider this foray into horsemovies a success (if not an amazing one), and I'll probably end up rewatching it at some point. In the end, the most important thing is that I had fun, got a new ship, and got to see more of the pony universe. For me, there's little else to ask for.
Seen the movie? Let me know what you think! I'm always open for more discussion on it.
Ante Legionem nihil erat, et nihil erit post Legionem
24
Yeah, the Twipest is strong with this one.
I just have nothing for them to do. D:
I'd rate it a little higher, like 7-7.5.
Actually it's almost exactly the same as the FIRST MLP: The Movie.
That got pointed out to me and I can easily see it.
YOU STOP RIGHT THERE!
4691785
You cannot stop me, I'm already shipping trash.
4691727
I haven't seen the first MLP movie, so I wouldn't know. I do know that both this movie and Spongebob feature friends venturing off into the unknown to find some sort of thing to save the day while getting pursued by the big bad's top minion, stressing their friendship along the way, and ultimately returning to their home with the friends they made and shit they learned while away to defeat the big bad without using the thing they went to get in the first place. Not exactly a bad thing, but the comparisons are there.
4691711
Must make the mares mash mouths.
4691885
68.media.tumblr.com/3b2c59f301d408bcbd6046a8ef059d98/tumblr_ows61odIFh1vetbwto2_1280.png
For you good sir, 1 Twipest.
4691885
I mean besides that :B
For the part about the world not being all sunshine and rainbows I think you forgetting about the part where someone literally offers TO TAKE TWILIGHT'S HORN. That even leaves more questions such as "what value do they hold?", "Does this mean that magic is held inside the horn and not the body? or is it more the horn channels it from outside the body and morphs it?", and most importantly "What do they do with the horns? Break them into dust? Other things?"
I agree that Tempest was easily the best thing about the movie.
I also agree that there's plenty to criticize, but I just... don't care. It was beautiful and it was fun and that's all I needed from it.