MLP Gen 5 Movie: A Review (but only sorta since like half this review is gonna talk about Hitch Trailblazer lol) · 7:49pm Oct 17th, 2021
To be honest, prior to watching the MLP Gen 5 movie, I had literally ZERO hype for it. I walked into it with virtually no expectations... and honestly, I was actually expecting it to be kinda, well, bad.
When they were first revealed, I didn't like the character designs all that much (and to be fair, they do have the OBVIOUS "Disney" face shape that basically all animated Disney characters have these days... Look at Anna and Elsa from Frozen, then looks at Sunny and Izzy's faces. See what I mean? I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees it, right?) and the first impressions of the characters personality-wise seemed really bland to me. ESPECIALLY Hitch Trailblazer. One main character who's male, surrounded by female characters... jeez, I wonder what his character is gonna be like? The promo image of Hitch all but confirmed my suspicions, too. I mean, look at this douche-chad's stupid fucking "Flynn smolder" face:
Jeez. What a himbo. Look at his stupid fucking face, amiright? What a douche.
The whole racism subplot they seemed to be going for also made me roll my eyes a little bit since it's an overdone, easy trope to write something about. And just from the trailer, the whole thing had a certain sense of "kiddy"ness that just didn't appeal to me at all, as well (which is ironic, since I barely made it through the intro storybook sequence the first time I watched the G4 pilot... to think of how much the last few years of my life would have been different if I hadn't decided to power through it? Weird, man. Weird.)
All of these impressions were made from next to no material other than a teaser trailer and a movie clip preview of Izzy and Sunny from the lighthouse that made me go, "....eh." Hell, I didn't even watch the movie until today, despite the fact that it came out a little while ago. I genuinely wasn't interested.
But this morning, I just decided "What the hell" and sat down to watch the trainwreck. After all, I've been a Brony since 2012... it wouldn't be right not to at least watch the damn thing, right? So, I sat with my arms crossed, leaning back in my computer chair a clutching a mug of hot coffee in my hands. My eyes were half-closed, and I think there was even a little smirk on my face. I pressed "Play."
And I watched...
...by about 20 minutes in, my smirk was gone. By 30, I was leaning forward in my chair. Halfway through the "You're Gonna Fit Right In" song, I had a stupid-looking grin on my face. The kind of grin that you make when you're like, "Well, shit. I fucked THIS one up!"
Let's cut to the chase: I REALLY liked this movie. I liked it significantly more than the G4 movie. In fact, I liked it significantly more than a LOT of animated movies I've seen over the past several years, movies with much bigger studios and budgets. The jokes were on-point, and I laughed out loud multiple times. I liked the music. And while the plot was pretty predictable and the world-building was nothing earth-shattering... Damn it, I loved the characters. As in, every single Mane 5 character was great... yes, even Hitch.
Let's get the "bad" out of the way now, though...
THE BAD
First, the plot is by the numbers and quite predictable. Second, based just on the movie, this pony universe is significantly less magical and interesting than G4's Equestria, even though it wasn't bad by any means, either. The whole thing is a BIT contrived and a bit of a mess, and the pacing is a little too frenetic, especially toward the end. Some of the songs were a little more generic and "poppy" sounding than the more showtunes-y style of G4, which I kind of prefer.
....but honestly? I barely gave a shit about any of that. Let's get to the good!
THE GOOD
Remember all of the crap I was saying before? Well, throw (most of) it in the trash. I'm not going to a review of the "movie" per se, but let's just talk about the characters and why I think they're good or even GREAT. Starting with the main protagonist, Sunny!
The Characters
Sunny Starscout
Neither the best nor the worst character of the Mane 5, but she fits in well as the main protagonist. A bit cringey at times at the beginning of the movie, but still sympathetic and cute. She's funny, well-rounded, and has just that little bit of Twily-esque neuroticism that we all knew and loved about Twilight Sparkle. But she also isn't a copy, either! And I like how even though she was the crusader for getting along with unicorns and pegasi, she still had a lot of pretty ignorant and lowkey racist assumptions about Izzy when she met her, which the movie handled really well. It makes her character a little bit more dynamic to me.
Onto the next two...
Zipp Storm and Pipp Petals
Also not very much I'm going to say about these two, other than the fact that I liked them both (even Pipp... who I didn't even realize was going to be a part of the Mane cast and lowkey even thought was going to be a minor villain at first...) and I liked how despite the sharp dichotomy between them, they still got along and respected each other. But I will say, these two were much less memorable, particularly since they were introduced so much later in the movie. Nothing much in-depth I can say about either of them, but yeah... I liked 'em.
NOW: Onto the two best characters. Starting with...
Izzy Moonbow
Ta. Fucking. Da.
I love her.
Izzy is what earlier G4 Pinkie Pie was: zany, but not stupid. Random... until she isn't, and you realize that she's much less "random" as she is just marching to the beat of her own drum and following her own set of logical rules. Sometimes oblivious, but always kind. Incredibly observant.
Oh, and fucking hilarious. So many good one-liners from her. I didn't just exhale through my nose at some of her lines, I straight up LAUGHED at them. Which brings me to a side-point: the dialogue in this movie was actually good. Witty banter abound.
But she wasn't the best character. No, that goes to another character in the movie...
H I TC H
Look at this FUCKing stud.
Remember when I said I liked all the Mane 5 characters... even Hitch? Pssh, screw that.
What I meant to say was ESPECIALLY Hitch.
Best pony. Everything I thought Hitch would be, everything I thought the movie was going to do to his character, everything I assumed based on one look of one promo image... lol.
So many shows these days, especially ones with a "token" male character, treat said token male like a stupid himbo that has no other purpose than to be ridiculed by the rest of the female cast. They portray said token male as a blithering imbecile who is incapable of anything, yet is also super arrogant and fancies himself a playboy. His character often only exists in the show to be taken "down a peg" by the female characters as a way to prop them up and have a #girlpower moment, which feels cheap and unearned rather than empowering. This is particularly true of sitcoms with male characters, ESPECIALLY dads. I pretty much assumed that Hitch was going to be a punching bag for the rest of the Mane cast and would serve no other purpose than to have the other Mane characters roll their eyes at him whenever he acts like a stereotypical chad-douche male.
But Hitch? Fits none of those traits.
He's strong and capable. He's well-liked and well-respected by other ponies in the town, and he reciprocates that respect. He's empathetic and caring (being Sunny's only real friend left in the town) and has a great work ethic, but he also has a rather neurotic and fearful side to himself, too.
And sure, he can be a bit of a dope sometimes, but the movie doesn't try to metaphorically chop his balls off when jokes are made a little at his expense, either. He's "masculine" in his character's portrayal, but he isn't afraid to be a little silly or just "vibe" with the moment.
Vibin'.
He's also a fucking stud, he knows it... and the movie doesn't make that into some kind of bad thing! The movie doesn't try to "humble" Hitch and give him a "well, I guess I'm just a fucking sexist moron ugly neckbeard after all, HURRDURR!" moment. It lets him be goofy and sometimes make a fool of himself, but it also shows how helpful, funny, and competent he is, too. He has confidence, but it isn't ill-placed and it isn't portrayed as some toxic trait for a male to have. In fact, Hitch's character embodies the OPPOSITE of toxic masculinity(which is not just some SJW buzzword, it's unfortunately a very REAL thing).
Look, I'm not gay or anything... but if I was gay, I'd totally let Hitch fuck me in the ass a little using my saliva as lube. I mean, I'm NOT gay... but if I was, I'm just saying that Hitch could totally claim my ass.
I also love his thing with animals. I like how he is actually a bit annoyed by it, too... it's a way different vibe than Fluttershy's whole thing, and I like the contrast!
CONCLUSION
This movie is pretty great. I liked it a lot. Hitch is best pony. If you haven't seen it yet, you should see it ASAP!
And that's really it. Review/blog over!
~Arwhale
With this endorsement, maybe I’ll give it a watch. I was holding off for similar reasons. I was holding of you see if any of the old reactors I watched would react to it and just watch it then (which is how I watched the last chunk of g4).
I get that. My friend forced me to watch the s1 premiere and Basically skipped all the intros. The kiddiness became more of an issue over time for me. Things change I guess.
… alright then. I’m gonna be honest, seems a little gay (or bi). I guess everyone has an exception lol.
Agreed. I loved how they made Hitch a well rounded character, and made him well, a stud, but not have him be a giant asshole.
And yeah, toxic masculinity is....well, disgusting.
Izzy is amazing
It's taken me close to three weeks to really settle with this movie. I had a bit of a bad experience the first time through, but the more I've lived with it for a while, and savoured it (which is what I like to do with my animated cinema), the more I've come around to it.
It is objectively good? No, I can't go that far. The pacing gets more breakneck after the just-right first act, especially towards the end. The plot and characters take a few too many spontaneous realisation/decisions. The two pegasi sisters are rather badly realised characters on top of being bland (not helped by having the only two bad voice performances - Pipp's is just normal animated film phoned-in, but Zipp's is very distractingly bad, in voice and "acting"). The world building is rather a shambles that makes very little logical sense when examined, and that's without even trying to reconcile it with G4 canon. Which, yeah, the FiM connection is another mistake. And it goes without saying that there's heavy tonal whiplash between the bright, bubbly, poppy kids' movie it wants to be clashing with the world-changing plot it sketches out for itself, especially when the film has to delve into the somber seriousness towards the end. I could go on, mentioning how almost everything to do with Sprout is a washout (his song being the one exception), but it's not really necessary.
And yet… somehow, it's largely enjoyable anyway. A lot of elements contribute here - exquisite visuals and animation is a big one (the faces certainly do have off angles and movements, but no more then any mid-tier CG animation, and this is far less expensive then them - I'd wager $20 million), with Zipp's narrowed eyes being the only drastic mistake. The songs, while standard kids' poppy numbers, somehow click. The comedy stays away from belly laughs and keeps a very good success ratio with mild chucklers, helped majorly by the film having almost none of the usual three-tiered system of animated film jokes, in toilet humour, innuendos and pop culture references (the film only tries that last one a few times, and good thing too, but they are among the jokes that fail). And while the characters are mostly standard kids' film characters, without the true legitimate depth that made writing the Mane 6 so easy, they are quite likeable and sympathetic and fun to be around.
I will second you on Hitch, it's amazing how almost none of the "token male" jokes and tropes are present (mostly - the film picks up a thread of him being out of his depth and Zipp ribbing him about it, but drops it almost as quickly). And indeed, he may well be the deepest and most fully realised character, even if Izzy is certainly the most entertaining.
In a more general sense, it's amazing how even when some of the Mane 5 do feel of the same character type as one of the Mane 6, they never feel like copies. Izzy's randomness is of a far different variety then Pinkie Pie, and she feels more given to considering something sad could happen. She's not as out-there, in other words, and somehow they makes her different without feeling weaker. Yet, anyway. Sunny isn't Twilight, despite the plot even demanding we compare the two, and of course, Hitch doesn't feel like Applejack and Fluttershy meshed together, as you noted. Zipp and Pipp are a different story, but they feel more just bland and poorly-written then a Rainbow Dash/Twilight mashup and Rarity flipped around, so we'll have to see on them.
I guess it speaks to the magic of ponies, or something, that even when the film is wading through lengthy problematic stretches (most obviously, with everything from after "Fit Right In" to the lighthouse's destruction, almost nothing works in those 20 minutes), all it has to do is have Sunny deliver a heartwarming speech on love and friendship, and have the leaders push the frame back together, and all feels right again. Ditto for the campfire scene, unreservedly my top pick in the movie, where the arcs of Sunny, Izzy and Hitch are so beautifully interwoven. So even when much of the film doesn't work (truly, only about 1/3 of the runtime is content I'd chose to rewatch), it's easy to just take away what you like. I think it's also the fact that the film feels honestly positive, and not cynical, which helps matters a lot here (whereas the end of the show DID feel cynical and dark, and not by intent, in a way that sours even thinking about it).
I will say, though, that the more "worldbuilding as the story dictates" feeling, the tendency for logic to be shortchanged for a joke quite often, the mushy, bland slates that are Pipp and Zipp, and other things, make writing fanfiction for this much harder. Or at least, getting bitten by the bug to do so, where the ideas for stories just leap into your head fully formed. Not… the worst thing, I don't need everything I watch to feel the need to make fanfiction for it. Enough people are doing it anyway regardless that there'll be gems to discover anyway.
My big worry about the movie is how metaphorical it (supposedly) is and how much social commentary there (supposedly) is. Especially when it is a subject I am sick of hearing on every single topic no matter how completely unrelated they are. I enjoyed FiM as escapism, and as another described: "I came to the [fantasy show] to watch fictional characters solve fictional problems in a fictional world". Can you provide me any details on the level of commentary/metaphor/allegory/etc. there is in the movie?
Welcome aboard the Hitch Trailblazer Bi-curious Express.
In addition to Hitch, Zipp also gets points for fighting stereotypes by having a love of athleticism and science at the same time. You'd barely know it from the movie since it was a one-shot scene showing her as the inventor of the fly-by-wire system, however. Hopefully her and all the characters will have their personalities fully explored in the specials and series since the movie only gave the audience a small glimpse of them.
5596970
If you haven't already done so, then oh yeah, I highly recommend watching it! It ain't perfect by any stretch, but it was much more pleasant than I thought it would be.
Despite how much I love G4, there were always "kiddy" moments that would bring me out of it and remind me that I was watching... well, My Little Pony. Hence why no one in my daily life knows I'm a fan of this series... but oh well!
It's weird, because I am totally straight, but I could almost imagine myself being totally gay AF for Hitch. Y'know?
Like, I'm not ACTUALLY sexually attracted to Hitch... but he's a fuckin stud, dude. It's great. LOL
5596977
Glad I'm not the only one who feels like this! Happy you enjoyed it, too.
5596978
I find myself agreeing with most everything you said. I do think that the show can help with fleshing out Zipp and Pipp, though. The little glimpses of their characters from the movie at very least make them likeable to me, and if the show can go deeper into their characters we may have fanfic paydirt.
I also disagree a little bit with the voice acting critiques for them... considering that Zipp was voiced by a Youtuber, I don't think she did badly at all. Not amazing, but I thought she was serviceable.
5597133
It ain't THAT deep, and it honestly isn't THAT preachy, either. It may be overdone, but it really did feel rather confined to the "pony world" in my opinion. I'd recommend watching it, personally.
5597761
HAH! I'm not actually "bi-curious" in real life at all, but I can't deny that Hitch is a handsome motherfucker.
And I did like that glimpse of Zipp's character, too! The movie did not do a lot to flesh her character out, but if the TV show can touch on both of those aspects of her personality at once, it will be really great! I WANT to like her (and Pipp's) character(s) on more than just a superficial level, but I think the show will be the thing that pulls that off for me. I'm a little bit excited for it, too. Never thought I'd say that... but here we are.
5606067
Yeah, like, Chihiro from Danganronpa is one of the good critiques of toxic masculinity