#Lmao people straightup putting putting essays on my ask box now

[dapper-lil-arts]

In retrospect, it’s amazing how I like pretty much everything in the MLP movie EXCEPT the actual story lol.

Art Direction and Animation✅

Great! Love the attempt at a more cinematic scale, the 3D assets are implemented pretty well for the most part, and the characters themselves are all fluid and expressive (the shiny eye models take a second to adjust to, but you get used to them quickly)

New Additions to the Setting✅

Honestly, as far as world-building goes, there’s a lot of good material here! All the new locations feel visually distinct and have a lot of personality. The characters they introduce alongside them are likeable and fun, drawing you into the new environment while also leaving room to explore them further in the future. Kind of sucks that the Hippogriffs were the only ones who got any real follow-up after this, but hey, whatcha gonna do?

Villains ✅

I feel like we should all know at this point how utterly ICONIC Tempest Shadow is, but honestly the other antagonists aren’t too bad either.

Capper is great as the smooth-talking con-artist trope, and you can tell that Taye Diggs was having a lot of fun voicing him (his turn to good happens way too quickly, but whatever).

Storm King isn’t there to do much but stand around and be menacing until the final battle, so I appreciate that they took more of a comedic approach with him. Helps balance out with Tempest more and makes his scenes feel less like a waste of time.

Grubber is one of the most Josh Gad-coded “we need a funny/cute comedic relief sidekick for the kiddies” characters in existence, but he’s not in it long enough to be annoying, so I’ll let it slide.

Songs ✅

Admittedly, the soundtrack as a whole isn’t their best work, but “Open Up Your Eyes” is STILL one of the best songs in all of G4, and a top-tier villain song in general.

I also think “I’m the Friend You Need” is underrated and deserves more love (Taye Diggs brought SO much charisma to this role and we need to acknowledge it).

Story ❌

A glorified fetch quest meant to take characters from Point A to Point B. No greater themes or interesting ideas explored, other than the bog standard “friendship is magic!”. The characters themselves get good individual moments here and there, but the shift to a larger, group narrative means we don’t get time to explore their dynamics. The new characters are likeable, but outside of Tempest, we don’t get the time to really know them or develop them properly. And pretty much none of them end up making an appearance in the show afterwards, so they’re just kind of…there.

Oh, and to top it all off, we get another classic case of “framing Twilight as being needlessly angry and out-of-line when she’s the only one taking her job seriously”. I’m just saying, if you want Pinkie to be at her Pinkiest, don’t put her in the middle of a “end-of-the-world” narrative.

Really does a good job at demonstrating how the show is at its best when dealing with simple, slice-of-life storytelling, and how it can’t really handle much outside of that.

Honestly, if you were gonna do a big budget, theatrical version of G4, you’re better off sticking with a more laid back, “Winnie The Pooh” anthology style of storytelling than attempting some grander melodrama that you can’t follow through on.

But I digress.

6/10. Worth at least one watch (and maybe a rewatch of certain scenes later).

Eh, I wouldn't be as generous to the movie, but you def raise some good points, especially regarding the visuals, its a natural, interesting progression of how the show looks, even though I'm weirded out by the eye shines and sizes.