#they start off rather rocky but he unintentionally begins to win her over

[rio-rakuen]

(she could be talking to anyone, really)

this was actually one of the first things i worked on when falling into the ranma hell hole, i'm used to doing fake screenshots for another series (hi young justice), but i'm not too unhappy with this one!

[ramblesandmumblesofanerd]

Rambling Review: EQG - Rainbow Rocks

When we last discussed Equestria Girls, I came to the conclusion that, in spite of the numerous moments of sheer blandness and ridiculousness, the film itself was essentially harmless. The “villain”, if you could even call her that, did not impress me, the plot was uninspired in spite of the addition of MLP elements, and the structure was a complete mess from my personal perspective. So, imagine my surprise when a sequel was announced in 2014.  And by surprise, I mean revived agitation. Don’t get me wrong, while I now see that a sequel was inevitable, I was less open minded to the concept at the time. But, casual fans and critics alike all say that Rainbow Rocks is a vast improvement over it’s predecessor to this day. Are these claims true, or is the sequel just as nonsensical as the original film? Well, let’s jump through the mirror again and take a look.

We begin in the human world this time, as we see three obviously evil magical girls are feeding off a green fog surrounding a bunch of arguing teenagers. They talk about how the “food” has been quite insubstantial in recent years until the climax from the last movie explodes in the distance. The leader with a hairstyle fluffier than the fluffiest of unicorn plushies marvels at the light-show, and tells her sisters that their time has come. Equestrian magic has appeared in the human world, and they shall us it to make it’s denizens adore them. Cut to about maybe a month or so after the Fall Formal, where everyone is giving Sunset Shimmer the stink-eye after what she did. This is actually important for two reasons:

1. Consequences. I commented in the last film that leaving Sunset in the human world rather than have Princess Celestia punish her was not the right thing to do because it gave Sunset a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card. In this film, that point is rendered moot because nobody trusts Sunset, not believing for a moment that her days as a tyrant are over. And why should they? They were all used and abused by Sunset in various ways prior to the end of Equestria Girls, indirectly or otherwise. Which gives way to…

2. Regret. Sunset actually feels bad for what she did, and this time it feels more believable. There’s nothing like an entire school turned against you to make you feel cast out. Every time the subject of the Fall Formal and Sunset’s transformation is brought up, she becomes depressed or agitated about it. She wants to put the incident behind her and prove that she is better.

Which is why she has agreed to show some new transfer students around the school before someone tells them about her past. But, surprise, surprise, the transfer students are three familiar girls in tacky clothing. Sunny shows them around and mentions a school-wide musical fundraiser, which certainly gets the attention of the girls who start to act noticeably weird when Sunset asks about their matching necklaces.

Huh, obvious baddies who don’t want people to touch their bling. Are we sure Evil Sunset didn’t somehow multiply?

In all seriousness, the Dazzlings are a breath of fresh air to me, as they actually are given a little bit of character in comparison to Sunset’s one note “gimmie the crown” shtick. I especially love the Megatron/Starscream-esque relationship from Adagio Dazzle and Aria Blaze with a little bit of Sonata Dusk making memes in the background. And then things get even better after they sing their first song, “Battle of the Bands”. The three sisters saunter into the cafeteria and pretty much undo what Twilight did in the previous film and begin to divide the students. The Dazzlings manipulate everyone but Sunset and the HuMain 5 into fighting one another and turning the musical fundraiser into...well, a Battle of the Bands. And as the students argue, the girls feed off that familiar green fog again as our heroines watch in confusion.

Sunset, showing some more brains than in the previous film, comes to the immediate conclusion that the three girls obviously have dark magic on their side, and the gang goes to tell Principal Celestia in order to kick them out. But, unfortunately, Principal Celestia and Vice-Principal Luna are weaker than their Alicorn alternatives, and are already under the thrall of the Dazzlings, leaving the girls at a lost until Sunset remembers about a journal she had brought from Equestria years ago. The journal apparently acts as a primitive form of text messaging, allowing Sunset to send a message across the dimensions by writing a message in her book which will appear in another back in Equestria. By sheer luck, Twilight is already in possession of the magical, glowing, vibrating second journal which receives Sunset’s message, and she not only determines that the Dazzlings are Sirens banished from Equestria by the Dumbledore/Gandalf/Merlin of Pony Lore, Starswirl the Bearded, but she also Macgyvers a way to open the portal between the two worlds early using the journal’s magic.

So, Twilight and Spike return to the human world, leaving the others behind to avoid the confusion that would come from having two of everyone running around. Everyone back in the human world is excited to see Twilight come back, even Sunset, who offers to help Twilight up after a rocky entry. This brief moment is important. The way Twilight initially hesitates shows that even she rightfully doesn’t trust Sunset yet. It, again, shows that all is not forgiven like we thought back in the previous film’s finale.

So, by now you're probably asking “why is Twilight even here?”. Well, since Principal Celestia is basically a puppet, the HuMain 5 believe the only way to deal with the Dazzlings now is to blast them back to the stone age with the same Deus Ex Machina attack from the Fall Formal. But, since this film isn’t supposed to be thirty minutes long, this plan backfires, not only making Twilight and the HuMain 5 look like fools, but also expose their resistance to the Dazzlings’ mind-control. While Adagio theorizes that these girls could be the source of the Equestrian magic she had witnessed long ago, the girls retreat to make a new plan at Pinkie’s house during a slumber party.

So Plan C goes something like this: have Twilight write a “counter-spell song”, play it during the Battle of the Bands and defeat the Dazzlings. Why would this work? Well, because the HuMain 5’s magical powers seem to pop up whenever they play their instruments for a band Rainbow Dash and her friends started for the fundraiser. What a coincidence. Actually, while we’re here, can we discuss how the human version of Rainbow Dash acts throughout this film? While the pony version has been known to be quite egotistical and self-absorbed at times, this version multiplies these attributes to the point of being abrasive. Constantly calling the band “hers”, cheating at video games, not wanting to back down as lead vocalist when the others volunteer Twilight in order to pull off the counter-spell, even ignoring Fluttershy when she wants the band to try playing a song she wrote herself. I know technically the human one is not the same character as the pony one, but Rainbow Dash is just so unlikable in this film.

After a brief moment to both address how Sunset and Twilight are not so different after all and to have a shout-out to all the Maud Pie fans, the gang return to the Battle of the Bands after a less than successful rehearsal which mostly consisted of bickering more than music. The Rainbooms flub their first outing through the obvious sabotage from Snips and Snails, but they somehow get to move along with the other competitors who won Round One. That doesn’t mean everyone is happy about the competition however, as even Flash Sentry starts spewing insults at the girl he once crushed on thanks to the Dazzling’s magic. Speaking of, Sunset tries to talk her Equestrian foes down, but the Sirens know of her past endeavors and turn the tables before they take the stage.

After another great, if not more blunt song, called Under Our Spell, we see that the Rainbooms are actually making progress in spite of the constant internal drama and the sabotage from their premiere. More on that in a bit, as another great song pops up...only to end right away. This song sung by Trixie, Tricks Up My Sleeve, is actually quite a good song, and I wish we could have heard the whole thing in the film if only just for one lyric. So, just for you guys, allow me to play this one lyric. LadyTenkage, this one’s for you~

And this is what happens when online friends subscribe to me on YouTube: inside jokes with a dash of schadenfreude. Oh...I’m so gonna get murdered for that when we next meet face to face.

Anyways, after more of Rainbow Dash feeding her ego by singing a song about how awesome she is (which I cannot stand), the girls start to show their pony powers, but Sunset intervenes before the Dazzling can feed off them. She and the Rainbooms are booed for this, but the Dazzlings use their ever-growing power to manipulate Principal Celestia and Vice-Principal Luna into allowing the girls to advance to the final round, much to Trixie’s rage. But, again, the Dazzlings stroke Trixie’s ego and plant the idea to trap the Rainbooms as an act of revenge, which she does. This prompts the HuMain 5 to, once again, bicker and unintentionally feed the Dazzlings their magic as the Sirens perform on stage above them.

This is where Sunset finally shows some backbone and tells her new friends to stop arguing and instead focus on actually solving what is causing the conflicts, otherwise the counter-spell Twilight has been trying to make this whole time will never work and the Dazzlings will win. So, of course the Rainbooms reconcile, of course Spike rescues them with the one background character who isn’t under the Dazzlings’ control, and of course they go to face their enemies in eye-gouging-ly colorful outfits.

And now, for the best climax in Equestria Girls history...until the next one.

Okay, first the Dazzlings go through their own pony transformation complete with ears, fin-wings red eyes, and astral-projections of themselves in their pure Equestrian forms. Then, the Rainbooms show up with Vinyl Scratch who somehow owns a transforming car.

Transformers! Hasbro doesn’t care.

Next comes an all out rock battle, with guitars blaring, vocalists giving it their all, Sirens screaming red versions of Danny Phantom’s ghostly wail, and the Rainbooms needing Sunset to help win the fight. And, with a toss of her jacket, she does. She starts to sing alongside the people who have stood alongside her through thick and thin throughout this movie, and she goes under the standard pony-fication, leading up to the most awesome thing I have seen in all of Equestria Girls. Period.

Through the power of friendship and music, the Rainbooms summon a giant, rainbow maned alicorn who blasts the Dazzlings and shatters their gems, which reduces them to being ordinary humans, all while epic music plays in the background.

Where was this in movie one!? This epic finale which shows how much power these characters have when they actually have a sense of unity is so much better than “lol, you can’t hurt us because friendship”. And the fact that it took the help of Sunset to summon what I shall now call the Alicorn God of Rock not only shows how much power these girls truly have, but it also begins a new chapter for Sunset’s redemption. Moments like this actually grab my attention, more so than the obligatory easter eggs and using even more stale high school movie plots.

Back to the film, the Dazzlings run off the presumably starve in an alley while the Rainbooms send Twilight on her way home. Twilight makes an obligatory speech about how this is “goodbye ‘til next time”, but a little cliffhanger begs to differ, as we’re finally shown that Twilight and Spike indeed have counterparts in the human world, and the human Twilight has set her eyes on Canterlot High’s magical mischief.

And with that, Rainbow Rocks ends with a nice credits montage of Canterlot High’s students starting to truly accept Sunset Shimmer as one of them. So, what did I think of Rainbow Rocks in comparison to it’s predecessor? Well, on the whole, I have to say that Rainbow Rocks obviously excels where Equestria Girls fails. It actually dedicates time to establishing characters and their traits rather than copy and paste typical high school stereotypes for the sake of filling in the blanks. For example, Sunset Shimmer, a character I despised for being a bland villain, actually makes an attempt to be a better person in spite of the insurmountable odds placed against her. And good Lord, the Sirens! Compared to Sunset Shimmer, these ladies were fantastic villains. Unlike the she-demon, they actually had presence and were a constant threat both on and off screen, making it feel like there was more at stake than just popularity. And the music! Unlike most of the songs from the original film, Rainbow Rocks succeeded in...well, rocking! The Dazzling’s songs, Tricks Up My Sleeves, even The Rainbooms’ songs (so long as we ignore the ego-stroking “Awesome As I Want To Be”) were all incredible, and I would listen to them all again if given the chance.

However, like the original film, there are also some notable faults in Rainbow Rocks. The HuMain 5 were easily the weakest part of the film, their constant arguing became a tad grating in spite of it’s necessity to the plot. Which reminds me, the award for most annoying character of this film goes to Rainbow Dash, whose entire routine in this film consists of her stroking her ego to the point of climaxing. While I’m not expecting her to be as restrained as her pony counterpart, I expect at least some form of control from her even if she is a teenager.  Also, some of the plot elements, such as how the magic that has suddenly appeared in the human world works, is not explained as much as an intellectual audience would like.

“Who cares” RD? Well, I care. The audience cares. Everyone cares! Which is why one of the shorts made before the next film focuses on Sunset actually trying to explain the magic in a logical, scientific way...with less than satisfying results.

And, yes, much like I stated in in previous review, this film uses more high school movie tropes: The Battle of the Bands. But, unlike Equestria Girls, there’s something that actually allows the film to stand on it’s own. Maybe it’s the Dazzlings manipulating the students and staff like puppets, maybe it’s the Equestrian magic, maybe because it was an actual Battle of the Bands, or maybe it was that incredible ending that I love so much. All in all, Rainbow Rocks was actually fun to watch in comparison to Equestria Girls. I’m glad I watched it, and I think I would actually watch it again should the urge take me over. Is it perfect? No. But I can forgive Rainbow Rocks for it’s flaws because I feel like it actually made an effort to have a higher quality than Equestria Girls. It actually feels like a competent story that I can enjoy over and over again. 

All I can really say is Rainbow Rocks rocks.

In the meantime, never stop rambling. TM