My Little Pony: Equestria Girls
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 Get up, get down, if you're gonna come around.
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My Little Pony: Equestria Girls is a 2013 Canadian-American flash animated fantasy musical film released as a part of Hasbro's My Little Pony: Equestria Girls toy line and media franchise of the same name, which is itself an anthropomorphized spin-off of the My Little Pony 2010 relaunch of the main My Little Pony franchise. The film was written by Meghan McCarthy and directed by Jayson Thiessen, and was produced by DHX Media's 2D animation studio in Vancouver, Canada for Hasbro Studios in the United States. It premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival on June 15, 2013, followed by limited release in the United States and Canada on June 16, 2013, with a home media release on August 6, 2013. It also commemorates the thirtieth anniversary of the launch of the original My Little Pony toy line.
Plot
The films stars the main cast of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic as teenage human girls. Princess Twilight Sparkle's crown, the element of magic, is stolen by Sunset Shimmer who disappears into a mirror that leads into the human world. Without the crown, all the other Elements of Harmony will have no power to protect Equestria, so Twilight and Spike go through the mirror to chase after the culprit to retrieve her crown. They discover themselves in a new world where Twilight is a teenaged human girl and Spike is a talking dog, and they find friends that resemble their pony friends from Equestria. Twilight works with her friends to become Princess of the Fall Formal to win her crown back from the human Sunset Shimmer and to "change the destiny of these two parallel worlds." The film takes place after the season three finale, around the Summertime shorts Make Up Shake Up, A Photo Booth Story, and Raise This Roof, and before the season four premiere.
Why It Rocks
- The concept tries a lot to not just be another generic high school teen story, as it's a lot more than just that.
- An impressive story with a use of the TV series and including human life.
- Good animation, thanks to using Adobe Flash, the same program the TV series used to make the animation.
- Awesome voice acting, thanks to all of the cast from the show reprising their roles.
- All of the main cast are still likable as usual. They are even likeable as their human selves.
- On that topic, all of their traits and personalites are here and haven't been changed:
- Twilight Sparkle is still the likable, natural born and intelligent leader of the Mane 6, who can be OCD at times.
- Spike, in particular, is still the loyal and lovable assistant to Twilight.
- Fluttershy is still the calm, but shy type of girl who takes care of animals, but can be easily frightened sometimes.
- Applejack is still the down-to-earth person who is well adjusted but can sometimes be stubborn.
- Rainbow Dash is still the well meaning, but speedy and sometimes irresponsible type of girl.
- Pinkie Pie is still the hyper, wacky, but joyful and happy comic relief type of girl who always throws parties.
- Rarity is still the artful, creative and generous type of girl, despite her occasional vain and melodramatic tendencies.
- The film introduces the new character known as Sunset Shimmer. A well-known character who started off as an antagonist in this film, but gets reformed in the end and becomes a protagonist in the sequels.
- There's a lot of side characters that are still likable just like the show, like Princess Celestia (Principal Celestia being the "human" incarnation).
- A lot of the characters from the show all make an appearance. Even the fan-favorite character known as Derpy Hooves still appears here.
- There are very funny moments like when human Pinkie Pie guesses correctly about Twilight's true identity.
- An awesome musical score composed by William Anderson.
- Really good song numbers like the Cafeteria Song and "A Strange World".
- It displays a great and solid message about how high schoolers shouldn't be diverted into categories like jocks, nerds, goths, and musicians, and that they should realize they are all similar than they think and that they can be friends no matter how different they are.
- There are some good callbacks to the previous episodes of the TV series like Rainbow Dash's "SO AWESOME!!"
Bad Qualities
- The plot is very cliché as it plays a lot of the typical high school movie tropes.
- Twilight is presented as a new transfer student who bumps into a nice guy named Flash Sentry who is a bland love interest and plays guitar.
- Twilight clashes with a snotty bully named Sunset Shimmer.
- There's a school dance that has a fall formal, and Twilight must win it with the help of her friends.
- Since it's done using Flash animation, some errors are common, though not as much as the show.
- The animation still switches between 30 and 60 frames per second.
- There are some gratuitous pop culture references (although normal for the show), such as Mean Girls and the Gangnam Style dance.
- There is some stereotyping in this film for the new characters:
- Sunset Shimmer's portrayal in this film comes off as more of a stereotypical alpha female/bully than an antagonist. Plus she can be unlikeable at times.
- Flash Sentry is a bland stereotypical male love interest for Twilight without any interesting interactions between the two.
- There are plotholes in the film, such as the reasoning for Twilight's friends not being able to go through the magic mirror and disrupt the balance but Spike could go through it without any practical downsides, or such as Twilight's crown only activating the Elements of Harmony, despite ALL of the elements being required for activation.
- There are weird moments in some scenes like when Fluttershy is excited to talk to Spike because he can talk, but when the camera gets so close to her face, her expression is very weird and oddly enough, creepy.
- There are unnecessary filler romance scenes involving Twilight and Flash Sentry.
- The decision to change Spike into a dog makes no sense, as it's heavily implied throughout the series (even before this film was released) that he's like a little brother to Twilight and not just her assistant.
- At the end of the movie, The Mane Six are very happy at Twilight getting her crown back, but Celestia looks very unhappy for no reason about Sunset Shimmer's defeat. Which is considerably confusing.
Trivia
- While the pony Mane Six are 20+ years old, the human Mane Six are slightly younger since they're high school students.
References