"My Little Pony: The Movie" is a good send-off to the TV series, "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic", but it also has some weaknesses as well.
Putting the more advanced-looking art style aside, and the great soundtracks, I'll be talking about the plot primarily, which is still good as a whole.
Being the conclusion of the current MLP chapter, we look at whole of Equestria, especially Twilight Sparkle, preparing for the " Festival of Friendship", which was disrupted by an invasion by the Storm King's minions and henchmen. Naturally, everyone is enslaved, and all the princesses but Twilight are turned to stone. The latter is needed so that the Storm King, an ape-looking main villain of the movie, may use the alicorns' powers for himself.
The main characters (Twilight, Spike, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack) manage to escape Canterlot via a waterfall and decided to find help. Twilight overhears Princess Celestia, her mentor, trying to summon the "Hippos", but this misunderstanding led to a series of events that came too quickly. The show took its time, usually two or more episodes, to look at each problem, villain, or new characters, so seeing characters like Capper, who tries to sell the ponies, allegedly taking them to the wrong hippos, on purpose to pay off his debts, all the way to meeting Griffin pirates working for the Storm King, against their will, felt a bit rushed.
By the time both Capper and the pirates decided to purposely stall for time, so Twilight and friends can escape from the pirate ship, since the Storm King's minions showed up, the ponies finally find the real "hippos"... or "Hippogriff", horse creatures with fingers, wings, and beaks like birds. I thought that this part of the plot was interesting, especially with Twilight trying to talk to Queen Novo into helping the ponies take down the Storm King with her orb, to fooling her friends to keep Queen Novo busy so to secretly steal the orb... only for the friends, feeling betrayed, going on a shouting match with Twilight on the gloomy-looking sea side.
With the ponies in bad mood, going their separate ways, Twilight is easily captured, with another weakness of the plot shown. Tempest Shadow, a bitter helper to the Storm King, is just another Starlight Glimmer, the TV series main villain from season 5. Both Tempest and Starlight had rough childhoods at the cost of their friends, grew up feeling bitter towards the idea of making any new friends... only for Twilight to put some senses into their heads, and welcome them to Equestria's growing circle of friendship. Otherwise, Tempest could have had the opportunity of being a memorable MLP villain.
But, the main villain is, of course, the Storm King. It turns out that he dislikes everything about the ponies or "friendship", but very interested in obtaining the princesses' powers for himself. Even though he can now control the day and night, the movie doesn't go into details as to why the Storm King is the Storm King, or why he wanted the powers so badly, even lying that he'd be able to fix Tempest's broken horn. The Storm King, not just based on how he looks, feels like another Lord Tirek, the TV series villain from season 4 finale; they both hate ponies, but love their powers.
And also, we have three Pegasus with Twilight and friends, that, from walking into the desert (half-dying) to falling from the pirate ship, you'd be screaming "But some of you guys can fly, or have magic!".
Honestly, we could have more serious villains than what we got, especially when looking back to those of the 1980s era of My Little Pony, but, otherwise, everything else about the story was good. From Twilight and the princesses planning the Festival of Friendship to successfully pulling it off, and even welcoming Tempest, were pleasant to watch, and a welcome addition to the overall FiM canon.
They were also moments I did laugh out loud over, from Twilight and friends being themselves to Queen Novo of the Hippogriffs telling her daughter that she's grounded.
Sure, the movie won't be nominated for the best animated movie of the year, and it admittedly reuse some concepts from the FiM series, but, if you don't have anything else to watch, or you have young kinds, this movie is still worth watch, most especially to fans of the series.
Putting the more advanced-looking art style aside, and the great soundtracks, I'll be talking about the plot primarily, which is still good as a whole.
Being the conclusion of the current MLP chapter, we look at whole of Equestria, especially Twilight Sparkle, preparing for the " Festival of Friendship", which was disrupted by an invasion by the Storm King's minions and henchmen. Naturally, everyone is enslaved, and all the princesses but Twilight are turned to stone. The latter is needed so that the Storm King, an ape-looking main villain of the movie, may use the alicorns' powers for himself.
The main characters (Twilight, Spike, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack) manage to escape Canterlot via a waterfall and decided to find help. Twilight overhears Princess Celestia, her mentor, trying to summon the "Hippos", but this misunderstanding led to a series of events that came too quickly. The show took its time, usually two or more episodes, to look at each problem, villain, or new characters, so seeing characters like Capper, who tries to sell the ponies, allegedly taking them to the wrong hippos, on purpose to pay off his debts, all the way to meeting Griffin pirates working for the Storm King, against their will, felt a bit rushed.
By the time both Capper and the pirates decided to purposely stall for time, so Twilight and friends can escape from the pirate ship, since the Storm King's minions showed up, the ponies finally find the real "hippos"... or "Hippogriff", horse creatures with fingers, wings, and beaks like birds. I thought that this part of the plot was interesting, especially with Twilight trying to talk to Queen Novo into helping the ponies take down the Storm King with her orb, to fooling her friends to keep Queen Novo busy so to secretly steal the orb... only for the friends, feeling betrayed, going on a shouting match with Twilight on the gloomy-looking sea side.
With the ponies in bad mood, going their separate ways, Twilight is easily captured, with another weakness of the plot shown. Tempest Shadow, a bitter helper to the Storm King, is just another Starlight Glimmer, the TV series main villain from season 5. Both Tempest and Starlight had rough childhoods at the cost of their friends, grew up feeling bitter towards the idea of making any new friends... only for Twilight to put some senses into their heads, and welcome them to Equestria's growing circle of friendship. Otherwise, Tempest could have had the opportunity of being a memorable MLP villain.
But, the main villain is, of course, the Storm King. It turns out that he dislikes everything about the ponies or "friendship", but very interested in obtaining the princesses' powers for himself. Even though he can now control the day and night, the movie doesn't go into details as to why the Storm King is the Storm King, or why he wanted the powers so badly, even lying that he'd be able to fix Tempest's broken horn. The Storm King, not just based on how he looks, feels like another Lord Tirek, the TV series villain from season 4 finale; they both hate ponies, but love their powers.
And also, we have three Pegasus with Twilight and friends, that, from walking into the desert (half-dying) to falling from the pirate ship, you'd be screaming "But some of you guys can fly, or have magic!".
Honestly, we could have more serious villains than what we got, especially when looking back to those of the 1980s era of My Little Pony, but, otherwise, everything else about the story was good. From Twilight and the princesses planning the Festival of Friendship to successfully pulling it off, and even welcoming Tempest, were pleasant to watch, and a welcome addition to the overall FiM canon.
They were also moments I did laugh out loud over, from Twilight and friends being themselves to Queen Novo of the Hippogriffs telling her daughter that she's grounded.
Sure, the movie won't be nominated for the best animated movie of the year, and it admittedly reuse some concepts from the FiM series, but, if you don't have anything else to watch, or you have young kinds, this movie is still worth watch, most especially to fans of the series.