My Little Pony: A New Generation (7/10)
This is a good film. What irks me is that up until the last 10 minutes, I'd call it a great film. And okay, sure, this is coming from someone who already likes MLP, but if anything, if you're familiar with MLP before seeing this, you'll arguably have a slightly worse time, because if you're a lore-hound, you'll be busy asking questions that are never answered.
So, anyway, this takes place in the same continuity as Generation 4, but way, WAY in the future (despite there being no technological progress). At this point, the three tribes have separated, and all fear each other. How and why this happened is never explained, nor is it explained why the windigoes haven't returned as a result (see what I mean about the lore issues?) Nor is it explained where every other non-pony species went, nor are any of them mentioned. This doesn't bother me too much, but if you're looking at this from a pure canon-based standpoint, there's a hundred questions that are never answered. It's arguably to the film's detriment that it's in the same continuity as G4, because it could have kept the premise, and arguably been just as strong, if not stronger for it.
Still, anyway, judging this as a film in of itself, it's good. Good characters, good dialogue (actually burst out laughing quite a few times), and good, if simple themes. It's kind of like Zootopia (if not as good) in terms of theme and how it presents them, but never in a preachy manner - prejudice is bad, prejudice begets paranoia, paranoia begets more prejudice, so on, and so forth. Not quite the same thing, but point is, it's a case of how you can have a "kid's film" that touches on such themes without talking down to them.
Going to touch on some issues with the above though, namely that not all character development is equal. Of the Mane 5, Pipp easily gets the least character development, and sure, she's the last one to be introduced, but even so, there's still a noticable gap. Furthermore, the songs. The songs in of themselves are good, I can't complain, but in a musical, ideally songs should develop plot and/or character. To be frank, not all of the songs do that, or if they do, go on a bit too long.
So, one last thing, the final ten minutes. We're at this weird point where the film presents us a supposed McGuffin, attempts to subvert the McGuffin, but is still using the McGuffin in a sense. Basically, magic (and friendship) can be returned with three crystals (crystals that were never in G4, so this is another example of the links between the two weakening this film), but that doesn't work, but hey, maybe the true friendship wasn't in the crystals, but rather, the friends we made along the way? Right? Well, yeah...except the crystals activate anyway, and do restore magic, and friendship is therefore restored (centuries/millennia of prejudice can apparently be overcome overnight, didn't ya know?), and all's right in the world. Oh, and Sunny's an alicorn now, because apparently alicorns have become to G4 what super saiyans became to DBZ - a dime a dozen.
Actually, in fairness, I can sort of understand the alicorn 'thing,' but I still dislike it in this case.
One last thing, the references to G4 that do work IMO are the ones where you'll blink and you miss. Such as when they go through the ruined station and find the Wonderbolts poster (in the context of shattered glass and old advertisments), and the single tree that they find in the field? My guess is that it's the Tree of Harmony. Which indicates that so much time has passed that the Everfree Forest has become grassland, and that the Tree of Harmony is now standing alone as just a normal tree works as a visual metaphor.
So, yeah. Good. Could have been better. But still good.
