My Little Pony: A New Generation short review (SPOILERS)

WolfJarl
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Ten years of changes - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of MLP:FiM!
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So, me and my wife watched My Little Pony: A New Generation just now. Part of me was dreading it was just going to be a complete mess that didn’t know what it was going to be as a sequel to a pop-culture phenomenon like Friendship is Magic, while the other part was hoping it’d somehow blow my mind away.
 
To my utter disappointment; it did neither.
 
The movie was just meh.
 
I mean part of me can acknowledge and appreciate the prologue with the nice animation by Boulder Media of the Mane Six which transitions directly into the movie, complete with Tara Strong, Ashleigh Ball, Andrea Libman and Tabitha St. Germain reprising their roles. Also, no Spike. So even after their series he’s still the butt-monkey. (Assuming any species besides ponies even exist now, despite being a “sequel.”)
 
The premise? That after an undetermined amount of time the three pony tribes just started to hate each other, right down to politically charged propaganda about stereotypes like unicorns frying everyone’s brains with their magic, pegasi being brutes and earth ponies being mentally deficient.
 
The plot? Bring the tribes back together again. That’s it. I don’t recall if they even mention the names of Twilight Sparkle once, let alone there’s absolutely no explanation how the split occurred, and there’s not even a token mention about Celestia or Luna or alicorns in general. Nor any of the historical royalty.
 
Even the world feels so generic. G4 Equestria at least had distinct characteristics; rudimentary technology for the most part, combined with magi-tek elements which still embraced the more fantastic fantasy feel. Here? Generic coastal town that reminded me of Malaga Spain, with televisions and high-grade industrial tech.
 
The pegasus city I will admit looked nice architecturally; very Art Nouveau. Still, the fact we see mythical creatures indulging in shallow social media with smartphones just really did not strike a chord. In fantasy I think most of us want it to be a fantasy. We have shallow, intrusive and invasive social media coming out the ears enough as is in reality.
 
The unicorns living in what looked on the outside like Fangorn Forest from Middle-Earth with a touch of Lothlorien and even the Shire with the teahouse did appeal to the druid fan in me. I get this is apparently in a vaguely defined “distant future” (on part of the G4 Equestria being called “Ancient Equestria”, what with their trains, grand architecture and magic that even time could not dispel,) but they went from grand spires to living in trees. And despite being magical creatures they became superstitious. (Blip!)
 
In terms of characters; while I can remember them for the most part, not that striking. Sunny Starscout and Zipp Storm were arguably the most competent. Daresay I even quite enjoyed Zipp as the level-headed one, despite being a pegasus whom I don’t doubt many were comparing to Rainbow Dash. Sunny is the hopeful, starry-eyed one who I can see being compared to being the mouth-piece of the people who want to keep the message of the franchise as a whole alive and being anti-authority (I can dig that). Just not all the special otherwise.
 
Izzy just felt like a Pinkie Pie clone. Scratch that; a season 3-4 and G4 movie Pinkie Pie clone. Dumbed down to the max to the point of being unaware of her surroundings. The reason I initially thought I’d hate G4 Pinkie Pie when I actually love that precious little cinnamon bun. The only time I felt emotion for her was dreading when the adventure will end. Just kinda felt like the writers were thinking they absolutely needed a new Pinkie Pie, but just didn’t know the purpose of the character (as I’m sure given how they don’t even keep regular writers on hand or even seem to check continuity.)
 
Hitch Trailblazer, the male lead of the group was fine, James Marsden does a fine job (I recognize him as the human lead from the Sonic the Hedgehog movie), but even he comes off as a little too thick: Trying to arrest someone while in enemy territory, let alone going all the way to said enemy territory to do their job as Sherriff. I mean that’s some KGB assassin grade of dedication to one’s job, minus the icepick.
 
Pipp was perhaps the blandest. She’s a pop idol, loves social media and is on said smartphone all the time to the point of causing problems and only becomes grounded (figuratively and literally) after her big show is ruined. After that she kinda just blends into the background.
 
The bit about magic being gone due to the ponies being driven apart. I guess I get it; Cozy Glow tried something similar in FiM season 8 (one major weakness for this being a sequel is how poorly executed the post movie seasons were). Not the best explanation really. But it addressed that the unicorns can’t use spells and the pegasi can’t fly and the earth ponies lacked their Herculean strength and fortitude without magic. Though if there was no magic to begin with, how would they still have cutie marks (which are on the right flank only instead of both sides).
 
Which brings me to some major inconsistencies: If the ponies were separate; where were the Windigoes? Or were they just confined to that one space in the world? The world is coined as “Equestria”, but is this just another area dubbed that or is the land we saw previously a frigid, unlivable wintery wasteland with snowcapped ruins all over? (Admittedly that’d be pretty cool in regards to the FiM episode A Hearth’s Warming Tail.)
 
Let alone how this split affected all the other species that we saw living in Equestria: The dragons, the gryphons, the yaks, the hippogriffs, the changelings and the kirin. Did they just bugger off and are now wholly unknown to ponykind since it was “Ancient Equestria?”
 
The one last bit is the, well, I guess tried and true legacy I think even G4 should have discarded: The McGuffin: Three crystals; one for each pony tribe. Of course, they first assume it’s only two, which they gleam off a broken stained-glass window in the pegasus city allegedly back from when the ponies still mingled (also hello Wonderbolts poster). What is this crystal? Where did it come from? Did someone make it? Did Twilight Sparkle create some contingency since King Sombra destroyed the Tree of Harmony and the Elements of Harmony? Who cares; it’s important!
 
After a needlessly prolonged scene trying to bring the three pieces together with the movie’s antagonist Sprout Cloverleaf in his pony dictator getup and literal war mech, after the heartfelt speech that the magic would only come back when everypony were together. And then Sunny becomes and alicorn… For a moment at least, as the crystals basically serve as a proxy to the Elements, the Tree and the Pillars’ artifacts; come the rainbow burst and everything’s good again: Pegasi can fly once more, unicorns can magic it up again and I’m assuming earth ponies are ultra-sturdy.
 
And then everyone’s fine and dandy despite what sounds like generations of hateful propaganda and mistrust that we’re still not told of how it happened in the first place. So we went from the previous status quo, that already dealt with this very same scenario (FiM season 1: Hearth’s Warming Eve) to achieve said status quo, only to once again go back to said status quo. Essentially nothing changed.
 
Yes, kids’ show, I know. But I think too often people just think children are idiots when they clearly aren’t, and if you market something as a sequel, then make it a sequel that actually remains consistent with the predecessor. Other than; “Hey, remember these characters you all know and love?” “Look, their toys are on the shelf.” “Look, callbacks to the previous series.”
 
Other than just being a name in a popular franchise: What did it accomplish? As a sequel? As a stand-alone? All in all; unremarkable. Markets itself as a sequel to something that had an impact to the likes of Pokemon, but doesn’t seem to know what it itself wants to be. Would I recommend this to anyone? If being brutally honest: No, I wouldn’t.
 
Frankly, since it’s a continuation to a great series that just ended up ending poorly, I just feel like I’m having G4 burnout again.
 
Now if you excuse me; off to read Fallout Girls for the fifth time.
CORDZ2000
Solar Hero - Went above and beyond for the Solar Deity, drawing from the power of the sun itself to bring balance to the fight against the Lunar Insurrection (April Fools 2023).

Draconequues Lover zcord
yeah i had figured the racism was gonna go away fast tho, but who knows well probably still see some discord discord as in still conflict among others whenever the g5 series comes out
Background Pony #DE66
That’s just like your opinion. The movie is even more mature than the G4 one. How so? It doesn’t have a villain.
Do you know what a prologue is? This movie doesn’t need to answer what happened to Equestria or why it was divided. It exists to show us the new generation of main characters not to answer our questions. They can answer these questions in the series that, mind you, will have even more time to talk about them than the movie itself. You can’t talk about the past and focus on the main characters with just 90 minutes. It is too little. There are too many holes to fill.
The funny thing is that people still don’t get it. Equestria isn’t a utopia. It was never one. “But in season 9, episode 26 they showed us a perfect Equestria!” Who said it was perfect? Because it wasn’t being attacked all the time? Did Twilight Sparkle create somekind of spell to make every creature love each other forever and ever? Because that way, we would have a utopia. The perfect and creepy Equestria. G5 isn’t a downgrade. It is actually clever if you think about it. It is realistic. There is no happily ever after. It is not all rainbows and smiles. “Actually, everypony is smiling and understanding each other at the end of My Little Pony: A New Generation”. Writers don’t write bland stories for My Little Pony anymore. Sunny and her friends will have even more work to do. Not everyone will accept that everybody is equal. Just because some of them changed their ways doesn’t mean other will.
WolfJarl
An Artist Who Rocks - 100+ images under their artist tag
Ten years of changes - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of MLP:FiM!
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@Background Pony #DE66
Yea yea. “Love and peace are lies, God is dead and we’re all totally fucked”. Heard it plenty of times. Let’s embrace nihilism and the notion that nothing we do matters and even spread this out into our fiction to forever remind ourselves of how screwed we are.
If Twilight failed, that means Sunny will ultimately also fail in the end.
Also the G4 movie sucked.
WolfJarl
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Ten years of changes - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of MLP:FiM!
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@CORDZ2000
You’re seriously applying “reality” and “realism” to a world of magical talking horses?
That’s rich. What else? How real Lord of the Rings is? Star Wars? The MCU?
If I wanted a constant reminder of how much our lives really suck, I’ll go on Twitter. Not bring Twitter to the escapism. When I sit down to read a book or boot up an RPG or watch a show; I just want a moment to escape and not be mired in politics or constant reminders of how awful we really are. If I didn’t need it for promotion I’d be off of that platform immediately, but I need a career because I need to eat, so it’s a cruel circle of dependence and depression.
Background Pony #F536
There’s a difference between an acceptable “the world is not perfect, so adventures will keep going later on” and “the world somehow got into a dumb squabble because whatever”.
Equestria is not an utopia, but neither was a shithole of a place where people would easily lose the lessons unless the ponies as a whole are indeed huge knuckleheads.
WolfJarl
An Artist Who Rocks - 100+ images under their artist tag
Ten years of changes - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of MLP:FiM!
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Let alone the fact that it’s a world where literal magic and even gods or at least god-like beings exist. Celestia, Luna and Discord are the first three examples, and the fact how long beings like Tirek were around, forgetting something so easily would be difficult since they would always be around to remind everyone. When deities exist in a setting, it changes the rules regarding “realism”:
In Lord of the Rings things remained largely unchanged between the War with Sauron and War of the Ring: The gap between was roughly 3000 years. But because of beings like the Eldar or the Ainu (Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast) being around to guide society down the right path, things remained largely the same. Not great, but could have been much worse.
In Warcraft the society of races like the night elves remained largely unchanged for ten thousand years due to being immortal and having the same leadership throughout that time.
Dungeons and Dragons settings remain largely unchanged because of not only gods, both born and mortals ascending to godhood, who have a tangible presence, but also demons, devils, eldritch horrors, and even people who have achieved immortality due to various means like magic or interdimensional shenanigans. The only times something drastic changes is when some cosmic event, usually involving one of more deities, transpires.
Imagine if in Middle-Earth everyone, including the likes of Elrond, who was there when the War with Sauron occurred, just forgot about everything; the rings, the Dark Lord himself, or the One Ring.
Background Pony #F536
Not to mention, the more advanced the society becomes, the easier it is to record events. Equestria itself has pretty good records of ancient history, they know what happened with the Windigoes and the race segregation before. The constant interaction of magic through friendship and as you put it the long lived entities like Discord and even Tirek showcases that Equestria is not really a world when a simple breakup can happen just because as it would require strong constant conflicts for that. Heck, it was already jarring in S9, even more in G5.
As I said, the most reliable way to make the magic dissapereance and most importantly, the race segregation of G5 is just showcasing the ponies as huge knuckleheads who at large (and would mean at a huge large assuming no one cares about their own survival against wendigos or even survival of their own families who probably got mixed between races over and over for that matter) pretty much forgot about all the good stuff they achieve. Even with superior technology, it gives the impression that Equestria as a whole has devolved rather than evolved.
WolfJarl
An Artist Who Rocks - 100+ images under their artist tag
Ten years of changes - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of MLP:FiM!
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My honest guess is they’re trying to push this dated political narrative that’s been going on since Donald Trump’s election in 2016 and now it’s all that people will talk about, including in fiction. Which could coincide with the notion that since horses in real life (keyword there since we’re talking about a fictional magical world) are herd animals, therefore just one deviation and they devolve into this braindead herd/mob mentality, much like in politics.
If Gondor, a city without technology, was able to keep records of events from three millennia ago, as shown in both the books and the movie adaptation of Lord of the Rings, then how could a society that’s vastly more advanced in terms of both magic and technology fail so miserably? (Also I think crowbarring modern technology into a fantasy setting instead of making it a unique merger of technology, like the mirror portal, just takes away from the uniqueness, when they could have used alternatives like clockpunk, steampunk or magi-tek.)
There’s this one moron on YouTube who got pissy because MisanthroPony didn’t like the movie who basically just waves all the contradictions off as “it doesn’t matter” or “magic.” As in narrative magic, a derisive term writers use for when something happens that makes no sense in the grand scheme of things. The only way this would work is if there was some reality-bending effect like, say, the Warp in the West, aka the Miracle of Peace, from the Elder Scrolls franchise where this vast, neigh unsolvable conflict was resolved by literally breaking time and causality (i.e. a “Dragon Break” as it’s coined in the setting), using a powerful established magical artifact called the Numidium.
Background Pony #F536
I wouldn’t go too far with the 2016 election, given the 2016 Ghostbusters had to be filmed before the year, I think it comes way before that. The lesson about not being racists and prejudged is a good lesson, the problem comes with the context and execution. For starters, A Briddle Gossip and Heartwarming’s Eve touch the subject in a much more interesting way, in the former is noted that the ponies never dealt with zebras before and Zecora’s odd behavior also played a part in the conflict, which makes the ending feel much more satisfactory once the misunderstanding is solved; and in the later is explained in an ancient history way and giving the ending a nice explanation that they had to overcome their prejudges just to survive at least, and the setting showcases that the ponies has long ago embraced the lesson so it feels like an evolution.
Now, regarding the technology, it comes off as far less impressive if you remember that G4 had industrial driers, electric dams, arcade machines and the sorts, and manehattan gives an impression of a XX century city. While it’s debatable at which point of human history we can compare the pony civilization, there’s something to consider: the industrial revolution with the steam machine and eventual adoption of the gasoline machine pumped up the human advance in less than 80 years in a huge shaking, and yet, we are supposed to believe is “realistic” than in arguably a millenium of timespan, the ponies went from sorta XX century to XXI century…….so, no, is not even that realistic either, is just simply showcasing the ponies getting slower and dimmer, and without the magic that actually bonded with their technology in G4, it comes off as rather underwhelming.
WolfJarl
An Artist Who Rocks - 100+ images under their artist tag
Ten years of changes - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of MLP:FiM!
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Writer/Artist/Cosplayer
That is an excellent point regarding the technology. If this is apparently some undefined centuries or even millennia in the future, how does it seem like their technology has hardly advanced in comparison to what they had in G4? Just compare the technology levels of the First World War era and the Second World War era and there were already huge leaps made in between (particularly in terms of machines and weapons and aviation was becoming a viable mode of travel.)
Background Pony #F536
Yeah. My point is…..realism is often misused. Using realism in a nice scenario keeps the suspension of disbelief without getting overstretched and helps to make the universes relatable and charming. For example, if someone hurts you, you’d take some time to forgive him, like Luna, Discord and Sunset Shimmer; it’s realistic and makes the characters much more relatable.
Copying the social trends of today meanwhile can come up as annoying specially if you don’t understand if they work at all or how does that work if they do, and adding “realism” as in showcasing cowardly ponies who “suddenly learn their lesson after a pep talk” (note my sarcasm at the use of realism here), then I think we have a problem. Another “realism” issue is the characters not knowing what’s going on, sure, it makes sense, but if you also extends that ignorance to the audience as well and fail to give them a context, then something is not right there. I know, some twists require secrets to the audience, but those secrets work only if you still give the audience something to work with it.
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