And now that Season Four has had its official premiere, it’s safe to say that’s still true. Which is a very good thing, for multiple reasons. The least of which being: this is the shot in the arm the series needs. Continue reading →
It’s been hard to remain excited about My Little Pony.
Since the third season wrapped up, which was over six months ago by the way, I haven’t really had much enthusiasm about the franchise. That last season made me think of a dying whale, screaming out its final cries as it struggled to stay alive, while being sucked down into the whirlpool of irrelevance.
Not that I’m happy about it, far from it. Seeing my favourite show go down the drain does not give me pleasure, in any way. It makes me sad. It makes me depressed. It makes me cling to the pun-laden cringe-inducing SheZow; and the highly superior, but less exciting, Littlest Pet Shop.
I love the show, and I hate to see it fall apart. But this was bound to happen. Eventually, all programs, with the possible exception of Seinfeld, run out of ideas. The writing staff starts to come up dry, and have to resort to reading off the list of ideas they previously thought were too shit to bother writing.
And that’s exactly how season three felt, even though it was only thirteen episodes long. It actually felt more like they were taking cues from fan fiction. Even the final episode felt like a shitty fan story, rather than a well-thought-out, professionally made script.
It’s the same complaint I levelled at one of the final Animorphs books, back in the day. I was a huge fan of that series, but the way they saved Marco’s mother felt so contrived, and so forced, it actually made me sick. I don’t know what else to say about it. And don’t get me started on the actual ending.
But I digress. Now thankfully, during season three, there were a few episodes I liked. Wonderbolts Academy was pretty good, despite Spitfire’s apparent recharacterization. And Magic Duel, and Just for Sidekicks rank among my favourite episodes of all time, even if Peewee went walkabout.
But sadly, I found the rest of the season to be lacking, and Magical Mystery Cure was the first episode that I actually hated. Which is a tall order, you have to admit.
So it should come as no surprise to anyone that, when I first heard of Equestria Girls, I was a bit skeptical. I didn’t want to be. I wanted to be ready to jump in with both feet, excited for the latest release; their theatrical debut. But I wasn’t. Instead, I was scared. I was afraid it would be exactly as terrible as I expected, and make me give up my bronydom, and all that comes with it.
Sometimes, you have to know what you’re doing. Where you’re going. What your purpose is.
I never quite understood this until recently.
A matter of days ago, while writing the next chapter of Sibling Rivalry, I came to a startling realization: Knowing what I know now, I could have structured the story a lot better by rewriting everything after chapter three, delaying the actual romance between Spike and Sweetie Belle, and have his affection for her form a bit more gradually as a consequence of their budding friendship, as he teaches her magic. It would allow the story to focus on the romance, rather than the bullshit deception.
So I’m an idiot. I think I might go back and rewrite the whole story with that in mind. Or I could just say ‘fuck it’ and move on at this stage.
I don’t know.
I think the problem is, I didn’t think the story through well enough. I didn’t think it through deeply enough. I should’ve seen the plot holes before they came. But it really goes to show just how important preparation is. How important it is to plan a story out well in advance. As a writer, you might find it frustrating, not getting to the good bits. But overall, it’ll mean the story you write will be better, and much more coherent.
Which might be the reason Marvel made it work. They thought it through, and planned it all out from day one. They didn’t just make one film left open for sequels. They designed the whole thing to fit together as one giant franchise.
It’s hard to pin down exactly why I like My Little Pony.
Could it be the characters? The setting? The plot? The overall cheery tone? The comedy?
More than likely, it’s a bit of everything. But more recently, I found another reason to love the show: The message.
I don’t just mean the friendship message, I mean something more than that.
Too many shows are about one person, one hero, saving the world. Perhaps assisted by a sidekick who does bugger all, and is only there to look up to our hero, and maybe help during some contrived plot point.
This is a staple of every action film in existence. It’s always about one person, and I’m sorry, but I’m not buying it. One person is the most useless thing in existence. If you want to make a real impact on the world, or save the world, you’re not going to do it alone.
It’s a fantasy. The idea that a solitary protagonist can save the day is just something we like, because we can latch onto it, and think; if Bruce Willis can do it, perhaps we could as well. After all, he’s not really an action star… or at least he wasn’t when he made Die Hard, he was a goddamn comedian. I would argue, he still is. But I digress.
A story that stars a team is much better, especially if the individual elements could manage to hold their own. Which is especially true of the ponies. We have Rarity using psychological warfare against the Diamond Dogs; Fluttershy shaming the cockatrice; and Applejack facing off against the Timberwolves. But bring them together, they wield the most powerful weapon in Equestria: The Elements of Harmony!
It reminds me of Left 4 Dead. A great game where you play a single survivor of the zombie apocalypse, who could probably take out a horde with a few swings of your katana. But you’ll eventually get overwhelmed, and will need the help of your friends to make it to the end!
Apparently Pacific Rim does the same thing. I haven’t seen it yet, but from what I hear, the film’s all about how it takes a team to save the world from giant rampaging Godzilla-sized monsters.
This formula works even better if it’s a ragtag group. All having different backgrounds, different personalities, and different points of view. Like in My Little Pony. A team of six different heroes, from all walks of life, and with very different backgrounds, and conflicting personalities, who come together to fight a great threat, and become great friends.
Which brings me so eloquently to Marvel’s The Avengers. It’s My Little Pony with duller tones. Continue reading →
Well, it’s finally happening. A major motion picture is being released as part of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic franchise.
To be honest, I’m a bit excited. I remember watching the time travel episode back in season two, when Tartarus was revealed to exist, and I thought that such a concept would be excellent fodder for an epic movie.
I mean, that’s why you make a film, right? To tell a story worthy of the format. One sufficiently epic and amazing that it could only be told in a two-hour movie.
Much like The Simpsons Movie, which told the story of how Springfield was nearly destroyed by an overzealous bureaucrat.
So the My Little Pony film will have a similar nature, right? … Right?
Well, it’s hard to say at this point. But I’m doubtful. For the plot appears to be about Twilight travelling to another universe, being transformed into a human, and meeting duplicates of all her friends, ala Sliders.
Yes, it’s the famed Equestria Girls spin-off we heard so much about. Turns out initial rumours were true. That it wouldn’t be a TV series, but a film.
I’m honestly a bit disappointed. I’d thought we’d get a bit more out of this idea, instead of just a short two-hour film… okay, scratch that, it’s actually one hour, which means the tickets should only be about five bucks, but instead are probably gonna cost twenty because the world sucks.
Regardless, the reaction has been interesting, and mostly negative. For instance, some have commented on the fact that, for the first time, the various fan groups will be congregating in one theatre. The primary demographic of eight-year-old girls, the bronies, and the furries.
Now, this isn’t necessarily terrible. As long as the bronies act with some semblance of dignity, we should be fine.
Besides, it was bound to happen eventually. I’m pretty sure some eight-year-old girls already attend the various brony conventions that pop up around the planet. So this isn’t new.
And as for the furries, those who are sexually attracted to animals. Well… it’s not like this film would make things worse. I mean, what’s changed? Very little, except for the fact that the characters are in high school, as humans… wearing miniskirts…
Oh… fuck!
Is this what it has come to? Is it really necessary to sexualize these characters? I hope I’m just reaching here, in fact I’m pretty sure I am. But it is a bit odd that the entire cast is wearing miniskirts.
That being said, it does speak to an unfortunate elephant that has been in this community since it’s began: Sex! Continue reading →
I think the only word I could use to describe my current outlook is: disappointment.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Today was the day the bronies have been waiting for. For something I already commented on a few weeks ago. Today was the third season finale of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, where Twilight Sparkle evolves into Princess Twilight Sparkle, after her friends use the Harmony Stone on her.
Honestly, I was kinda looking forward to this, because given the summary we were treated to, it seemed interesting. The whole ‘switching cutie mark’ thing felt like it would go in an interesting direction. And… well… It did, but in a way that made me very angry.
One of the things I love about My Little Pony is the world building. There’s a lot to the land of Equestria. The locations, the mythology, and the political systems feel quite fleshed out and developed. So much so that Hasbro actually released a full map of Equestria. A map that’s full of inconsistencies.
I bring this up because the fact that it can be full of inconsistencies just proves my point. Equestria has been so fleshed out that we all have a pretty common and complete vision of how the land of Equestria is structured, headcanon notwithstanding. And almost every episode has only made it fuller.
…at least, it did in the first two seasons.
For season three, the world building simply hasn’t been as interesting or well done. It’s still there, but it feels half-assed. For starters, there was The Crystal Empire, which was probably the most boring episode, featuring the most boring villain in the entire series: Sombra. It just felt like it’s been done before, especially the ending, where the big challenge for Twilight was: walk down a bunch of stairs, then walk up even more stairs. That’s right, when I think pulse-pumping action, I think stairs. No deceptive puzzles, no complex moral tests, just stairs.
For the rest of the series, we got no major extension to the land of Equestria. Or at least none that were interesting.
Okay, that’s not entirely true. We learned that Princess Luna is Dom Cobb, and that there’s a nation called Saddle Arabia, which is cool, I guess.
But at least none of the world building has been bad this season, just boring. If nothing else, boring is better than bad or contradictory or completely ridiculous, which they’ve thankfully avoided this season… UNTIL NOW!!!Continue reading →
I am a skeptic in every sense of the word. Not just in the traditional sense, scientific skepticism, but in the sense of simply not trusting people at their word, no matter what the context.
Of course that kind of worldview is not easy to maintain. After all, it takes a lot of work to fact check every word said by every politician and public figure. So often, you might not have a choice. You might not have time to run detailed research into, for example, the Bengazi incident, when several american diplomats were killed. You might not have time to look into the death of Aaron Swartz, and find out if the Justice Department pushed him to suicide. So it’s easier to take people at their word.
But sometimes, finding the truth is not that hard. All it requires is two minutes of thinking to get to something close to the truth.
For instance, take the statements made by Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin, just last year. Anyone with half a brain knows what he was saying makes absolutely no sense. How could the human body identify the type of situation it finds itself in? And even if it could, why would the human race evolve a method to stop the passing on of our genes? It would be a good thing for the woman, but not humanity at large, and that’s what evolution prefers to benefit.
Then we have another issue: Women in the military. Specifically, front-line combat positions. The counter argument to this is that it damages unit cohesion, or that woman cannot possibly carry their comrades off the battlefield like men can. Think about this for ten seconds and you’ll see how ridiculous this is. First of all, damages unit cohesion? That men and women cannot get along and be just friends? At some point they’re going to have sex? That’s asinine. I’ll tell you this much, some of my best friends have vaginas, and I never banged any of them. It never seemed needed. And as for physical strength, I can tell you from personal experience that’s bullshit. My prom date back in high school was a giant. She would have no problem carrying her comrades off the battlefield, let me tell you.
See, with a bit of thinking, you can arrive at the truth pretty quickly. And it’s this technique that got me to an unsettling realization when the latest news on My Little Pony dropped earlier this week.
No Prestige 