My Little Pony: The Movie (2017)

Most of the animation in the movie rivals the Disney quality animation!! I am still amazed that these are Toonboom rigs!

Animated films usually have budgets that are substantially higher then whatever they have for a tv series, so i just hope they break even.

I think it has already been mentioned, but they don't really care about the profits that much, because they expect the bulk of their profits to come out of the toyline. Besides, the budget for this movie was comparatively low, and they HAVE broken even by this point.

It may not have been critically acclaimed, but it was not an outright disaster either, so a second movie seems quite possible, depending on how the show keeps doing.

As an aside, I really wish they would give these tie-in movies a proper name instead of just "the movie". Maybe it was original the first time, but its really cliche and overused. I mean, they didn't call Equestria Girls "My Little Pony: The Anime", either. Which is another thing, do the EQ movies not count as real movies now? Because they certainly could if the studio wanted to.

edited 18th Oct '17 11:21:14 AM by Redmess

The quality of the stuff they've put out really shows the amount of faith they have in those toys, too. I've been tempted more than once to pick up one or two of the seapony ones (their eyes are especially pretty). I really want to get my hands on a Tempest Shadow before I buy anything else, though (the stores near my place are kinda, sorta, really bad at variety, so I need to expand my search).

EDIT: Probably just marketing deciding some things need to be presented in exactly a certain way because trending reasons or whatever. Equestria Girls being very limited release may also have something to do with it.

edited 18th Oct '17 11:28:45 AM by KuroiTsubasaTenshi

While we don't know what the production budget was, it's been estimated between $5-8 million.

The film's made $16 million domestic with another $4 million in international ticket sales. So it's very likely that the film has already made more than double its budget back, marking it as profitable even before taking toy sales into consideration.

My Little Pony isn't, like, the next Avengers movie or something so far as critical reception or box office gross goes. But it was never supposed to be. As things stand now, it's enjoying a modest success.

If viewer ratings on Rotten Tomatoes are anything to go by, its a great success among fans, at least, which is the main target to sell toys to.

I think it is not entirely fair that EQ does not get the movie label, while still having all the trappings of being a movie, the last installment excepted. When going by those metrics, this is really the FIFTH MLP movie of this generation. Which really says something about the success of the show.

I usually ignore viewer ratings because there's no metric of validity for them. A viewer rating is just some user clicking a rating. A lot of movies, especially ones with pre-existing fanbases or controversial themes, tend to get a ton of viewer ratings before the movie's even out. Prior to release, the viewer ratings are often already flooded with literally thousands of votes like, "Five stars because it's about characters I like!" or "Zero stars because the main character's a woman!"

edited 18th Oct '17 12:43:05 PM by TobiasDrake

That said, in a lot of cases those two types can cancel each other out to some degree. Still not fully reliable, but it's not totally useless.

Random thought: If Tempest ended up going through the portal to the EQG universe, what would her broken horn translate into?

It would translate to her not having a horn in her human state. All in all, no major difference.

Pony horns never carry over. Even in the first three movies before ponying up was obnoxiously replaced by the geodes, the pegasi get to have their wings but Rarity and Twilight get snubbed on their horns.

I'm told that it's because unicorn horns would look stupid on human bodies but both Sunset and Twilight look amazing in the "Friendship Games" climax so I disagree.

In both of those shots, their horns are framed by their hair flames, which makes them stand out a bit less. They were probably talking about it looking stupid when they have normal hair.

Yeah, having them walking around with a giant spike sticking out of their heads would be a bit odd.

YES the unicorns REALLY SHOULD HAVE had their horns, IT WOULD HAVE MADE THE MOVIES 50x BETTER JUST BECAUSE CONSISTENCY!!!!

It's not like they "just walk around" with their pony parts, they only appear in action/music sequences! The Rainbow Power designs would look dumb if the characters always looked like that, but did that stop them? No! Most of the toys are off-model if not horrific, but did that stop anyone? No!

Besides, I don't think unicorn horns on humans look dumb at all. Just make them a different color from the skin, or make them transparent or like they're made of light.

Anyway back to the pony movie about actual ponies, what does "PG For Mild Action" even mean?

edited 19th Oct '17 10:42:39 PM by Ruise

There's more violence in the film than the show typically has. For instance, Spike's firebreath is actually used offensively.

Off the top of my head, the most action-y sequence we've had on the show is Super-Twi vs. Mega-Tirek. On a more normal scale, the Mane 6 vs. changelings.

Quite. There's a certain formula to villains in the show. Their main purpose is not actually to provide a physical threat for the protagonists to overcome, but instead to provide an insurmountable wall that encourages the protagonists to learn something valuable about themselves and their relationships with each other. There are two modes to a My Little Pony villain.

In the first mode, the villain is invulnerable. Completely and utterly. No matter what you do to them, they don't even feel it. They are gods and you are an ant nipping at their ankles, and no amount of force will ever suffice. The only option is to retreat and find the lesson.

Once the lesson has been learned, the villain switches into the second phase. In second phase, the villain has a glass jaw. The first thing you hit them with, whatever power you unlocked from the lesson, that will toast them in a single shot. No battle, no struggle, no dire threat to overcome. You discovered friendship, and now the villain is powerless and ready to be swept under the rug.

While Tirek had a more prolonged phase 1 than most villains, even he fell into this formula. Beam struggles and power clashes do little more than mildly amuse him, but then Twilight decides to acknowledge Discord as a friend and boom, the stars align to blow Tirek away in a single shot.

In the movie, phase 1 occurs as normal and there is a friendship lesson to be learned, but The Storm King actually doesn't have the good grace to just be obliterated five seconds after Twilight reaffirms the importance of friendship. They actually have to fight him for it. That never happens in phase 2.

G1 villains kinda had that too! XD

Did Tirek also try to fight after being taken down?

Tirek, like most MLP villains, got one-shotted. Discord gave Twilight the necklace thing he got from Tirek which wound up being the final key, it opened the bullshit chest, all the ponies became Super Saiyans, and then they blasted Tirek while he stared slack-jawed and impotent.

I've heavily criticized "Twilight's Kingdom" for a number of reasons, but let it not be said that Tirek diverged from formula.

There's at least one exception to the villain phases, I think. S5 finale Starlight wasn't one-shotted by a newly-discovered power, she was just talked into standing down.

But for the most part, yes, it does happen like you said.

Saw it again today. I have to say, knowing what to expect, as well as some of the discussions about themes and such, actually allowed me to appreciate it more (and I liked it to begin with).

And on animation: Indeed, this film punches above its weight. Sure, the CG is nothing to shout about (it's decent though), but the character animation and art design is marvelous. It looks a bit more 'flash assets' in extreme close up, but it replicates the feel of older animated films well.

I'd be curious if Tempest shows up in the actual show. Should be an interesting comparison between the more flat look of the show and the richer animation of the film. Wouldn't mind if the hippogriffs have a role in the show as well, seeing as Novo and Celestia seem to be pretty close in the end credits.

edited 21st Oct '17 5:01:32 AM by edvedd

I doubt it, EQG didn't get acknowledged, either.

Oh, I don't know about that. I know a thing or two.

Oh, alright, but that was little more than a cameo. In a flashback.

It's a key point of backstory to two groups of important characters. It's importance is even multiplied if you take into account the the-in comic.