My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Live Reactions & Discussion)

The movie got a lot cooler when I found out that Emily Blunt is going to be in it.

Which movie?

Presumably the upcoming MLP movie.

The face of heroic triumph.

I keep forgetting Sia's in it, and then I remember after hearing her on the radio and wishing MLP would have a song like that. Which it probably will now.

Y'know, I made a crack in my Friendship Games review that Canterlot High is clearly the underprivileged school for delinquents, minorities, and kids that just can't get accepted anywhere given how okay Celestia and Luna are with taking in alien convicts.

Been thinking about that. I'm listening through the songs from Friendship Games and Rainbow's going through her "Wondercolts Forever" bit, and as she started singing about the unholy terrors that have been unleashed on the school in the past, I couldn't help but wonder what the PTA meetings for this place are like.

How many parents do you think pulled their kids out of Canterlot High after the school's refusal to expel an alien terrorist who blew up the courtyard and brainwashed their children? How about when the school hosted a Battle of the Bands that became a warzone between eldritch forces from another dimension and the aforementioned alien terrorist's gang? Because the answer seems to be none of them.

Canterlot High is the worst school, yet has no difficulty remaining populated. The only explanation is that these kids simply have nowhere else to go.

EDIT: Also, is it really fair for Sunset to be allowed to compete in an academic competition? I'm at the Spelling Bee and it's like, Sunset made it to the finals next to Twilight because of course she did. She's a grown-ass adult. She's only taking classes as a punitive measure. That's kind of cheating.

edited 1st Apr '17 10:00:28 AM by TobiasDrake

The only explanation is that these kids simply have nowhere else to go.

Alternatively, parents just don't exist in the EQ Gverse.

As pointed out to Cinch in the Friendship Games, who's gonna believe all this crap happened?

@Tobias: I don't think Principal Celestia knows that Sunset would be considered an adult by pony standards, since she looks like a teenager in the human world. Also, we don't know how what ponies consider to be the cutoff adult age compares with the same equivalent in the human world. In many societies in the past (and probably even now, considering different countries have different legal ages of majority), what American society calls a "teenager" would have been considered a young adult ready to start an apprenticeship or some sort of job. We don't know if pony society has mandatory high school, or if ponies who get their cutie marks are allowed to start learning careers associated with their marks. Thus, it's possible that because of in-universe Values Dissonance, Twilight is considered old enough to be an adult by pony standards and still a teenager by human world standards, and the same could go for Sunset Shimmer.

edited 1st Apr '17 11:45:27 AM by Rainbow

By real-world equine standards, a pony would be considered an adult by the age of 5. Ponies have a significantly faster maturity cycle than humans do.

But since we know that Equestrian ponies are closer to a human maturity cycle, basically the only metric we have to go on regarding the precise ages of the characters is how they're treated by their societies.

What I meant was that even if the ponies age at the same rate as humans, their society might have a lower "age of majority" (or at least "age at which you can start work and don't have mandatory schooling") than whatever country the Equestria Girls world is set in. That's just a guess, of course, but it was a guess I made as an attempt to explain why Twilight looks like and is treated as a teenager in the human world and yet, she's treated as an adult in the pony world. It's similar to how different states in the US have different legal ages of consent, for example. (And there's also the possibility that Twilight is a teen prodigy who was allowed to "graduate" from Celestia's magic school earlier in life than most of her classmates, too.)

edited 1st Apr '17 12:27:54 PM by Rainbow

IIRC, there was a flashback of Sweetie Belle's 5th birthday that clearly showed her as being a lot younger than her present self.

So apparently Danny Antonucci made a new pilot and apparently the main kid is voiced by Ashleigh Ball. (Rainbow Dash & Applejack)

Feels like Calvin & Hobbes mixed with Ed Edd N Eddy with a dash of old Tex Avery cartoons.

It's certainly not out of the question. Just kind of awkward and uncomfortable, as Values Dissonance tends to be.

There was, which is why we know ponies mature at a closer to human age ratio. If they had a normal maturity cycle for equines, Sweetie Belle would have been an adult in that flashback.

I really disliked Zephyr. Mostly because the easiest way to get me to hate a character is to make them never be able to take "no" from someone they're romantically interested in as an answer. (This is why, for instance, it took me the longest time to warm up to Charles Boyle.) I mean, all the other shit he did didn't help, but his consistent hitting on a very uninterested Rainbow Dash was the final factor for me.

Ah, yes, the Dogged Nice Guy, with too much emphasis on "dogged." It's one of those tropes that I really liked when I was younger because I identified with the guys, but which I've come to really hate as I've gotten older and becomes more aware of gender dynamics, which is extra frustrating because I see it cropping up more and more, or at least have become more aware of it.

One of the most frustrating examples that comes to mind is Donatello in the current TNMT adaptation on Nick, where it's beyond clear that April is not and will not be romantically interested in him, but he just keeps right on pursuing her, and the show treats it as endearing. It got to its worst point in an episode where Donnie was on the receiving end of a similar crush from a girl he had absolutely no interest in, finally had an epiphany about how he'd been acting toward April, and when he apologized to her, the writers had her give him a kiss on the cheek just to keep the damn thing going, while the girl who had a crush on him was still made to give up and move on.

The stock phrase "I wore her down," has gone from being an "aww," to an "eugh."

Spectacular Spider-Man did a great job with that phrase, both in having the character hilariously actually say the words - "Woohoo! I'm wearing her down!" - and also because you're not actually supposed to be rooting for the ship in question. It ends in Peter getting more firmly rejected, then he moves the f*ck on and it never comes up again.

edited 1st Apr '17 1:24:45 PM by TobiasDrake

Most romantic comedies would be absolutely horrible in real life, and likely end in prison. I don't see what people see in them.

edited 1st Apr '17 1:58:28 PM by storyyeller

Escapism? The desire to have a lover manifesting as a desire to live vicariously though someone who gets the girl?

edited 1st Apr '17 2:03:20 PM by MorningStar1337

That's a problem with Will They or Won't They? in general, really. The longer you drag it out, the more obnoxious it becomes.

The words, "I love you," are not an ending. Neither are the words, "I do," for that matter. More writers need to realize this. We're obsessive in our romanticization of the question, "Hey, want to go out?"

I half suspect it's because that's the only part writers think the audience can relate to.

edited 1st Apr '17 2:09:12 PM by TobiasDrake

But romantic comedies are generally aimed at a female audience, right? So the audience is vicariously living through the woman being pursued.

I think its a combination of weird societal ideas of what's romantic and the male lead being someone the audience would want pursuing them. So instead of focusing on how messed up the situations can get, the idea is "it's attractive actor x! Why wouldn't you want them doing everything they can to win your heart?"

You see the reverse of this sometimes too, where a woman can be creepy and stalkery as hell, but she's attractive so it's played for laughs or titillation.

edited 1st Apr '17 2:18:19 PM by Crowfall

The lesson to be learned is that you can get away with anything if you're attractive enough.

We're not talking about romantic comedies, though. We're talking about kids' shows. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ain't exactly The Notebook^note I don't actually know if this is applicable to The Notebook, I've never seen it., y'know?

That's what I get for thread hopping, I kind of jumped on at storyyellers post.

Oh, well that one is not for girls, it's for boys.

Which uses the exact same unhealthy tropes but instead of "from an attractive guy, ladies!" it's "from an awkward nerd, like you!"

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