by The Ghost Of Ember (?) » Sat Sep 27, 2014 5:13 pm
Well, I'm back from this, and I got to say, it was a lot better than I expected. I really got the impression with EQG McCarthy was kind of phoning it in, perhaps in the hopes that it would flop. She seemed to actually give a shit this time around though. There are still some plot contrivances, Twilight ultimately isn't necessary to the story and Spike is even more of a hanger-on, and in fact seems to be the new Flash Sentry, existing only to be a macguffin to bail the heroes out. He's not as bad as Flash (who actually manages to serve some narrative purpose this time around) in the first one, but his companion is. There are two things dragging Rainbow Rocks down, the weak showing of the first film that we must recap and accept with all its terrible plot, and secondly the fact that it takes precious time from shoring up the plot contrivances to show off cameos for the fans. Maud served no purpose, Maud didn't add anything to the scene she was in. Maud is a good character, but I really could've used that 20-30 seconds elsewhere, thanks.
Whenever I'm in the middle of these scenes I'm reminded of a moment in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, where Rainn Wilson (usually recognized by his character Dwight Shrute from The Office), shows up as a professor. He serves no purpose in the narrative, he does nothing of note, he is literally there to make the audience go, 'oh hey! that's Dwight Shrute' and distract them long enough for us to get to the next big distraction. This is a shitty way to make a movie and an even shittier way to watch a movie.
Note that I consider this a failure of direction rather than a failure of writing, since I'm certain scenes existed to shore up the plotline, I suspect there was a whole B plot with Spike dealing with his doggy nature that hit the cutting room floor. It probably was cut for time, but I would've preferred a scene or two of that to Maud and Pon3.
So that's enough complaints for now, on to the good stuff:
The intro is very visually striking. Unlike the first one though it's not the only good part of the movie, thank god. None-the-less it bears mentioning because it was good and it was a clever way to quickly recap the first movie. The music is solid and takes center stage, and you can tell there was more produced than was actually shown. A lot was clearly truncated for time, and while it is a pity, it shows some restraint on the part of the director.
Most of all, Sunset Shimmer, rather than Twilight Sparkle is the main character of this story. Twilight isn't really necessary to the plot (other than to make Sunset jealous), and while its nice to have an answer to Twilight Sparkle Is A Mary Sue in the fact that she totally screws the pooch this time around, she is essentially an extended cameo. In many ways this is also a flaw: like the other cameos she could easily be cut from the story and it would not suffer much. That said, the fact that she is clearly shown to be the secondary character and in some respects the false messiah of this world, helps divorce the two properties. Something good for my continued sanity. Twilight Sparkle is the main character of the Friendship is Magic Franchise, showing up to help out Sunset Shimmer, the main character of the Equestria Girls franchise. The dougworld Twilight will likely fill Princess Twilight's shoes in whatever future form Equestria Girls takes, but the FIM franchise will allow itself to be self contained from now on, except for the rare cameo from Princess Twilight.
Sunset is in many was a better main character than Twilight. She is significantly less explored and has a lot more room to grow and learn. I'd say her conversion to good being accepted is not a plot contrivance ( Unlike: The Magic Boook, Twilight Sparkles Return, Spike's Rescue), because it soon become clear that not even the benevolent main six have really forgiven her or trust her. She is still an outsider until she proves herself in a trial by fire. The story even gives us strong hints at what ultimately lead her down the path to evil: pure, simple jealousy. It makes her character a lot more understandable.
Unfortunately Equestria Girls fails to go from acceptable quality to good in my book for one simple reason. Sunset never gets a denouement on why she changed despite he ostracism she received. The closest we get is her conversation with the Dazzlings, and even then that hints more to her reason for going down the dark path than her change of heart. Perhaps the sequel will ultimately touch on this, but I'm not holding my breath.
That said I never rewatched Equestria Girls the first. I will rewatch Rainbow Rocks. I think that's about as good a comment on its quality that I can make.
Equestria Girls = 4/10
Rainbow Rocks = 6/10
