Pony A Day: Season 1 Episode 1 - Mini Reviews of My Little Pony: Friendships is Magic

Pony A Day

Daily retrospective mini-reviews of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

With so much horse-dung getting flung around in the world this year, it's left me in some less than pleasant states of mind. One of the things that helps me get through it all is a podcast series called School of Movies featuring a Alex and Sharon Shaw, a lovely British couple who, along with some friends, do hours of in depth analysis of the films they love.

Check them out here!

(http://schoolofmovies.com/)

I’ve been following them for the better part of the past decade now, and I’ve come to think far more deeply about the movies I love, gaining a deeper understanding, and a deeper appreciation for them. This year Alex has been doing something new. He watches one movie a day and does a mini review as a writing exercise. In an effort to practice my writing more, and to not focus so much on the negativity in the world, I’ll be doing something similar, but with single episodes of MLP instead of whole movies (Baby steps everypony) I’m not sure I’ll have much to add to the years of analysis others have done on the show, but I do have one idea how I might do that.

Ever since I started College, I’ve been watching way more anime, cartoons, and as of summer 2011, My Little Pony. I’ve developed a deep appreciation for single episode 22 minute storytelling most commonly associated with serialized and episodic animated series. Time is relative, and I’m constantly amazed at how much good story the masters of this medium can squish into 22 minutes and make it feel like time has passed naturally. The very first episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is easily in my top 10 examples of this form. Several times in the past few years I’ve envisioned doing an extensive breakdown of this first episode and how masterfully it's constructed. My procrastination has kept me from doing that, which is why I’m doing this shorter daily series, so I can train myself to be a little more disciplined.

So without further ado...adoo?

Pony A Day

Daily retrospective mini-reviews of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

Season 1 Episode 1

Friendship is Magic Part 1

April 4th 2017

Personal Score 10/10

We begin with a storybook like sequence of narration, that establishes the history of the world we’re about to explore. Luna, the pony goddess of the moon becomes very jealous of her far more popular sister Celestia, the pony goddess of the Sun and attempts to overthrow her to establish a world of eternal night. Celestia tries to reason with Luna, but is forced to use magical artifacts called “The Elements of Harmony” which trap Luna in the moon for 1000 years. The simple but human failings of Luna grant this introduction a feeling reminiscent of the Greek myths, lending the world a feeling of authenticity for older viewers, but it serves a greater purpose. The story book like sequence sets the tone for what ends up being an all ages adventure. Regardless of age, almost everyone can remember a time when we were told told stories in bed at night.

We soon discover this story is being read by our main character Twilight Sparkle, the only pony who seems to notice it's been 1000 years, and Luna is about to return. Twilight has grown across the span of the 6 seasons, but is still a fully realized character here at the very beginning. She feels like a slightly twisted mirror of Disney’s book loving Belle, of Beauty and the Beast, with the know it all attitude of Hermione Granger combined with the stuck up curmudgeonly Bilbo Baggins before he’s forced onto his adventure. As Twilight rushes off back home to learn more about the relics that imprisoned Luna, she politely declines an offer from some classmates to attend a party. As she leaves, the comments from her classmates indicate Twilight regularly snubs offers to socialize, and has no friends of her own.

The closest thing Twilight has to a friend is her assistant Spike, a young dragon who’s constantly cleaning up after her messes. Spike serves a narrative purpose by giving Twilight someone to trade dialogue with, but also serves to further illustrate Twilight’s poor social awareness and often self centered behavior as she leaves a messy trail of books in her search for more book about the “Elements of Harmony”, and Spike gives a look of “I just cleaned this room,”

Twilight has Spike send a message to Princess Celestia warning her of the impending danger, to which the response is that Twilight has been spending too much time studying, and mustn’t become obsessed with old fairy tales. Seriusly when was the last time your teacher told you to stop studying so much? Twilight is assigned to oversee preparations for the kingdom’s annual Solstice celebration, which this year is being held in the small town of Ponyville, along with a royal order to “Make Some Friends”.

This is where the real brilliance of the episode shines. In the short span of about 10 minutes we’re introduced to 5 unique characters who are all instantly iconic and memorable despite the short introductions we receive. Applejack is a rowdy, but polite, hardworking apple farmer. Rainbow dash is a talented but lazy would be stunt performer, who’s self centered, but also happy to help others. Dash’s introduction also cleverly inserts some world building, by showing us that Pegasi can move and stand on clouds and are responsible for managing the weather. Rarity instantly shows her generosity by fixing Twilight’s hair which Dash wrecked, and also expresses her desire to move to a big city one day. Fluttershy is ludicrously...shy, but instantly opens up to animals, adding in some more world building by showing us that animals like birds can be understood by certain ponies. Lastly Pinkie Pie is a marvel in and of herself. She’s the kind of super hyper, fast talking character who usually grates on you in children’s cartoons, but in this case, you can’t help but like her. Especially when we learn Pinkie threw a surprise party for Twilight because she had deduced from an earlier interaction that Twilight was new to town and had no friends. Seeing that Pinkie’s over the top demeanor is in deliberate service of the happiness of others, makes a usually unbearable archetype instantly lovable.

The show’s creator Lauren Faust has said several times before that with this new series she wanted to overcome the stigma that a show aimed at little girls automatically equals a crappy show with no real substance to it. Twilight’s cynicism is a key part of how Faust accomplished her goals. The entire episode, she’s acting exactly like the kind of person who scoffs at the idea of adults being invested in a children’s cartoon. The show is simultaneously letting the audience know that they are aware of how inherently silly this all is, while telling them they need to drop their prejudices towards kid’s shows and just enjoy themselves.

The episode culminates with Celestia being a no show at the Solstice celebration, and Luna, aka Nightmare Moon, making a grand entrance. The dark princess is aghast that no one remembers her, and we get a bit more characterization for Applejack, who despite being as confused as everyone else, shows herself to be the most mature by stoping Dash’s temper and Pinkie’s naivete from incurring the wrath of the god horse who just crashed their party. The episode ends with a “To Be Continued” and a Twilight who looks likes she is no longer happy about being right.

The Power Rangers Movie Is Probably Going To Be Bad

Ok guys….so….let’s be real here. The Power Rangers movie is probably going to suck. No no no! Wait I’m NOT here to hate, I’m here to help. You see I’ve been through this before….Twice. I’ve had two beloved stories of my childhood adapted into just...awful movies.

So now I know what they look like, and I’m here to help soften the blow of disappointment you’re probably gonna be hit with this Friday. The reason why is really simple. The Power Rangers movie has a clear identity crisis.

The director Dean Israelite appears to get it...mostly. He clearly cares about the property, and him talking about how the movie is mostly about a group of teenagers becoming friends and heroes together is a good sign. You can see this in the trailers which are mostly comprised of the kids interacting with each other. They seem like they’re all into it and have decent chemistry, but we actually haven’t seen that much when you re-watch the trailers, so that could just be clever editing by the trailer makers.

What’s concerning, is whenever the filmmakers talk about anything in the movie besides the kids. The director saying that they wanted to re-imagine certain aspects to be more “grounded” has become code in Hollywood for grim and depressing.

http://www.empireonline.com/movies/power-rangers/power-rangers-bryan-cranston-dean-israelite-grounded-reboot/

Then we got Bryan Cranston saying the film does for Power Rangers what the Dark Knight Trilogy did for Batman. Which you know makes total sense. Because you know when you’re adapting a property that’s been successful for decades as a colorful, optimistic, team based adventure, you definitely want to take inspiration from the dark gritty crime drama centered around a lone protagonist.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bryan-cranston-power-rangers-the-dark-knight_us_577bd160e4b09b4c43c11b69

To be fair, Cranston goes on to clarify his comparison. Saying that the movie and the original series are as different as The Dark Knight and Adam West Batman. Not that it will be as dark as Nolan’s Batman, but they’re from different eras, and can’t really be compared. What’s more concerning is that such comments make me worried that the filmmakers have moved too far away from what made the original appeal to kids of the 90s, as opposed to embracing what made it great, and telling those stories with modern sensibilities like the Marvel movies have been doing.

Then we have the designs of the Zords which looks like they were doing their damndest to make sure they looked as little like robot dinosaurs as possible

Someone got paid for these designs

 And Goldar literally looks a giant walking polished turd.  

I won’t lie, the costumes are way better than I thought they’d be. Like holy crap they had the guts to do the mouths. But they still look over designed, like they were trying too hard to "be cool". Then all the shots in the trailers of them walking in the suits with the colors muted. Like they were afraid of being made fun of for having their costumes compared to tights or something.

Also, it's more of a personal nitpick, but I don’t like that all of their helmets are more or less uniform, instead of each helmet incorporating the imagery of their Zord. There are slight differences, but it feels like another sign that they fear people won’t take the film seriously. Like they’re afraid people will say “HAHA! Look her helmet is shaped like a kitty! HAR HAR!”

The Saber Tooth Tiger Helmet remains one of the coolest Ranger helmets ever. As proven by science.

And this is where the biggest red flag for this movie pops up. We’ve seen very little action for this movie in the trailers. And what we have seen of them fighting in the costumes looks like it's had lots of un-finished CG layered on top. The third trailer that recently dropped is even more evidence of this. Little more than a collection of lightning fast cuts, which feels like it was meant to get the viewer hyped up without giving them anything substantial to think about, and come to the conclusion that this movie might not be very good.

The yellow kitty helmet was so cool in fact, they based a whole other Ranger on it

And NO, they’re not holding back because they don’t want to "spoil" it for people. No no no. This is a modern Hollywood movie, and if you hadn’t noticed, they want this to be the set up for a LONG lasting Marvel style film franchise. (Which is really weird since aesthetically the film looks like it's trying to be less like Avengers, and more like all those failed YA novel adaptations, that tried to tried to ride off the success of Hunger Games.)

Yeah they want to make Avengers money with this movie. What? Didn't you notice?

If they had more cool stuff to show, you can bet your ass they’d be filling the trailers with  it, and we would have seen it LONG before when that first teaser dropped. Instead, based on the rest of the trailers, I'm betting we'll get at least an hour of tedious build up and mystery sprinkled with exposition on the kids and their cliche’ angsty teenage backstories, before we get to the actual Power Ranger parts.

All of these things add up to give the impression that they could never settle on a tone for the movie. Or it came from the perspective that there was something wrong with the source material so they had to “Ground” it to make it work. And look, I’d like more than anything else to be wrong on this one. I’d like it to be the case that the marketing was cynical and decided to sell the movie more like Dark Knight than Avengers, and that the finished product is way more upbeat and tonally consistent. Or that they somehow make a “grounded” Power Rangers approach work. I'd like this movie to be great and have lots of sequels and in the fourth or fifth movie the Ninja Alien Rangers show before going off to have their own movies.

These are the Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers. Yes they look like Babylon 5 rejects. Yes they were still cool.

I'd love there to be a movie where the Blue Senturion shows up and they have a Terminator style adventure to save the future.

Blue Senturion, defender of intergalactic space law. Yes its spelled that way. No, I don't know why.


And hey it looks like there aren't going to be any more of those crappy new Ninja Turtles movies. So maybe Nick and Saban can get together and do a reboot / crossover. 

This was actually my first exposure to Ninja Turtles as a kid.

But I have to call them as I see them, and this one looks bad.

The Naruto Movie Will Impact The Entire Anime Industry

Well boys and girls looks the the first real effort by Hollywood to adapt Anime and Manga en mass is upon. (You know now that they spectacularly failed to adapt video games this year.) Regardless of how good you think the Ghost in the Shell trailer, Scarlet Johanson is one of the most popular actresses on the planet right now. So WHEN the movie does really well, we’re guaranteed to get at least a few years of studios trying to adapt anime and manga to the big screen. This could be very, very good for the Anime industry. But if we want this to last, we’re going to need more unconventional stuff like Naruto to succeed as well.

2014's Lucy made over $450 million worldwide on a $40 million budget. So audience will be showing up for Ghost in the Shell AKA Hey Marvel, its me ScarJo, look how much money a solo Black Widow movie make!

Let’s be real, the anime industry isn’t in a great place right now. No it's not doomed, it's not going to collapse. But most of the people who work in the industry don’t get paid what they deserve, thanks to all but the biggest studios subsisting on the barest of profit margins from sales of over priced Blu-Rays. Sadly those exorbitant prices are necessary because the audience for Anime discs is so small (and because my fellow millennials don’t want to pay for anything anymore).

But the success of the live action Naruto movie could change all this. Yes a rising tide raises all ships, but if Naruto fails and only Ghost in the Shell succeeds, then we’re more likely to only get adaptations with more western friendly settings like Trigun, Black Lagoon and Cowboy Beebop. All of which would make for awesome movies, but wouldn’t bring as much attention and money to the industry as a whole. Or more likely the industry would probably shift its output to make more Western Friendly stories. And while that wouldn’t be totally bad, it might lead to over saturation of certain genres or stagnation. An Anime / Manga industry where there is enough excess cash to take risks on new ideas is better for everyone.

Remember, back in the day an original Anime like Evangelion was a huge risk, almost everything was an adaptation, but now it's one of the biggest merchandising empires in Japan

While something like Naruto has the potential to appeal to a wide demographic, like Harry Potter or the Marvel movies, and cause more people to be receptive to anime. I’m ultimately more worried about the damage a bad Naruto movie could do, than how it could bring about a renaissance for the industry. Specifically, if Naruto is a dud, it could frighten studios away from adapting the one Anime that could really be world wide in live action. Fullmetal Alchemist.

Hey Hollywood, its Japan. We've got your next Harry Potter right here. Ya know...if you want

Let’s not kid ourselves. The primary goal of the people making the Japanese Full Metal Alchemist movie, is to pitch Hollywood on a live action FMA franchise. And I posit that there is no other Anime/Manga property out there, more suited to be Anime’s ambassador to the world than Full Metal Alchemist. Its set in world with elements that audiences are already comfortable with, reminiscent of LOTR, Harry Potter. But it also has that unique Japanese flavor that would make it stand out without potentially scaring audiences off the way Naruto’s very Japanese setting could. In a better world the Full Metal Alchemist movie would come before Naruto, but its not, so we all need to cross our fingers and hope really hard that Naruto is a good movie.

Next Week: I argue about which actor I believe should play Kakashi. Why not do hypothetical casting on Naruto? Well you’ll have to come back next Sunday to find out!!!

The One Thing The Naruto Movie Needs To Do To Succeed

WHELP! ITS HAPPENING! Naruto is getting a big live action Hollywood adaptation from Lionsgate. The success or failure of this movie is going to have a huge impact on the future of the anime industry, but more on that in another article. This movie has several challenges it’ll need to overcome in order to be a global success. You’re going to need an aesthetic that’s faithful to the source material so visually the film looks unique enough to stand out among previous franchise blockbuster fair, but also not too weird and stylized that it turns people away and….oh

Character shots from the Naruto stage musical in Japan. Yes, that's a real thing.

Well ok, looks like that job is all done for them.

There are many other challenges like finding a balance between the funny moments for kids and the darker moments, and Oh no wait Avengers and Harry Potter already showed us how to do that. Um… they’re also going to find a way to make the more visually flamboyant Jutsu work and....oh you know Dr.Strange did that really well.

Wow, looks like the Naruto movie is primed for success in terms of finding an audience, and being visually believable. So then why am I worried enough to feel the need to write this?

Well, it's clear they want to start a franchise to rival Harry Potter with this, so in this spectacle driven, blockbuster landscape we currently live in, I'm afraid they'll make this first film bigger than it needs to be, the way they’re going to try and smash the first two Artemis Fowl books together. The big battles from the second Fowl book will provide for lots of 3D CG spectacle to wow the world wide audience, but it sounds VERY expensive and Artemis Fowl is nowhere near as popular as the Harry Potter books were before they got their movies. So instead of making a cheap, tight 90 minute film based on the first book, I fear they’ll spend too much, not enough will go to see it, and we’ll end up with another Percy Jackson or Vampire’s assistant, and those movies weren’t even that expensive.

So, if they really want to make Naruto into a franchise, they need to start as small, and as cheap as possible. So the film doesn’t have to do crazy numbers to establish a beachhead, in an increasingly crowded blockbuster industry. And thankfully the material for that is baked right into the source material, ready to go.

Its pretty simple. You take the first half hour to establish the world and characters with Naruto learning that he’s the host of the Nine Tailed Fox, and Kakashi’s first test for Team 7. Don’t bother with Konohamaru. Introduce him in the 2nd one if you want to, but not here. Don’t do the thing where Naruto tries to impersonate Sasuke to make out with Sakura. Then you take another 90 minutes max, to adapt the Bridge Arc. It’s simple, small scale, and personal in a way that if done right, will make audiences around the world fall in love with these characters and get them to come back for the inevitably more expensive sequels.

Now Lionsgate. Don’t Screw It Up!