/mlpol/ - My Little Politics

>>357025
A quick detour as the MLP G4 movie appears here, developing the world of Equestria by explaining there are no other realms outside the primary nation that hold ponies. There are generic furries in cat, fish, and bird anthropomorphic beings that live in poverty. It is implied that part of the reason for this is the rule of the Storm King, basically a Yeti that conquered several of these non-pony lands and seeks pony magic. No magic is set up to exist for furries. The only magic that seems to exist are located in ponies and pony adjacent creatures such as changelings and a few notable exceptions. Spike has a fire breath that can magically transport letters. It seems fairly reasonable to assume this is a special spell put on him that allows this as no other dragon is depicted as possessing magic inherently, only magically effected by an artifact held within their ruler’s scepter. Hippogriffs follow suit as their transformations are completely reliant on an artifact. Yaks are also depicted as insanely strong, but this is never referred to as a form of magic. There are magical monsters, but it seems all civilizations outside of ponies and changelings don’t hold an inherent magical power. The end of the movie sees the Storm King steal all the alicorn magic, which given how powerful that was in season 4, he was fairly tame. He gained the power to move sun and moon, create storms, and shoot lasers. Fairly standard lasers as well. It could be argued that a staff is a poor means to harness magic though, limited by both a detachment from the body and inexperience. He is defeated by his own apprentice befriending ponies after Storm King betrayed her a bit too soon. Should have kept up the ploy just a bit longer before pulling the rug. Oh well, he turned to stone by his own hand trying to stop the ponies, fell from atop the castle and crashed into Canterlot city below, shattering to pieces. He is dead. Ponies got magic back. Magic definitely won’t be stolen again.

>>357026
Next, season 8 of the show reveals the possibility of magic being drained from the entire world. Well, that was fast to get right back onto the stealing magic plot train. The villain of this season, Cozy Glow, attends the school of friendship created by Twilight and friends to educate all creatures outside of Equestria and encourage immigration and the cultural erasure of ponies. I wish I was largely exaggerating, but indeed the season demonstrates that language that is pony centric must be revised by the main cast to be more inclusive to the diverse school body, awards that depict ponies are redesigned to reflect the appearance of creatures, and traditions of ponies are described as disgusting and boring while the traditions of all other creatures are seen as something that needs to be embraced and practiced. The villain Cozy Glow, a filly who is about the same age as the Cutiemark Crusaders, is set up as just as dismissive and pony centric as the evil racist Chancellor Neighsay, who oversees all education through the EEA committee, set up to limit government control over education to protect the minds and growth of the youth. This filly succeeds in eliminating all magic from Equestria save for cutiemarks, ancient relics, some mythical creatures’ magical forms, and the Tree of Harmony, which gets to intervene and stop Cozy Glow directly upon hearing the school question Cozy’s alignment with Harmony and her responses against it. It frees all of the ponies she captured in that room and allows her to be defeated. The Tree of Harmony is set up in this same season as sentient, able to understand the world around it, test others for alignment with the ideals of friendship it upholds and has a desire to stop and even kill beings that are opposed to those ideals. Upon stopping Cozy Glow, all magic is returned to Equestria, shown to repair the magical beings in the world that were split into mundane animals that comprise their mythical counterparts. For her crime of stealing all magic, she is sent to Tartarus with no chance at redemption. Another thing is that they confirm there is no magic in any of the creatures save for changelings and the artifact for hippogriffs.

>>357027
One more detail. Rainbow Roadtrip is a somewhat important special as the mane 6 go on a trip as the title would suggest, though it is by hot air balloon and not the road, so it is a bit deceptive. This trip passes by architecture reminiscent of the Lord of the Rings in two massive statues stood side by side next to a river. This implies that Equestria still holds secrets and is still a massive place even within the borders of pony territory. Can’t wait to get more on that. At their destination, the cast find the town is devoid of saturation. This effect is played as completely different to when this occurred with Discord, but a similar philosophy exists behind the effect. The town has lost hope as the ponies grew apart, closing themselves off from community and friendship. This led to a form of magic being harnessed called Hopeless magic. Original name. The magic is able to counter spells and effects from the Sonic Rainboom. It cannot be dispelled as long as it is being harnessed unbeknownst to the inhabitants of the town. The town is brought back together in small gestures of community and kindness and the hopelessness recedes. Not terribly exciting but might still prove important to consider.

>>357029
Season 9 takes a bit of explaining because it is the most important when connecting a sequel storyline to the previous generation. Luckily for the writers, most episodes are filler and not critical to understanding the characters or the storyline you need to continue. I hope that helps them immensely, otherwise they will seem very stupid for not picking out a couple of final episodes of the show and easily connect threads together. I really hope that doesn’t happen. Anyway, this season’s plot includes Twilight taking over the throne from Celestia and Luna with a villain appearing to disrupt everything: Grogar, a villain from the very first generation of My Little Pony. He summons all major villains from each seasons’ finales and orders them to team up to destroy Twilight. Sombra does not take this offer and flies off as a cloud of smoke to the Crystal Empire. The mane 6 destroy Sombra immediately with the Elements of Harmony. Somehow, Palpatine Sombra returned not actually completely defeated and smashes both the Tree of Harmony and the Elements of Harmony… with a single crystal attack… and the Elements just flop on the floor and shatter… forgetting that Nightmare Moon smashed the Elements of Harmony in the very first two-part episode to the show and they were repaired by the presence of the Element bearers. Oh well. The Elements of Harmony are permanently gone now. Sombra is defeated again after supposedly killing Discord and unintentionally awakening the Elements within the mane 6. The show explains that the Elements of Harmony were only ever some crystals, and they were the elements the whole time… forgetting that the Elements existed along with Celestia and Luna which could use them until supposedly the birth of the Element bearers as Celestia explains in the first episode of season 2 that the Elements are no longer connected with Celestia and Luna. Oh well. The Elements are basically instantly restored through this explanation that the Tree and Elements are now obsolete. Discord revealed he was faking death to allow their power to awaken and to give Twilight confidence.

>>357030
Seeing the immediate defeat of Sombra twice in a single day, the rest of the cast of villains agree to work for Grogar, begrudgingly teaming up with intentions to take each other out and becoming the sole ruler of Equestria. They receive instructions to retrieve Grogar’s bell, an artifact of power from ancient Equestrian history. A pony of significance named Gusty the Great stole Grogar’s bell and hid it in a mountain that has a magical spell on it that disrupts attempts to access it, from avalanches to gale force winds and finally a magical barrier that protects the resting spot, it is a challenge that forces the villain cast to work together and find themselves bonding. The most interesting dynamic the show has to offer in these final seasons. Grogar’s bell is finally retrieved using all their talents, but a final ploy is thought up. Instead of attempting to betray each other, they will first betray Grogar when the time is right and secure all of Equestria before settling their differences. Another episode of relatively little importance than setting up a story beat occurs that reveals the villains are extremely good at making ponies hate each other. Another that needs a quick cover is that the Tree of Harmony’s life force still remains but is dying. It calls out to six students that have been the focus of season 8 as representatives of all the creature races the show cares about. They goof around with the Tree and try to honor it in very childish ways, from art to a makeshift museum, until making a treehouse with the remains. Their friendship in making the house is rewarded over the desecration of the remains and the tree instantly grows into a much more massive tree with a treehouse reminiscent of Elven architecture from fantasy tropes. All this to confirm the Tree of Harmony isn’t dead and the world isn’t fucked by evil magic, just fucked from diversity which has pilfered the remains of something great, made it their own, and transformed it beyond recognition, but it is good because the show made it look pretty.

>>357031
Enter the finale. Grogar is taken by surprise by the villain cast who utilize the bell to drain all the magic from him. This undoes the magic transformation spell on his body, revealing him to be a now powerless Discord. As much as I hate this bait and switch, at least this means the full runtime of this finale will be the new dynamic of a form of friendship between villains and the friendship of the ponies. Which will win? Apparently, the villains do because immediately the set up they did pays off. Equestria is divided into earth pony, unicorn, and pegasi. The villains have the advantage, defeat the Pillars, Starlight Glimmer, and the mane 6. Twilight makes an escape before everypony is captured. All ponies are divided and the Windigo return. All seems lost, but Starlight, utilizing a distraction by Discord and a loose bolt of magic from the villains, breaks out everypony. Twilight is consoled who was having a mental break down and literally gave up before being rescued from depression by her friends, a battle ensues that isn’t very impressive for the basically limitless power that the three villains have, especially seeing what Tirek has been capable of in the past. The ponies aren’t enough and have to rely on all the creatures they indoctrinated and spread throughout the only pony lands on the entire planet. Through their powers combined, they stall the villains for the mane six to team up and be the Elements of Harmony. Why they didn’t lead with that, I don’t know. They are quickly joined with two other groups that also become Elements somehow? These two are the Pillars of Harmony and the six students. Twilight rises above all of them and controls their friendship rainbow power into a beam that turns all the villains to stone, including the actual child. I guess racism is just that unforgivable. Discord described being turned to stone as still able to have consciousness of the world around you. RIP.

>>357032
So, the finale ends with one final episode, an epilogue. This is the single most important episode for the writers of the next generation as the events of this one episode flow into the whole next generation, despite the time gap. It opens with a statue of Twilight and her friends, implying they are dead. Twilight has been turned into a Celestia rigged model, more lanky with a flowing magic mane. She goes over how she got here to her new apprentice, Luster Dawn, that is confused about the importance of friends like Twilight was via flashback. She didn’t want to say goodbye to her friends by ascending the throne. Her friends help her ascension ceremony and mess up most everything, but they attended, which is what counted. Twilight then realizes that being ruler doesn’t mean they will never see each other, so they set up monthly meetings so each pony can go their separate ways and return as friends. The apprentice then understands how much friends meant to Twilight and agrees to try to make some. The rest of the mane 6 enter the room. Not sure why they implied they were dead. I guess to make a pleasant surprise? Eventually they will be dead, but I guess addressing that will have to wait for G5. We then take a proper look around the future Twilight created. What little we see of Canterlot is overrun with creatures, outnumbering ponies. Ponyville is next and is still majority pony for now, but creatures now make their home here too. Each of the characters’ lives are summed up quickly by implication through visuals as a final song plays. Ending shot is Twilight and friends standing on a hill watching the apprentice make friends. The book from the very first episode that introduces the show’s world. People went absolutely crazy for that ending because it is thematically connected. I am not as impressed, as this means that all the events were a story seen through the eyes of someone reading a book. Perhaps it was real. Perhaps it leaves room for interpretations of the facts presented. Perhaps nothing was real. The events in the book from the first episode were real but left out crucial details that Twilight needed to fully understand the situation. I suppose that is a great metaphor for what we are jumping into.

>>357033
Now, the real breakdown you have been interested in can begin! Let’s start with the movie. G5 was well received with this movie and bought a lot of good will by simply not being the disaster that would have been the leaked content from Hasbro. The pitched concept of G5 was a reboot of G4 with mixed up personalities, physical traits, and backgrounds. Twilight was to be an adventurous earth pony inventor instead of a studious recluse, Applejack was supposed to be a city dwelling nigger that would likely lecture about privilege, and Fluttershy would be a unicorn. How you hear the name Fluttershy and ever make her anything but a pegasus, I will never know. Regardless, this did not occur. It seems odd that so much work was seemingly done for this pitch and yet it was not made. Some concepts for the characters would be recycled into what we did get, as earth pony Twilight became Sunny Starscout, the main protagonist of G5. Perhaps the backlash was too much for the company. Seems odd considering the episodes they put out for the show that openly made caricatures of the fanbase to tear down and disgrace. Perhaps they wanted a fresh slate though and find a means to simply exist and repel such a massive following. The messaging was hyped to be very progressive, and the movie does lay it on a bit thick that we should not be racist. Nothing we haven’t heard a million times before. Other than that, and what you can try to read into it, there is nothing to really get mad about message wise. Nothing praiseworthy, encouraging, or very positive either. Seems like just a standard kids show. If you showed me this and told me this once belonged to one of the biggest fandoms on the planet, I would not believe you. That relatively inoffensive nature to the public that eats up racism bad messages anyway and with decent animation given what it is working with allowed this to accrue a lot of praise for setting up a story. The primary praise this movie receives is that it is a setup, not to be judged negatively because the story is still being revealed… but able to be judged positively because it currently exists in context of what it has… I am going to give them a lot of shit for this throughout this breakdown. I hope it isn’t a turnoff, but I think it is well deserved, because it allowed the good will to bring about an environment of apathy and they gave no shits connecting stories to their own work, let alone the previous generation. The more you give things passes for being a mess, the less organized of a story you will get. It is to the point that you can’t even get someone to just write down all the details or look at the transcripts as they make stories that need to refer to other works. Regardless, let’s mix things up by judging it both on its own and as a connected piece of media to what came before and what comes after. This is going to be exhaustive after all. Oh, and if you want to follow along and be certain I’m not exaggerating the scenes, I found a link to a transcript of the movie. Enjoy.
https://mlp.fandom.com/wiki/Transcripts/My_Little_Pony:_A_New_Generation

>>357034
The movie opens with a familiar music style from the G4 movie’s opening along with the mane 6 from G4 in a highly stylized 2D animation. They are quickly revealed to be the product of the imagination of the main cast of this movie as children, arguing on how their past is. From this, many assumptions about the history of this world spawn as the antagonist of this film, Sprout, goes on to say “my mom said all the pegasi and unicorns tried to eat up all the earth ponies by zapping them with lasers and frying them to a crisp, so the earth ponies kicked their butts in an epic battle and if they ever try to come back to Maretime Bay we will kick their butts again”. This is denied by the protagonist, Sunny Starscout, who tries to validate her position by asking her friend, Hitch Trailblazer, what actually happened. Hitch confirms this is what is taught in history class. From this, the fandom is left to assume that there is an element of truth to this story and some sort of civil war has indeed taken place. However, the show will at every turn deny this possibility, which I will cover. As often as it is repeated that there was a pony civil war, we only have the movie’s antagonists to count on for this information while the rest of the characters in the movie can only site that they are simply not desirable, and a worry exists on ever meeting the others. On the surface, the unreliable narrator is to be expected in a plot about stereotypes and how information that you presume is not always aligned with reality, but since there is no evidence of a war, then the history of this world makes little sense. But I suppose it will be explained in later episodes and you can’t judge the movie for not providing clues for the world building that was done in a single episode of the previous generation.

Moving on, the children head down an elevator located in the center of the room, meeting up with Sunny’s father, Argyll, who is shown to be invested in researching the past. How he is able to find detailed evidence of the past including a map of Ponyville and their location relative to the Everfree Forest and Canterlot in a world that has forgotten most everything is beyond me. He has fully correct notes on what the mane 6 looked like, their cutiemarks, and knew that they were all friends. We later learn he knows a bit more than this as well. Sunny takes her father’s research to heart while the rest of the town is described as not believing what he has found. The antagonist’s mom, Phyllis Cloverleaf, arrives to pick up her son. She describes the father’s research as brainwash while he retorts that her method towards the town is brainwash. From this exchange, we see a detail that I noticed only recently though countless others have seen it many times before. The cutiemarks have been altered to be on only the right side of the pony model. In G4, they were always present on both sides to allow for the ease of flipping models, but they were still canonically on both sides of their body. No explanation as of yet to why this changed happened inside of the universe, as it seems to simply be attempting to be closer to a branding of a horse, which is typically done on a single side.

Argyll comforts his daughter, explaining that standing up for what you believe in is most important. Sunny responds by proclaiming her dedication to proving to everyone that she is correct in her beliefs and then befriending pegasi and unicorns. They then make a letter together to ask whoever receives it to come to Maretime Bay as there are friends to make there, sending the letter off on a sky lantern. Sunny is sent to bed with a plainly incorrect story about earth ponies watching in awe as pegasi painted rainbows across the sky as the night lights up with a hundred unicorn horns. With all the accurate details he can obtain about the past, it seems that he still succumbs to believing his own race hold little to offer in comparison to others. Regardless, Sunny asks why the three types of ponies can’t be friends anymore, which the father says that one day they might find out. Excuse me, what? You are the expert here and this reinforces that he found no evidence of any war that caused there to be a lack of friendship, or he is blatantly lying to his daughter to encourage her to make friends with them. By utilizing the knowledge the fanbase constantly refers to as critical to have to excuse the lack of answers this movie provides, we still have no idea as all accounts are contradictory. This is the turning point for the entire world that sets up how it is possible that events in the story take place and there is no rational way it can take place. More on that much later.

>>357035
Transition to day and a time jump to a grown Sunny. Her digital clock goes off to wake her. Clearly some technology has been produced, though none was shown to this degree outside an automatic pully and some electric light bulbs up until now. She gets ready for the day by tying up her hair with her single blue band out of her collection of pink, though she clearly is wearing two blue bands on her hair… I don’t understand the point of making her have a single blue band to immediately ruin that continuity. Is it symbolic of her standing out and standing alone for what she believes in and that trumped the design you already gave yourself? She heads out the door, passing by a picture of her father with his glasses in a case beside it, implying he is dead. A sad as that is, I am immediately distracted by the fully painted and show accurate image of Starswirl the Bearded. How do you have this, likely know who he is, and still have no credibility when there is no evidence for a war? Along with his image likely existed the images or at least writings about the other Pillars, which were comprised of every race. The history that ponies were ever friends is denied by the public. This is tangible evidence to the contrary. I guess it is just a reference to point to and feel good that you recognized it. Plus, a single gesture or piece of evidence of a unified past and possible future can’t be enough to turn the entire world into accepting others. That would be silly.

Sunny leaves the house, revealed to be a lighthouse, explaining the elevator in the center of the room before, riding into town on rollerblades. Ponies have been known to fascinatingly use such things, like Pinkie with ice skates. Sunny then collects a small cart of smoothies from the smoothie stand and pulls it along. She appears to work at this location, which is something that oddly comes up a lot in the following series. She sings all the while about it being her day while we explore the town to get a feel for the setting while she vandalizes and sabotages the town to promote equality among races. The song is a bit generic and feels like the decision of open the G4 movie with “We got the beat”, but it serves the function of a scene set up well enough. Sunny bumps into Hitch who is guarding the entrance to Canterlogic, a combination of facilities that both researches and produces technology to counter pegasi and unicorns. Hitch has orders as sheriff of the town to keep Sunny out lest she sabotage this as well. He is joined by random creatures to set him up as a sort of Fluttershy type, connected to nature even if unwillingly for now. They are established to be fully sentient and able to understand language. He explains that every year for an unspecified time Sunny has attempted to disrupt all operations during the annual expo. She is banned from the establishment and has returned to once again halt operations with a demonstration but must deceive her own friend to do so.

>>357036
The expo begins with an announcer stating the founder of Canterlogic has been keeping ponies safe for 20 moons. This further complicates matters. This is supposedly deep into the future for Equestria, but the operations of all things to protect against and attack other pony races has only been a recent development. Where is the surplus from the pony war? The simple answer is that there is no evidence there ever was one, but the town ought to believe there was one. Yet everything points to just a generation ago, there was no reason to believe that there was any conflict. The show begins by showing three new technological developments: a hat with supposed mind reading protection, a periscope google set pointed skyward to watch for pegasi, and a backpack that inflates balloons to make an escape... from beings able to fly, levitate objects, and shoot lasers… Each of these is played to be a joke, indicating that they both don’t work and the whole process behind them is sort of a shame. However, a deeper implication to this is that even if there was a war, clearly earth ponies were on the losing side, reduced to makeshift technological advancements and products for the ponies that are desperate in a defense. Why they would believe they were the winners of the conflict, or at least the defense of this one town, seems odd.

The demonstration continues with the higher tech innovations for the city-state that is this town. Sunny interferes and starts a solo protest on stage. Unfortunately, the engineers of this tech don’t have a kill switch for the demo, so the devices whir into motion, including a unicorn capture cage and a goo rotary catapult to disable pegasi flight all aimed at Sunny. The machine is unplugged, allowing Sunny to be flung right towards the audience for a speech. She says that everything they think is a lie and to make friends instead of fear. You might think that believing everything to be a lie means the movie recognizes that the lack of a war is accounted for. Several pieces line up if it is all a lie, the lack of weapons, the relatively new production of defenses, the lack of any evidence, and now Sunny suggesting there is absolutely nothing to their fears. However, there is a critical oversight in this logic, which is why I began this thread talking about how the writers can’t even look over their own current material. If there is no war, then how did the races get separated in the first place? The movie has no answer by itself, which means that when taking the movie purely by itself, the only answer can be the war was real. In taking the whole material together as fans insist must be done, then there is an explanation along with a paradox. I will come to that later, but for now, we can refer to the previous generation, as this movie is completely reliant on it for both nostalgia views and world building set up, to understand that ponies have whole traditional holidays about how they can’t separate, whole magic systems that prevent prolonged infighting through the Tree of Harmony that corrects and Windigos that destroy to force friendship by threat of mutual destruction, and a Princess of Friendship that was last seen teaching an apprentice to carry on her work. The movie has no interest in explaining itself and the fanbase’s insistence that it is ok because future material will retroactively make it ok is baffling. Not all answers have to be provided, but this is the foundational question to how this world is even possible.

>>357037
Continuing, Hitch shows Sunny the door and talks to her, insisting that her dad made all of the past he was researching up to put her to sleep… despite the clearly ancient artifacts he houses in the lighthouse including fully accurate depictions of Starswirl who is known to have created the Tree of Harmony. Luckily, the masses don’t have any clue that the Tree of Harmony is a thing. That would be a major problem when explaining that they think all of the past is a lie. Hopefully they don’t have books on that subject available or anything of the sort. Sunny pleads to the sheriff that he needs to help her because he is respected in the community. Hitch demands she prove what she is saying is true before he helps. Naturally, at this moment a unicorn is arriving. After a quick pout about her troubles, Sunny notices the town running in terror from a smiling Pinkie Pie adjacent Izzy Moonbow, who is clueless to why the town is running, believing it to be some sort of game. Sunny guides her haphazardly around town but loses her as she gets distracted by a movie theater advertising Judgement Neigh, clearly depicting the robot in pony form from Termineightor 2. The unicorn states she hasn’t seen this one before, but I wonder how it is at all possible to see any movie with what we learn about unicorns later. She stumbles into a capture cage waiting for her. The town relaxes before Sunny presses the easy to access release button. The town returns to a panic and many fall into capture cages themselves. Not sure how they had the time to set these up all over town if they really are new. I have to assume they are simply newly displayed to the public after a couple years of development, field testing, and implementation over the months prior to official display. The two mares retreat to the lighthouse where Sunny proceeds to ask questions to her new friend. Unicorns live in Bridlewood and have no magic. Hitch announces via megaphone for Sunny to surrender the unicorn as they are both under arrest. Izzy walks outside to attempt to talk her way out, trying to express she knows that there is a misunderstanding by stating “I know what you’re thinking but…”, which leads the deputy tagging along, Sprout, to freak out about unicorn mindreading powers. This provides the distraction for Sunny to pull Izzy along to escape. Not quite sure how they pulled this off because they would have to run down the same path to leave, as the lighthouse is on a cliff near the shore. Regardless, they leave the town’s limits and head out towards the wilderness. Izzy takes this time to better explain the lack of magic, stating they once had it and the pegasi are believed by most unicorns to have had something to do with the disappearance. She goes on to say that the earth ponies are believed to be dumb and lazy, and just judging by the town we have seen, I would have agreed. But seeing the rest of this film, this is only partially true.

>>357039
Sunny attempts to talk Izzy into visiting the pegasi to learn if they indeed know what happened to unicorn magic because they are believed to still have their magic intact. How that is known when unicorns were thought to have theirs by earth ponies is beyond me. Izzy then starts a song about how she is unsure if she can trust pegasi due to what she was told about them. It is a bit odd that unicorns are not told too many negative things about earth ponies to have Izzy unsure about them, but we will get to that. Sunny sings about aiding her in the adventure and they then play a montage of their travel. Gotta have a montage. This travel takes from morning to night. We know that Sunny woke up at seven, sung a song while vandalizing a town, probably to pass around an hour at most for the expo to begin as she still had product to hoof out in the form of smoothies. She then interrupted the demonstration after three objects were displayed and was kicked out after a short speech. It is unlikely that it is too far past nine or ten when she exits, runs into the unicorn, and if forced to immediately run with her out of town. Hitch decides to follow Sunny to bring her to jail at nightfall, presumably the same time as the montage ends. This sets up that Sprout is alone and gets to run law enforcement while he is gone. Next scene is Izzy and Sunny heading up the mountain towards the city of Zephyr Heights… at morning. Basically, a full day’s worth of travel has occurred. Hopefully Hitch won’t show up any time before nightfall to account for this travel time, seeing as though he has the advantage in determination to get there quick, he likely has no map and no idea where his targets are, having to stop to track them, losing whatever advantage he has in catching up in good time.

>>357041
Izzy comments on how the pegasi are able to steal a pony’s luminescence or sparkle as is more commonly known to her. She says that Sunny’s is a lavender color. This seems to imply more than just a magic field, but also the energy one has in being cheerful and pleasant, as Izzy states that the happier you are, the brighter it shines. In other words, pegasi are known for making unicorns depressed. Enter a pegasus jumping around completely oblivious to two screaming mares. Given her revealed personality, it seems odd that she gives no fucks about this. She expresses amazement at the two races that are together before her but is otherwise reserved in reaction. Guards on patrol appear which leads the pegasus to flee the scene, asking the two not to be ratted out. Izzy responds that there is no way they could because they don’t know her name. A great line, but most ponies are uniquely colored. Giving a description of that alone would likely identify her. The guards proceed to capture the duo and lead them right to the queen. As they are led to her chambers, we are given a view of the city. From glass walled elevators to golden designs on all architecture, the city is in absolute luxury. Furthermore, the city has modernized technology in flatscreen billboards with animated advertising and touchscreen cellphones. This single city is the only point of contention that there might be evidence to a war, as this sort of structure seems far too good for pegasi to build themselves. Clearly it had to be taken from the aristocratic unicorns and repurposed into a pegasi hub. Well, unfortunately that pesky additional content that so many refer to in order to save the faults of the movie contradicts that. More on that to come. Quick side note, I understand the mechanical use in the story to have news anchors exposit story beats, but why have them cast onto a billboard in the city? Most won’t be paying attention, the audio would be echo-y as shit and hard to focus on in the bustle of a city, and it also serves as a distraction from other advertisements and possible information you can be simply displaying in text format. Simply have a pony watching the news on the cellphones you were so desperate to force into this setting. The announcement Pipp, the one of two princesses in Zephyr Heights, makes does track logically. She is a social media star which can explain why there would be speakers set up to listen to messages from her to the population directly. What doesn’t track is the announcement display has buttons and emojis as if it was a phone display itself. The screen it is on cannot interact with those things, which makes a distraction to the message. Again, if you want that image of her being on social media, just utilize the phones.

At the castle, we are introduced to the queen…’s dog. This dog is a hybrid of a dog and pegasi? It has the same model wings. I am going to rule out interspecies breeding and chalk this up to a new magical creature species. Since magic for some reason still exists in Zephyr Heights and is not totally gone from the world, a magical creature can still exist. G4 established that magical creatures are fusions of regular beings by magic into a mythical form. Good thing all magic isn’t gone completely from the world to allow for such interesting creatures to still exist. The queen, Queen Haven, arrives with her two daughters. Why there are so many missing parental figures in this movie, I will never know. Sunny had only a father before he died, Sprout has only his mother, the two princesses only have a mother, Izzy isn’t shown to have any family but she might just have moved out. Hitch also is not depicted and it doesn’t make as much sense that they aren’t also present in the town interacting with him or utilizing that position in the community to befriend others or abuse their influence. With the mane 6, most of their family lived elsewhere to explain they didn’t show up hardly at all, though a couple of instances of dead relatives were still present. Having all the characters come from broken homes cheapens the meaning. I won’t cry learning about Sunny’s mom like I did learning about Applejack’s. Not a tear will be shed for Pipps dad if they ever discuss that. It’s a shame that they played the dead parent card fast and loose because slowly coming to terms with the nature of Applejack’s parents through tiny details like the shooting stars and then getting hit with the reveal episode where they all but say they are dead and the Apples learn to appreciate the stories about them was impactful. They couldn’t have matched it and now they cannot hope to get any real connection like they could at least try to do by having some restraint or explaining these things with background details or explanations in universe.

>>357042
Anyway, the queen realizes that the two captured mares are a threat to her image and stability of her rule as Pipp leaks their existence to the whole city. They are locked up while we head back to Maretime Bay with Sprout who is forced to deal with the croud. It is about midday now as he reveals his plan is not to calm the population, but utilize their apprehensions to set them to work for him. Not a bad plan for someone with the IQ of a toaster. I just wonder if it was intentional on his part or if he is rolling with the punches and making the most of what he can for himself. He breaks into song that seems to be either loved for being a reference to a band or hated for being fascistic. I hate the lyrics for being so repetitive. Regardless, even if the tune and imagery is lifted from another band, the tune itself is catchy enough and leaves me wanting to see ponies marching with purpose again, destroying the forces of evil. One day Aryanne. You will lead the ponies to victory. One day. Also, G1 ponies are on display for some reason. I get it is a reference because you guys sure do love those references. What is it doing on their TV stations? Do they have animation studios? Why would they animate ponies of all pony kinds being friends and fighting witches, bees, and various super powerful mythic creatures while teaming up with a human? I guess just disregard the implications and just be happy it is there. It isn't terrible, just non-sensical to be there. That is the sort of thing that should be in Sunny's room and not the public square is all I'm saying.

Back with the prisoners, the cell is revealed to be either a converted hotel room or they are just so luxurious that even the prisoners are treated to massage recliners and complementary fruit arrangements. The mysterious other princess sneaks to talk with them. She introduces herself as Zipp and asks if the two know anything about magic. They reply they know nothing of the sort and came to ask in hopes the pegasi knew. Zipp states she needs to show them something before being interrupted temporarily by Pipp, who takes selfies with the prisoners for content. She lets slip that only royals have magic before leaving for a rehearsal in preparation for a party hosted by the royals. After she leaves, Zipp releases the two mares by scanning her hoofprint on a security panel. This is actually relatively important when we come to the series, who knew? We then transition to a sun filled sky and pan down to Hitch who has arrived at the top of the mountain. What the fuck movie? How is he here? He left at night and has arrived here without a map with tracking skills alone faster than what should be possible. The sun is still high in the sky, so at most it is 2 in the afternoon. He left while the moon is out so at best he made the trip that took about a full 24 hours for the other two in just a handful of hours. I hope this sort of instant transportation isn’t done again later in the movie to make sure the plot can still progress with large stakes or this is going to be a problem. Hitch then gives a speech to a bunch of rabbits that are again established in this very scene to be fully sentient and can understand his language. They point behind him revealing two massive screens showing the mugshots of Sunny and Izzy displayed. Hitch then smugly affirms to himself that he has them caught now. How? They are in custody here. Are you going to break them out just to hopefully overpower a unicorn you believe to be a threat and take Sunny back to jail? He ought to believe they are a lost cause if that is the only reason. Instead he should have reacted in a bit of worry that Sunny, his begrudging friend, is caught by beings that he believes are possibly murderous. She could be facing execution or ritualistic consumption for their dinner for all he knows.

>>357044
Now, brace yourselves. We are entering the lore section of the movie. We rejoin our main cast lowering themselves down a makeshift lift out of a widened hot air balloon basket into what appears to be some sort of station reminiscent of a train station. There are old departure times on the wall behind our team. The wall lists the names of locations out: Bridlewood, Maretime Bay, Zephyr Heights, which seems a bit redundant but ok, Neighagra Falls, which is a real place on the official Equestria map, Manehattan, two labeled regional, and a final location named Mt. Equ… something. If I have to wager, this is something to hint at either a concept from the show or something planned to come in the series. There is a cliff depicted in the series upon rests the castle of the new villain, so it remains to be seen if this is our mysterious answer. Finally, a good background detail that provides some evidence to work with. Granted, most of this still is just references and still not very helpful to understand the story, but it is at least something. Is it so hard to make more of this? We now know given a few other details from the room that whenever this was abandoned, the wonderbolts were still a thing, Maretime and Briddlewood, which were never depicted in the show or material outside the show like the official map, were formed in some way alongside the places we do know of from the show, and most importantly, the pegasi did not build Zephyr Heights themselves. Now the only two explanations of how pegasi can be here is that they either took over during a single battle or a war of some sort or perhaps something truly silly like the three pony races splitting up and it just so happens that they got the most fancy of all locations because… it’s high up I guess. Makes sense because pegasi can fly… oh right. They can’t. But the royals can at least. The Sunny asks what that is like, being able to fly even if you are the only one able to do it. Zipp then says that they don’t have the ability to fly. What? Then that means there is no advantage you possibly could have had to get this place in either combat or a peaceful takeover if they all truly hated each other. The more you think about things, the less it makes sense. But maybe this wasn’t always the case. Surely magic just disappeared for the pegasi after conquest or after enough time had past since they took over. Surely, they wouldn’t immediately confirm that magic has been gone since Twilight was around. Pipp then shows them a stained-glass mural of the cutiemark of Twilight passing down two crystals to ponies, of which they immediately come to the conclusion that the crystals hold all the magic of the world.

You try and you try to give this movie a pass and they keep throwing more flaws at you. Luckily, if you take this movie by itself, you can’t confirm when Twilight and the magic crystals took place. Perhaps after a war had already broken out or a struggle for one of the richest places in Equestria took place, then Twilight separated the crystals that she may or may not have made. It isn’t explained in this movie. But that allowance means that there is no plot hole, just all those other ones I mentioned before. But if we simply combine this film with the others, it definitely fixes everything and doesn’t make anything worse… right? It can’t possibly make this possibility obsolete with a revelation about the exact moment the crystals were made rendering any possibility this place could be taken during a war incorrect… which means that there is absolutely zero proof there ever was any conflict… that can’t happen. The writers are too good and planned this out. They made a movie with answers in the series that they will give to you. Just be patient. It all works out. And wait a moment, if the glass is here depicting that event, then that was in the past for this station, at least at some point in this station. It took time to set that thing up. This means the station was serving earth ponies and unicorns and going directly to and from those locations from this station by the time the crystals were made. This is a major problem! The ponies were friends when the crystals were separated. There is no war within these halls. There is no war in Ba Wing Se. A bit of a problem, but perhaps everything we learn in the movie is wrong and we get the truth in the series. We will have to hold onto this information for later.

>>357045
So, yeah… they see the crystal shapes in the glass, one broken out of socket on the floor, one shining onto the floor, and then they align the piece on the floor to the light and it seems to fit. Luckily, we came down at this exact time, otherwise the light would have passed through differently to distort the image on the ground or not pass through at all, leaving the main cast clueless. Once the pieces fit, they assume this means that it represents unity and that reuniting the crystals is the key to unlocking magic. This leap in logic is mostly correct, which is far more than it should be. How do you know this isn’t an award ceremony? What if this is sort of a Superman and Zod situation where the crystals actually hold a villain or monster that nearly destroyed the world and must be kept apart, or even worse, will allow a villain that currently exists and is not mentioned at all in this movie or even hinted at to gain the power to take over the world. Hopefully not that last one. Seems a bit negligent on the part of Twilight. Especially since the solution to that is to lock each one away in a location like Gusty the Great did. I told you there was a method to my madness. That was that one obscure reference to season 9 that no one remembers until you watch it again. Gusty hid the bell from Grogar in a magically sealed area. Now, if it is true that there is zero magic left once these things are taken apart, then you still have mundane options available. You have friends in the dragonlands. Dragons don’t operate on magic. They are naturally strong and can hide the crystal in their volcano. This would mean the villain, if such a force existed, would have to fight dragons with no magic and outnumbered on their turf, just for one piece! You win. The only way this couldn’t work is if all dragons are just genocided for some plot reason because you say so with no explanation. And if that is the case, you can still hide one in the volcano, one among someone else that is naturally strong like Yaks and give one to ponies if you are so certain that the villain can’t defeat them, which seems rather easy to do judging by how easily they scare.

So Zipp suggests they steal the first crystal they need which is located on the crown of the Queen. To do this, Izzy will make a fake crown and swap them. After they succeed, they plan to head to Brittlewood to get the next crystal because… there are other crystals there? Plot is hard, I get it. But at least try to make it make sense please. I beg you. They make the fake and arrive at the castle. Zipp is allowed in and provides the opportunity to slip past security. She states that taking the crown once the singing starts will be “easy breezie”. I wonder if that implies they have seen, know about, or heard stories of the breezies, or if they meant it like a gust of wind? I don’t have the answer on this one. Probably just another sort of reference to try and make me consoom more product, but with all you screwed up, you kind of ruined that chance. Zipp is approached by her mother who has learned she talked with the prisoners. I say approached because she is pretty chill about it. No generic immediate assumptions about betrayal or treachery. There was nothing to signal that would be the case and the writers showed actual restraint. Instead, the anger comes when Zipp reveals that she agrees with the prisoners about the loss of magic and wants to restore it. The queen says that they were talking nonsense and the thought that the royals still have magic ensures security to the populace. Though this could be more an excuse to hold power, there is a trace of actual motivation here. I have to wonder about this scene because it stands apart from most of this movie which has gifted knowledge to the characters and got them exactly where they wanted to go. This one scene mixes things up to where each characters knows exactly what they ought to. The queen cannot suspect her daughter of stealing the crown by simply talking to the prisoners, even after agreeing with them. She might be a rebellious child, but she isn’t a traitor. Meanwhile, Zipp doesn’t know how the queen will respond and decides to be honest in an attempt to not have to steal the crown, while not risking the plan too much by slowly introducing the idea to her, not mentioning the crystal or crown. This just makes me wonder why there was not more of this sort of writing. Sure, the queen not pressuring the daughter means the crown is able to be stolen, but there are two realistic factors to this, the queen would not expect that from her daughter, and they are on a schedule. The party is starting, and she needs to be present to watch Pipp sing. She doesn’t have the time for a lengthy debate on the nature of their situation or the daughter discussing magic with prisoners. I wish I knew what stage of production this scene was created in and what team did it. Was this an accidentally great set up for a scene or did they always plan for this and just drop the ball with most other story beats in this thing?

>>357046
So, Pipp begins her generic pop song while Sunny prepares the swap while the crown is still on the queen’s head. Not impossible, just highly unlikely. There are both guards and citizens around this room, which although all eyes are on the wildly “flying” pegasus on wires, all it takes is somepony to look towards the queen for any reason and potentially catch you. The swap goes perfectly, except the mutant dog they established is now suddenly suspicious of their scent and goes to investigate instead of immediately barking. They attempt to leave, but the way is covered by a guard talking on the phone. Not caught yet, but blocked in. They are about to head to the next available exit when the dog finds them and starts to bark. Seemingly it can’t muster much of a bark because the song drowns out the noise as they flee to the next door. Would have been a shame if it started barking while it was still next to the queen, alerting her and sending guards to check out the problem. They reach the next door which has Hitch on the other side with fake wings and a mustache. How he knew to be outside this door waiting for them and what he planned to do if the party was over and encountered him is unknowable. He proclaims they are under arrest before having the door slammed shut. As they do this, the dog steals back the crystal. How in the hell does it know they stole it? It didn’t see them take it nor did it realize they were there before now except by scent. It immediately knew what pony held the crystal and in what bag. It runs off with the goal of this whole operation, leading the two mares to give chase. One moment later, Hitch bursts through the door and gets temporarily distracted by the music. Apparently he has a condition where he can’t help but dance when hearing music? The dog attempts to give the crystal back to the queen, but she is oblivious to it which allows Zipp to intercept it and give chase around the party without suspicion. Hitch resumes his chase of the unicorn and rogue earth pony which leads them to hide behind a curtain. It just so happens to be hiding a lone stage worker that operates lights, sound, and the wiring for the falsified flying for this performance.

The operator panics and presses a button as the two approach, causing the lights to swap position from Pipp to Hitch, who is now in an awkward position and attempts to blend in by a quick song and dance to not draw attention to his cardboard wings. Unfortunately, the operator attempts to climb onto the controls to flee from the mares before him, causing the whole charade to fall apart, causing the wires to malfunction. At the same time, the dog finds Hitch and since they established he is basically Fluttershy, the dog surrenders the crystal to him. Meanwhile, the mares make their escape as Zipp collects the dropped crystal as all eyes are on the popstar zooming around the building. Hitch happens to glance in the right direction and catches the team escaping and alerts the room to their presence. Of course, that is short lived as his cardboard wings are knocked off by an out-of-control Pipp. The wiring contraption finally comes to a halt, allowing the room and thereby the press to understand that she can’t fly. Naturally, this means all the royals can’t fly either because we are on a schedule here. It isn’t the biggest leap in logic to guess at that, but you haven’t confirmed it. Zipp is devastated at the incident and stalls for a moment, just long enough to be hit by a running Sunny who drops the crystal. You are going to pick that up, right? It clearly hit the ground in front of you and made a signature crystalline ting sound. No? Ok. Just the one thing you spent all day preparing for and all this effort to obtain. Just leave it behind.

The crew flee with Hitch in tow since he is now just as wanted as the rest of them. They all duck into an alley where they discuss the next move. Hitch reveals this was both an arrest and rescue attempt. Except, how did you expect to get them in the party? Shouldn’t you have been looking for them at the prison? They had mugshots. Did you find out they weren’t there, follow them around town, and learn their plan was to get to the party to steal something? The movie won’t explain so don’t ask questions. Now a news report is displayed on the screens around town again. Apparently, the queen has been arrested. The fuck? It doesn’t matter if you lied, you can’t be arrested if you are the sole authority in the realm. You would have to be deposed by a military coup, a rival with some claim to authority, or even a revolution by the populace. Nothing of the sort seems to have happened. They treat this like it is a constitutional monarchy or something, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. The cast realize they don’t have the crystal and it is soon revealed that Pipp has it and has come to question them why it was needed. Just… ok, let’s go over this. Pipp was stuck in the wire contraption that was now immobile because the operator ran off. Pipp can’t actually fly. The queen was arrested at the party. How in Tartarus did Pipp escape that room? If she let herself down, she would have fallen to the ground and let herself be known to be escaping. If an operator came back and let her down, it is likely he would be operating out of loyalty to the state that is now arresting the queen. Pipp was the center of attention to the scandal of faking flying. All eyes and cameras would be on her. How did she not just escape, but take an object from the room and leave with it? You give the movie praise for one scene sticking to reality and they repay you by following up with an impossibility.

>>357047
Pipp is let in on their plan to restore magic. She doesn’t have too much choice but to go along even without believing it because the news reports a warrant for her arrest along with Zipp. Hitch wines about them not giving a shit that he is demanding their arrest. Cut back to Canterlogic. The town is unified and at work in the factory to develop a weapon to use against the other races. Clearly some are not so cut out for the job, as accidents are occurring on the job. Sprout arrives with a gag that he sounds like Darth Vader and is cast in shadow, before revealing he was slurping a basically empty smoothie. For whatever reason, smoothies are super important to the story of G5 as they are an object that will constantly be brought back to the plot for some reason or another. Sprout bosses a couple ponies around after they say they have run out of rivets before his mom enters the scene. She kindly asks when his project will be done so she can return the factory to standard operating procedures and making her products. Sprout responds that he is emperor now and thanks her for encouraging him to follow this path as they will take the offensive and stop the threat before it ever arrives. He leaves, allowing Phyllis to talk to herself saying “Oh dear. Somepony is getting a big head”. Writers, you don’t have to add that. Just have her emote and move on. You already compared him to Darth Vader. The connection that he has gone mad with power isn’t lost on anyone. You don’t just proclaim yourself emperor and we think that is rational, especially since he has been an ass to everyone since the movie started. Why was there only one scene in this movie where they showed restraint? She walks off camera allowing us to see a tarp covering the construction of some device, illuminated on and off by welding.

Jump cut to a tree at daytime. We have gone from night to day. Hitch and Pipp discuss to themselves that the other three have ruined everything and need to be put in their place. Pipp confronts Zipp about both following those that have no idea where to go or what to do and for allowing their mom to be sent to jail. Zipp assures that the restoration of magic will allow them to undo the damage. I don’t think that actually tracks because the problem is you lied and that lie allowed you to rise above the rest of the pegasi. You might have still been royalty, but the population thought there was some sort of intrinsic reason they were royal and now with no such reason, they will likely be kept in jail knowing they can hold power for themselves. They run into a broken bridge across a ravine. Infighting ensues before Sunny yells to silence the bickering. Izzy cuts down a massive tree with just her horn. She is Pinkie Pie adjacent. Don’t question it I suppose. It is once again night now after the crossing. It has taken another 24 hours to get here. They light a fire which Hitch refuses to accept, attempting to build his own. Zipp tells him not to be a hero and to get warm. As they all sit around the fire, Izzy’s motivations are revealed. She came to the town because as a filly she got a letter saying there were friends in Maretime Bay. This means the lantern Sunny sent was picked up by Izzy who then decided to wait until this arbitrary time to visit. Odd, but possible. Sometimes you reach a certain age in your life where you gain the confidence to do things. What would be more of a problem is if out of all the unicorns, she was the only one that would possibly ever go on an adventure. That would pose a bit of a statistical improbability to Izzy ever getting this letter as she isn’t just a lucky unicorn that wanted to make friends, but a lucky birth out of all unicorns. Luckily developing the personality that allows for the desire for adventure and friendship, and a lucky recipient of the letter. Good thing unicorns are absolutely normal individuals and Izzy isn’t too much different from them.

>>357048
They arrive in the morning to Bridlewood. Thus, another handful of hours have passed right on by. Izzy guides them to her house. She is a junk artist, recycling things into art. She dubs it unicycling. Sunny is concerned that they will be in the same situation as before and asks Izzy for disguises and tips on how to blend in. Luckily, as I said before, Izzy is just like the other unicorns if a bit eccentric. She will give good tips on what to expect. She sings a song about fitting in for the mission. This song is definitely still pop, but actually sound unique enough to be good, save for the rap solo. Can win them all, but overall I would actually listen to this song multiple times and not want to jump off of Zephyr Heights. If only they replaced all the other songs in this thing with similar tracks. Regardless, one note in the song is that each unicorn has a unique horn. This was definitely not the case in G4 as they were basically just the same shade and their primary coat color and the aura was what might be unique. Instead it seems that each horn has different hues mixed in, a few pattern designs of the swirls, and what appears to be glitter. The team leave with disguises and the knowledge that is needed to perfectly blend into their society… and all the unicorns are depressive and hardly can lift their heads for more than three seconds at a time. You see, it’s funny because Izzy is not like them at all and prepared them to be more like her and not like a standard member of their society. Please clap. Hitch then asks which crystals in this crystal filled forest are magic. The children around them then proclaim he spoke a bad word and then start some sort of bizarre ritual with nonsense sounds and dancing to ward off a jinx. Izzy explains that unicorns as a species are very superstitious. Not sure how you turned out not to be if all the population share a belief in bad luck and curses. Their trigger words are magic, wing, feather, and mayonnaise. The first three make some sense given they believe pegasi to have wronged them and stolen magic, but the last is just for laughs because Hitch nearly asks about it and almost causes a panic.

They then go to the Crystal Tea Room to ask a crystal collector for aid. Turns out this place is a hippy nexus, with tea, slam poetry, bar, and arcade. The ponies ask the collector who reveals he has lost his entire collection in a bet with Alphabittle, a professional game connoisseur it seems, as he won limbo with the collector and is seen winning a game of timed Rubix cubes with another unicorn, collecting what appears to be a large snowglobe from him as payment for the bet. If you are wondering how he can be that good at the game without even trying, well it is simple. Cutiemarks still exist and we know that they can only exist when there is magic. So the crystals must only have stopped certain kinds of magic and the magical talents that cutiemarks provide is still possible. It isn’t that all magic everywhere in all forms was locked away in the crystals or something strange like that. We then pan up to his shelf. He just so happens to have the exact crystal they want on display. Convenient. Guess that collector had it and lost it? Sunny challenges Alphabittle to a game to win the crystal, offering the pegasi one as collateral. Sunny is confident she can win Rubix cubes, but Alphabittle demands a different game for the prize: Just Prance, which is a Dance Dance Revolution clone, but made of wood and run by critters of the forest operating the mechanisms. This is drastically important to the world building. Everywhere in Bridlewood, there is no signs of technology, instead having to fashion everything out of materials that can be found in the woods. Anyway, Alphabittle is confident that he has this competition down that he makes a new rule that Sunny just has to win one round out of the three that will take place to take the prize. She fails two and aces the third, summoning main character power. Sunny celebrates too hard though and loses her disguise. Now all the unicorns are after them, except Hitch blurts out all their trigger words and their pursuers are forced into rituals to cleanse their jinx.

>>357049
Suddenly, the queen. She has escaped from prison? Did she install secret panels inside the jails in case this situation ever occurred? Are there loyalists within the rank and file that let her out? Regardless, she has arrived in… Bridlewood… wait a second. She was never told the plan. In fact, it took 24 hours to get here. Did she not stay captured for more than an hour to trail the team perfectly this whole time? At least they attempt to answer this by having the dog tag along, assuming he was able to follow their trail. Still had to get on that immediately to make this timing work though. Suddenly Alphabittle and unicorns. For some reason Hitch doesn’t say their triggers again. Perhaps there is a time they are safe from jinx after doing the ritual? We won’t know because he doesn’t try. Suddenly guards come to arrest the queen. Now how did they arrive just a minute later? There were a lot of open fields on the way here. If they were moments behind the queen, surely they would have been able to spot her and attempt an arrest. Alphabittle demands the crystal from the pegasi, of which the queen denies. Alphabittle says he won it, which is a lie. The queen states that unicorns are known cheaters. Seems legit since Sunny agreed to a Rubix cube game but was changed last minute to a game she didn’t know and now a unicorn is trying to cheat pegasi out a crystal that was not his by right of how bets work. He insults the queen which triggers the guards because of race loyalty. Unicorns respond that they are going to zap them is lasers. So, I guess the stereotype is true. They are lying to get an unfair advantage in this conflict, cheating if you will. Sunny proclaims they can restore magic by touching the crystals together. It doesn’t work. She surrenders the crystals back to their owners and leaves. This still has to take place near morning, possibly midday. It took 24 hours plus change to get here and now

Sunny returns home and it sun is getting low. So, I guess Bridlewood is just a couple hours out? How can they be that close and never thought to make more defenses from an enemy in proximity? She starts to pack all of her mlp merch. As she does so, she finds the same crystal markings on her lighthouse and then the sun hits just right through the overcast sky and lights up something her dad made for her and it happens to contain a magic crystal. Huzzah! Secret third crystal gives Sunny the resolve to try all of her schemes again. She places the crystal on the marking and a mechanism reveals the slots for the rest of the damn crystals. Why did the father not leave any instruction on this? He possessed one of the crystals! He must have known this was important in some way and never once side anything about it? The writers are stroking out. The sun is now fully setting and Sprout is giving his final speech of war to his subjects, decked out in military awards. The fact these exist might be evidence of a war… but then again none of them depict anything warlike. It is plausible he stole existing awards to make his look complete. One is a star, which could be military, but one is a running pony. This would imply it is from a race. So if I had to bet, he stole awards from the sheriff and is making them into war metals. Hitch sides with Sunny and says there is nothing to fear and there is no magic. Sprout gains confidence from hearing this that he won’t be opposed. Maniacal laugher ensues. He reveals his war machine which has a license containing the circle of stars seen in the EU? I’m not joking, it is the same star design and number on a dark blue background. And it is labeled PN? Is that Pony Nations? Why wouldn’t it be the UE for United Equestria and a play on the letters for the EU? PN is a play on UN if anything, but that isn’t the right flag for it. Why writers? Why? There is also a mini basketball hoop inside the cabin of this vehicle. Are you expecting to siege castles and need something to pass the time? I don’t get it. Is it just supposed to be reminiscent of a typical boy’s room? I don’t understand designers. Why don’t you take the time to flesh out the actual story you want to build towards that everyone says is coming and hint at the real overarching villain that caused this, if such a villain exists, instead of these dumb references that mean nothing to your world?

>>357051
Sprout then pilots his own creation perfectly despite being just an incapable deputy before. He drives into a trolly car on rails, and it gets hit dead on. Instead of smashing or getting propelled forward along the rails, it tumbles to the right of Sprout so he can continue pursuit of Sunny who wants to try to warn the others. For some reason they can outpace this machine. I guess speed wasn’t a factor in the design. Suddenly, all the major characters we met are here, including Alphabittle for some reason. The queen makes sense because the princesses are here to talk to Sunny, Izzy makes sense because she likes Sunny, but Alphabittle hates everyone here. Sprout pulls up and declares he is going to kill everypony here. The queen says they aren’t here to fight, and Sprout says he doesn’t accept their surrender. So, this is a genocide mission. Interesting. Not sure how you can fuel this thing for a multiple day journey since you are slower than a pony. I’m also not sure how this thing will take out all the trees and crystals in the way once you get to the forest. All the unicorns have to do is run through the forest and the trees ought to grind your machine down. It has no blades and will be constantly ramming into objects that are not targets. You lose before a single casualty is taken. Amazing strategy. His troops lose nerve at this proclamation and retreat upon orders to load the goo catapult. Sunny asks for the crystals and declares there is a third and magic can be restored. The writers actually have Sprout put two and two together that she is the bigger threat if she succeeds and he maneuvers to run her over… with his machine that is slower than a pony. Hitch and Zipp jump onto the machine to try and figure out how to stop it while the rest go to the lighthouse. The enter the room quickly, but take their sweet ass time putting the parts together. This allows the building to be struct by the machine, ramming into the side of the house. The crystals go tumbling somehow. I guess this structure is super reinforced and sends shockwaves across the whole structure instead of a wall simply caving in. They somehow lose the crystals and have to look for them on the floor while the building is hit again. Izzy is forced to hang onto the edge of the partially destroyed lighthouse and reach for a crystal. Sprout also activates large goo catapults that face opposite directions to each other, launching goo forwards and back. Not exactly sure about the usefulness of that as you planned to march into the enemy territory with troops. You would have hit your own as they marched. I guess it is for when he is surrounded like he is now. He nearly plows down Alphabittle while reversing blindly, but the queen saves him. Friendship! Hitch and Zipp find a flaw in the design. The catapults are held in place by a pin with a large handle, a call back to the line about being out of rivets. I forgot about that on my first viewing, but the shoddy nature of this contraption made me not even question this design decision.

Upon releasing the catapult, the mechanism launches out forward and up towards our heroes in the lighthouse, embedding into the structure like a dart. I’m fairly sure that isn’t how physics works. I struggle to see the purpose in that design decision. Adding tension perhaps, since collecting the crystals is taking so long. Izzy finally reaches the plot device and climbs back up. Sprout’s mom finally comes running up beside the machine demanding her son stop. He refuses and tries to charge ahead. The mom stands in the path and Sprout veers off target momentarily, but corrects course after clearing his mother. Once more the vehicle collides with the house, causing it to slowly crumble apart. Slow enough to allow the main characters to put the pieces together on the marking. Still didn’t work. The upper floor they were in falls down topside first. From this angle, the structure should have collapsed, crushing them. They are dead. But of course, when the dust settles, they are not just fine but on the grass with just a few bricks and chunks of building around them. Might have thought this was an old demolition site with the debris carried away. The frame of the house is still standing as well, just the upper floor to the lighthouse fell down. Sprout’s machine is overturned and useless. How he expected to wage a war among the trees is still beyond human comprehension.

>>357052
Sunny then states that she understands everything perfectly now. The crystals aren’t supposed to be brought back together, but the ponies. She says they can choose fear or friendship and love which is true magic. At least they didn’t retcon what magic is comprised of in this world. So as a gesture towards Sunny’s ideals, Phyllis, Alphabittle, and the queen put the pieces of a broken framed picture of Sunny and her dad. This causes the crystals to glow and fly into the air to reunite. Sunny is then dragged up into the sky with them. She then gains glowing illusory magic wings and a horn and the crystals are finally connected together, blasting color into the sky and sending the clouds flying apart, revealing a starry sky and an aroura borealis.
LLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The legacy of making ponies into alicorns for an accomplishment continues strong it would seem. Thus, the world regains magic all across the land. Unicorns have glowing horns, pegasi can fly along with their mutant animal friends, and earth ponies get… glowing hooves in an after credits scene. This is to set up the plot of the pilot special of the series called Make Your Mark. This will be the show proper with the series on Youtube, Tell Your Tale, being very short stories that give slight details to how the world changes between the movie and the show, but still jumps right into a time skip with all the important stuff already done and to be accepted upon viewing.

>>357053
Let’s begin a rundown on what we just witnessed. I might go over some of the same points as before, but I think it needs to be restated. That was a terrible plot. It might have been tolerable if it made any sense, but they consistently made things work in ways that are impossible to facilitate the story they demanded take place. The world building is absolutely fucked. We can start at the end of G4 and discuss how it ties into this movie. The short answer is it can’t. But let’s discuss why that is first by considering only the information the movie provides and we will get into the stuff the show provides that further damages this. First, the most obvious, where are the Windigo? The movie says nopony has magic and it isn’t a stretch to say all magic is gone, until you remember just to what extent that is. Cutiemarks are magic. Tirek was able to steal all magic from individual ponies he encountered. This caused cutiemarks to vanish. I suppose season 8 confuses this as most all magic was taken successfully, and the writers didn’t have cutiemarks vanish. But there is one solid piece of evidence that not all magic was taken, the existence of the magical hybrid animals. It is set up in the same episode of season 8 that magic binds normal animals together to create the mythic hybrids. I am assuming that is also what makes them so intelligent as well, able to understand communication. So, the movie points to all pony magic that can be utilized is gone. Luckily the series going forward will recognize the problem if there is any other explanation to what is going on. Thankfully we have competent writers.

Another thing is what even is the rules for the crystals rejoining? The entirety of ponies didn’t become friends again, and there were friends among all three races present before the three adult figures of each race became friends. Do the crystals need figureheads to be friends before restoring magic? Is it a certain number and it just happened to be reached after they became friends? Unlucky that Sunny didn’t grab three more ponies or the movie could have ended sooner. Why were the crystals made? In the movie alone it is not explained, just that Twilight had something to do with it. Just wait until the next product and consoom next product! How about hint at it? How about actually explain it? The answer is coming, and it is shit. For now, it is equally as possible that Twilight just found three crystals that already control magic and split them because she hated ponies. Without a reason, there would be no logical reason to do this. Did she face a threat that needs magic to survive? Did she intervene in a fight between ponies that she couldn’t solve and got rid of the Windigo to prolong ponies as a species? Where is Twilight? Did she die making the crystals? Why? Cozy stole magic and didn’t die. Why could Twilight and friends not handle this problem? What happened to her legacy? You killed off Twilight’s apprentice, Luster Dawn, for this? I do have to thank you for killing off all the creatures that invaded Equestria, but it makes no sense that they would all either bite the dust or disappear. They weren’t magical.

Sunny’s father was a shit researcher if he raised a daughter to follow his legacy but shared none of the most important finding that were located directly in his lighthouse, including a marking that is mechanical in nature and reveals three distinct shapes, one of which is the shape of the crystal ingeniously put in a light puppet show. Sunny nearly was too late to see the advance of Sprout in a war machine on other ponies and likely ruin relations for another few centuries or however long it has been. I don’t think it is ever stated how long it has been in the movie.

>>357054
Where are the Elements of Harmony and the Tree of Harmony? When all magic was drained from Equestria and even the mane 6, the Tree remained both times to solve the problem and win the day. I looked for answers because this movie gives fuck all and apparently the team commented that the random big pink tree is the Tree of Harmony after all the magic crystal stuff is gone from it. So, it is dead then. What the fuck! They keep finding new ways to ruin everything. Stop. I beg of you. For the love of Celestia STOP. First, the Tree of Harmony is located where again? Oh, right, THE EVERFREE FOREST you fucking retards. That isn’t a forest. Why is there a hill there now? Is it because all magic was drained away? That didn’t delete the forest last time this happened, nor did it kill the Tree. That doesn’t even matter because the Tree was located in these ruins near the Castle of the Two Sisters. How can the ruins up and vanish? Another thing is the geographic location. Guess where the Everfree Forest is located. In the center of this landmass, near Ponyville and within eyeshot of Canterlot, which is not depicted on Sunny’s map. Remember the time it took to get from Zephyr Heights to Bridlewood and then from Bridlewood to Maretime Bay? It is closer to Maretime and it is to the Heights. You would have to pass by Bridlewood to get to the Everfree on this map, because they are still on the eastern coast of Equestria! You can tell because there are no trips in the Zephyr station to Ponyville or Canterlot but only Manehattan which is located on the eastern coastline! This means that the Tree up and moved spots to get a better scenic view before it died so you can make a damned reference. Why must you make references and not solutions to the problems you are causing? You couldn’t simply leave well enough alone. It’s ok. They will address this in the future no doubt and fix the fucking wrong location, the death or hibernation of the Tree, the Elements, the whole damn timeline. Everything is fixed with a fucking episode or two.

There are some things to like in this movie. You might not guess with how much I bitch about it and the fanbase. You get to see some decent animations here and there. When the animators don’t stretch the fuck out of the faces to look like a dog crossed with a monkey, the ponies are cute enough. I expected a whole lot worse of a message than what we got, though still played racism bad a bit thick and as subtle as the fucking mob song. The scenery was amazing even though it comes with no explanation on how it would develop from the past to now. It is definitely a fun little adventure and you can easily get lost in it. It is rewatchable without getting very stale, if the songs don’t kill you first. Unfortunately, I am one that must solve all the little mysteries the best I am able to and you made an impossible mystery you had no idea how to solve. The worse kind of puzzles have no known solution and the creator tries to tell you there definitely is one and plants clues on the fly. There is actually an episode that is closely related to that coming up and I guess they didn’t take their own advice. There is no means to connect G4 to G5. It was simply the result of changed plans and marketing pretending they are a shared universe. Nothing could be further from the truth. They shouldn’t have tried just as G4 doesn’t pretend to be connected to G1 despite sharing characters and even villains. G1 didn’t exist at all within the timeline of G4. And now they made all our little ponies dead or ruined to make way for a New Generation. How fucking poignant for our modern-day crisis of being replace ourselves and lying to all that witness it that they are the true inheritors of the world left for them. Nothing earned, nothing gained.

I found an interesting quote from the Tree of Harmony when it proved it was fully sentient in season 8 and 9. “Your friendship, and the friendship of future generations, will always be safe within these walls". Guess that was a fucking lie. It is just chilling here, or its corpse is. If it is dead, the one thing that could be considered a godlike entity died. If it is dead, then what even is the power of friendship that magic can be taken from it? If it is alive, then why is it not a refuge or hope for those that need it? You got the impression with all the changes they made to how the Elements work that it was some sort of greater destiny at play and not just some gems they put on a tree. But I guess that’s all they were. Even the incarnations of those gems didn’t hold back the tide of destruction. Now it is replaced with three crystals supposedly from Twilight that replaces the Elements and even friendship itself. Don’t believe me? Just wait until the series and you will see how far they travel down this road.

More to come soon. Just need the time to think things through and find the details hidden in plain sight.

>>357054
>where are the Windigo
Zapped by Poochie & Co into nonexistence in the same episode that turned Twilight into a giraffe.
Because Haber and other literal retards don't understand nor want limitations and how those make stuff fun, they want power to abuse.
>You can tell because there are no trips in the Zephyr station to Ponyville or Canterlot but only Manehattan which is located on the eastern coastline!
Also because the map in the movie itself has north specified, the compass rose is under the hoof. Zephyr Heights is NNW from Maretime Bay, Bridlewood almost directly north.

>>357056
I'm fairly certain there exist more than the three Windigo that showed up that episode, because the winter storm had hardly just begun. Nearly all of Equestria was taken by the snow last go around and I figure that needs a touch more than three beings to work. Then being zapped out of existence in a single move is pretty cheap, but not a surprise with these writers I'm afraid.

>>357029
>the first image
This shows that Equestria's skies do not follow reality's mechanics. The crescent's orientation doesn't match up with the Sun's position as indicated by the horizon glow, and that kind of crescent shape is only possible if it's an eclipse, i.e. there's something in the way. Having no atmosphere wouldn't produce "horns" this long, having an atmosphere would bounce the light around the middle too, making it much thicker.
Consequently, the two options are "there is no space, it's something like solid sky dome" and "the Moon glows by itself strongly enough to counteract sunlight, and there is either a third object in the way, or lunar surface's brightness can be controlled".
>No explanation as of yet to why this changed happened inside of the universe, as it seems to simply be attempting to be closer to a branding of a horse, which is typically done on a single side.
The out-of-universe explanation is that Hasbro is completely retarded and has zero communication between departments. The movie staff did this to make it look more like the G4 toys (which only have one cutie mark).
...the TOY staff altered the new gen's toys to have cutie marks on both sides like the G4 canon.
>>357057
Don't think about it, just like Haber and the rest of subversive cretins who were left on staff and even promoted instead of smashing their fingers and kicking them out on the streets failed to think about it, and most likely literally thought that the three windigos that appear in the (fucking young adult for limited audience) play are the only ones that exist.
The nu-writers were likely not aware of windigos at all, considering how by Trashmalou's words she and Celia are the only two people on the entire G% team who watched FiM.

>>357061
>The crescent's orientation doesn't match up with the Sun's position as indicated by the horizon glow, and that kind of crescent shape is only possible if it's an eclipse
Good observation. Matches my working moon theory in my Equestrian night sky mysteries thread. Equestria seems to have at least two moons that are shaped completely differently.
>there is no space
There seems to be at least the illusion of a space. My theory is that space is comprised of magic and the celestial objects within or either a manifestation of magic and can be manipulated through it, or the objects are real and simply exist within a field of magic. Still working on if this theory holds up to what is seen in the show though, so progress on that is a bit slow.
>the moon glows by itself
This seems to be so. Discord was able to manipulate the luminosity along with the rising and setting of sun and moon.

>zero communication
>movie made it like the toys
>toys made it like G4
Fucking kek.

>only two watched FiM
I can believe it.

>>357071
What if Equestria is an extradimensional interdimensional alien spaceship made from nanomachines by higher dimensional beings and the purpose of the spaceship is to self sustain itself by devouring dimensions devoid of life and storing excess energy within Equestria by producing self sustaining reproducing wildlife: the wildlife on the planet of the spaceship's creators, or the wildlife the creators of the spaceship wanted to create?
Like sending a paper aeroplane out of your window, except it devours realities and shits out more Equestria.

>>357071
>This seems to be so. Discord was able to manipulate the luminosity along with the rising and setting of sun and moon.
Discord is deliberately beyond rules but his own. He could just as easily manipulate albedo of a real physical surface of the Moon.
While also Discord-affiliated, the time when both Princesses were trapped by him and so both stellar bodies were in the sky at the same time, splitting it halfway between day and night, is more indicative of "glows by itself".
>Equestrian night sky mysteries thread
?
>Equestria seems to have at least two moons that are shaped completely differently.
Or there's one moon that isn't tidally locked and has an eccentric orbit (=visible size varying even more than Earth's Moon's does).

>>357075
I’m working my way through the proof of that claim. I’m a bit slow because I am combing through small details and redrafting my theory to attempt to match what I am seeing. But I am convinced there exist two moons at the minimum in Equestria, even if we only see one at a time.
>>349052 →
In case you are interested. I have been distracted by writing up this thread and some life stuff, but I hope to fully flesh out both of these threads.

Good, now talk about: G1,G2 and G3.

>>357077
I'll have to find those files and snag them for a review. For now, I have all of G4 and G5 so far.

More G5 breakdowns coming soon.

>>359468
Good.

I got a bit bogged down as of late. Time to actually do something with this thread again.

>>363184
It is time.