I’m currently like ten episodes behind on the show, but I recently watched all four movies. Personal favorite: Rainbow Rocks, Best use of continuity: Legend of Everfree, Most wasted potential: Friendship Games. I really should get caught up with the show. I mean, the season finale and everything happened. Anyway, three of the four movies are basically about powerful equestrian magic causes insanity. More or less. So… How certain are we about Princess Celestia’s mental stability? Or is her calmness because she really isn’t that powerful? I mean, Discord is the most powerful creature around and he was/is bonkers. Also, I really didn’t like Filthy Rich as the villain in Everfree. Even if it was just kinda off-screen.
- Midnight Oil by The 24th Pegasus
- The Shirt by Twelve Song
Midnight Oil by The 24th Pegasus
A story I grabbed when I was looking for Rarity and Twilight shipfics. Or so I think, anyway. Because this is in fact a Rainbow Dash and Rarity shipping story. I’ve been betrayed by my own, um… Okay, not sure what betrayed me there but I’m sure it was something. For a shipping fanfic it is about average. Decent but not great first-person portrayal of Rarity. So, not sure I’d recommend it, but it will be enjoyable enough for someone to read if they have a bit of time to kill any aren’t in the middle of reading anything else. I do like the idea that Rainbow Dash goes through Wonderbolt uniforms at a pretty constant pace and Rarity has to make a new one constantly.
The Shirt by Twelve Song
More Twilight and Rarity. This one was… Well, I’m writing this a week or so after I read it and I can’t really remember any details about it. The story is literally just about the two of them waking up and then they go to have breakfast (I think?) with the rest of the girls and Rarity wears Twilight’s shirt from the previous day. There is some banter. End of story. So, decent fluffy slice of life that is even more fluffy and nothing happens slice of life than most.
The City of Doors 
Pascoite Fics
October 28, 2016 at 1:01 pm
Spoilers for those who haven’t seen Legend of Everfree.
I enjoyed these movies more than I can really figure out why but I did. I don’t know what’s so compelling about them to me. The only thing that really creeps me out is the way the characters move in such a jerky fashion when they run. Anyway, yeah, there’s this theme about magic being troublesome in this world, but what bugged me about LoE is that Sunset Shimmer has a complete reversal here. In the first movie, she wants the magic because she’s evil, but she learns that it’s not something to be played with so dismissively. In the second, she feels bad because the magic attracting the sirens is only there because of her, and she sees value in using it to defeat them, but not really for anything else. In the third movie, she’s very in-your-face about how dangerous magic is, and renews her regrets that she’s responsible for it being there. She even yells at Sci-Twi over this, and it ends on a tone that magic should be carefully controlled except for emergencies.
The separate shorts that came out around Friendship Games did have a little different take on it, as Sunset was encouraging them to pony up. She was only interested from a scientific standpoint, and she’d stopped telling them this power could be dangerous.
Then in LoE, right upon learning Sci-Twi might have some magic, Sunset immediately encourages her to use and develop it. Same with all the girls, then herself. But not Gloriosa—they didn’t try to teach her how to be responsible with it, instead just taking it from her, basically. I don’t know. I liked LoE, but it was sending a really mixed message relative to how the other movies had treated magic. Never mind the huge break that each girl essentially gets superpowers now, which isn’t anything like what had happened before in either the movies or the TV show, with the sequel bait that it’ll continue.
Griffin
October 28, 2016 at 8:08 pm
Well, two counter-points. One is that in Friendship Games it was less about the magic and more about Sunset Shimmer trying to prove herself both as someone who can help and some lingering guilt over the whole magic thing being her fault. Also, the main theme has less been magic is dangerous and more that unearned magic is dangerous. The whole ‘are you worthy’ sort of thing. So the actual level of power doesn’t seem to matter in that case.
I actually liked Sunset Shimmer encouraging them to use magic. I saw it as her happy to have magic again after being so long in hairless monkey land. I mean, as much as it can be magic when it’s really just superpowers.
But yes, thematic cohesion is pretty much bring-your-own for the movies as a whole.
xjuggernaughtx
October 28, 2016 at 7:02 pm
Rainbow Rocks was so great! I can’t believe what a let-down Friendship Games was from that level. Totally killed my interest in Equestria Girls.
Griffin
October 28, 2016 at 8:09 pm
Legend of Everfree was better than Friendship Games. You might want to give it a try?
xjuggernaughtx
October 28, 2016 at 9:01 pm
I’m sure I’ll watch it at some point, but I’m just not excited to do so. I was really feeling it after Rainbow Rocks, but Friendship Games was just blah. It’s unfortunately the way I feel about most things Josh Haber has a hand in. I’m not a fan of his storytelling.
Griffin
October 28, 2016 at 9:05 pm
Yeah, I can understand that. I certainly wouldn’t tell you to rush out and get a copy. Just take some comfort in the fact that when you do get around to watching, it is closer to Rocks than Everfree.