My Movie Review on My Little Pony: A New Generation

Yo, what's up, Kemosabes?

This is your friendly film, TV show, and episode reporter here with another review.

Today, for the 4th installment of this year's "Spook Spectacular", I'm gonna give you guys my take on "My Little Pony: A New Generation".

Here's the rundown of this tale:

In an Equestria where ponies of all three races (unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies) are divided over fear, a young earth pony named Sunny Starscout works to encourage her fellow earth ponies in Maretime Bay to quit living in fear of unicorns and pegasi and extend their hooves to them in friendship.

In the wake of an unsuccessful effort, though, the unthinkable happens: A unicorn comes to Maretime Bay! A unicorn by the name of Izzy Moonbow, that is.

Unlike the rest of the town's residents, Sunny becomes curious over Izzy's presence in the town. After the two of them befriend one another, Sunny learns that unicorns apparently don't have magic anymore. Wanting to know why, the two of them go on a quest to find the answer on why there's a large lack in magic.

Along the way, the two of them are mysteriously accompanied by Maretime Bay's sheriff, Hitch Trailblazer, and they meet two pegasi sisters named Zephyrina "Zipp" Storm and Pipp Petals.

After "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" ended over two years ago, I was saddened for a time because there were things that I hoped would be accomplished before it ended. Nowadays, I've pretty much been hoping that Hasbro could either expand on FiM by either giving the Student Six (who appeared in the show's 8th and 9th seasons) their own series or simply start fresh with the My Little Pony franchise since they bought a film company called Entertainment One (eOne for short) in 2019 and an animation division known as Boulder Media in 2016.

When I eventually found out about this movie back when it was in development, I gained mixed feelings. I was happy that the three companies were going to do a reboot. But, I wasn't at all excited by their plans to have the new series take place in the same universe as FiM. Especially because of the concept they were apparently gonna use and the difference in animation style. Nevertheless, I didn't want to be someone who'd judge this movie without actually seeing it. I've always lived by the saying "Never judge a book by its cover", and so I believe that people shouldn't judge something without delving into it first. It's a value that I'm willing to uphold no matter what.

So, what do I think of "My Little Pony: A New Generation" personally?

Well, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. In contrast to its 90% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and the positive reception the movie received from critics and audiences alike, I found "My Little Pony: A New Generation" to be openly underwhelming. Atrocious even!

Among the reasons for why I think so comes from the direction by Robert Cullen and Jose Ucha, the story by them and Tim Sullivan, and the screenplay by Sullivan and Gillian M. Berrow.

Throughout this entire movie, I noted the many Easter eggs and winks to the previous My Little Pony series, which I read were included to solidify it as a continuation instead of just a reboot. But, I believe this movie would've been so much better without those things. Not only were they worthless, but they didn't explain how the very world presented was connected to the previous series at all! Despite there being accessories based on some of the characters from My Little Pony (Generation 4), the characters themselves aren't ever referred to by name!

One would think that the involvements of G.M. Berrow and executive producer Meghan McCarthy (who both lended their creativity to G4) would help further explain how the universes of this movie and its predecessor are connected beyond the winks and Easter eggs.

But, you know what?

Berrow and McCarthy's involvements didn't help in that regard at all! If anything, it basically seemed like they weren’t as involved in the movie as the credits lead us to believe.

In addition to this, the overall story contained several plot holes. It would generate questions, but it would pass them off or leave them unanswered after doing so. Like, what caused the pony races to be divided again in the first place? What was special about the crystals the characters were looking for? What happened to the original characters that caused them to be regarded as myths or legends? Why aren't the Windigoes feeding off of the fear and hatred of the ponies since they're all divided again? And what is it about the word "mayonnaise" that triggers unicorns into going bonkers?

It was like the filmmakers were so confidant about this movie being the start of a new series they thought that the various questions presented by it could be answered later. And at the cost of it all, they unwittingly created a gigantic mess. If they really were wanting to save answering these particular questions for later, then they sadly made the wrong call. I'm personally not interested in seeing these sort of questions be answered in a later installment.

The rest of the aspects in the direction and writing weren't my cup of tea either.

Before I saw the movie, I had a feeling I was gonna know where things would be going from the start. Once I saw it, I found the plot to be more predictable that I anticipated. The reason for why comes from how similar the story is to Disney's "Raya and the Last Dragon", which was released 7 months and 19 days before this movie came. Just like Raya, this story features the pony tribes divided by fear, hatred, and prejudice, involves a group of heroes forming friendships, and has them going on a quest for lost crystals. The similarities between the storylines of both films is so uncanny that it was like Hasbro and eOne uninspiringly copied Raya rather than make a story entirely their own, and that they were too lazy to actually work on making something thought provoking.

There are moments that managed to be grappling in their own way, but they didn't help the movie be intriguing. There are heartwarming and emotional scenes shared between characters, yet they felt forced because of the film's predictability. And as for the comedy...well, let's just say this movie didn't get me rolling on the ground with laughter. All of the jokes were either flatly-executed, lackluster, or out of place. Also, the pacing was so quick that everything seemed surprisingly rushed and underdeveloped beyond anything.

On the subject of the film's themes and morals, I didn't think they were well-done either. Compared to "Raya and the Last Dragon", the way its messages were executed was reminiscent of a political lecturing. It made the whole thing feel like an advocacy for socialism and other certain political ideologies rather than a story about friendship. The reasons behind why the pony races were dividing themselves from each other were also quite over-the-top, and they were hardly what I'd call believable considering they sounded like something cooked up by an amateur playwright.

The animation was another one of this movie's greatest detractors. Even despite it being provided by Boulder Media!

I get that Hasbro, eOne, and Boulder Media were wanting to use a different animation style, and I admired the fact that they were wanting to stretch themselves creatively. But, the results of it all showcased a complete miscast in style. Compared to the film's hand-drawn animated predecessors, the visualization of the characters and settings didn't seem as natural as I hoped they would be. The ponies and animals looked like walking-talking stuffed animals, and the world and landscapes appeared to be based off of cheap dollhouse commercials.

The visual style certainly wasn't consistent with G4's either, and that's considering the differences in small details. I frequently noted how different in design the ponies in this movie were to the ponies in G4, from the hoof designs to that of the ponies only having cutie marks on one side of their flank rather than on both. I mean, surely I can't be the only one who took note of this, right?

In addition to the film's lackluster story and animation, the prologue featuring the Main Six was absolutely useless, and the reprisals of Tara Strong as Twilight Sparkle, Tabitha St. Germain as Rarity, Ashleigh Ball as Applejack and Rainbow Dash, and Andrea Libman as Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie (who are all major performers and characters from the previous series) were criminally underused. I know it was supposed to represent the imaginations of Sunny, Hitch, and Sprout as they were playing with the Main Six dolls in their childhood, but the problem is that it didn't give any meaningful contribution to the story as a whole. Right before the scene even ended, it suddenly became a savage ridicule of G4, which did not put this film in a positive light afterwards. The hand-drawn animation used for the prologue was good, but it didn't make the scene any better either.

In addition to this, Sprout Cloverleaf is honestly what I classify as one of the MLP franchise's worst antagonists, as well as a poor startup for the new series.

Seriously, in every scene Sprout was in, I could barely stand him! Especially to where I wanted to just choke him to death! Some people probably call him a compelling villain, but to me...he was nothing but a generic nuisance with the demeanor of a pouty child, as well as an annoying villain-wannabe. His comedic-timings were irritating, the jokes revolving around him weren’t funny, and he'd act so childish that he makes various child villains seem more mature, like Cozy Glow from the 8th and 9th seasons of MLP: FiM. His intentions behind why he wanted to rule Maretime Bay and conquer the other pony races weren't explained either, which makes him seem like a character whom the filmmakers had no idea what they wanted to create out of him. And in terms of character development, Sprout didn't have any sort of growth even when new developments in the story came, because he was basically still the same man-child and spoiled brat that he was portrayed as from the beginning.

Something that also saddens me is that Ken Jeong's talents were openly underused thanks to playing Sprout. Compared to his work in "The Penguins of Madagascar (2014)" and "Tom and Jerry (2021)", Jeong's performance had little in the ways of charm, humor, or personality. Not to mention he seemed incredibly miscast, because he clearly wasn't the right guy to be taking on the kind of role he was given in this film.

The same can pretty much be said about Elizabeth Perkins. Granted, I didn't think her performance was bad or that she was miscast, but her character of Phyllis Cloverleaf...she's the reason Perkins's talents were wasted. The direction taken with Phyllis was too all-over-the-place and confusing! For a while, she was a prejudiced and manipulative CEO of a manufacturing company who wants other to always be scared of unicorns and pegasi, and she even went so far as to manipulate Sprout into taking charge of Maretime Bay. But then, she switches to thinking that perhaps there's a better way all because of noticing how out of control Sprout was being?!

If that's not an example of poor development and character handling, I don't know what is. It felt like Phyllis reformed simply for the sake of the plot, and that the filmmakers were apparently conflicted over what kind of character to make her.

Another thing I disliked about this movie was that the background characters often acted like a bunch of lost sheep or children without parents! On one hand, I can see that this was probably done to serve as a reference to how easily mislead people can be by inaccurate information and propaganda. But, the way it was done in this film felt more like an insult to a person's intelligence, and the way the ponies would first listen to someone before immediately listening to another makes the likes of the Three Stooges seem smart.

Oh, and let's not forget perhaps one of the worst villain songs ever made: "Danger, Danger".

I literally couldn't get why others enjoyed the song so much. The lyrics it had were annoying, the jokes they contained (such as the one about corn) were out-of-place, and the rhythm and music playing during the song had little in the ways of a soul. Heck, as Sprout was singing, he wasn't at all trying to conceal his motivations as he was manipulating the other ponies into following him, even by saying he wanted them to “follow his orders brainlessly”. The fact that the rest of Maretime Bay's residents openly fell for Sprout's tricks despite how into-their-face he was and the clear-as-day obviousness of his ulterior motives made me think this very thing here:

I'll tell you guys what, I've seen other villain songs of this type before, and each of them were done much better than "Danger, Danger". Unlike this song, the villains wouldn't make their ulterior motives obvious to others, and they'd approach manipulating them with a charismatic, calm, and collected demeanor. It would even come with a sense of unpredictability. None of these things were the case with Sprout.

In spite of all these negatives I mentioned, I'd like to point out that the movie wasn't without some highlights.

Outside of Sprout and Phyllis, the rest of the major characters proved to be noteworthy in the best way. Surprisingly likable too.

When I first saw the trailer, I thought that Izzy was going to be some unicorn version of Pinkie Pie. Once I saw the movie, I was surprised when I found myself charmed by her instead. In some ways, she does remind me of Pinkie, yet she managed to stand as her own pony regardless. A similar scenario happened with Zipp too, in that while she did remind me of Rainbow Dash she still proved to be unique and different from her. Likewise, Sunny and Hitch were the best earth ponies in this entire movie, because they both had lovable personalities that helped them be characters people can root for and give sympathy towards. The character of Pipp was another character I enjoyed, mainly because I love how she grew from a full-of-herself pop icon to a caring and supportive friend. Plus, the chemistries shared between the five characters were more enjoyable than I thought they'd be, and every moment featuring them was fun no matter what. The performances of Vanessa Hudgens as Sunny, Kimiko Glenn as Izzy, James Marsden as Hitch, Lisa Koshy as Zipp, and Sofia Carson as Pipp were amazing as well.

I would also like to add that Queen Haven and Alphabittle grew on me as the film progressed. I didn't exactly think too highly of them at first, but their developments from arrogant authority figures to more kindhearted and noble ponies was so well-done that I found myself enjoying their company. Jane Krakowski did a fabulous job playing Queen Haven, and Phil LaMarr was excellent in the role of Alphabittle.

Plus, while this movie didn't contain as much star quality in terms of its songs and music, I'm happy to say that "Glowin' Up", "Fit Right In", and Johnny Orlando's "It's Alright" are what I consider to be the movie's best songs. They were enjoyable to listen to, and the moments featuring those songs were fun to watch. The only thing I can't help but wonder regarding "Fit Right In" is why the song couldn't be given a different title, because there's already a song from “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” that has this title.

In conclusion, though...despite this movie having its positives, "My Little Pony: A New Generation" proved to be exactly what I sadly expected it to be: A disappointment. The story is predictable, unoriginal, and contains various plot holes; the animation showcases an instance where computer-animation isn't always the right style to use; and the inconsistencies between this movie and MLP (G4) are so apparent that it makes the "hundreds or thousands of years later” explanation both illogical and laughable.

So, I rate "My Little Pony: A New Generation" two out of five stars.

Want my advice?

If anyone wants to see an animated feature where the kind of story, themes, and messages this movie has is done right, go see "Raya and the Last Dragon"! If you guys want to see a My Little Pony movie done right, check out the film from 2017! Those movies are way better than this dump.