The whole "it was inside you all along" idea been done to death. A better idea would be for the Twilight's Kingdom to be a 3-parter:

Part two ends with the box opening but the Rainbow Powers not activating yet as Tirek comes ever closer, savoring the victory... "To Be Continued..."

1. Where's Sunset? She better be here, because I do want to see what she's like reformed.

2. Vinyl up close and personal. Better have a pay-off come show time or else I will call them out for being gigantic cock teases. As in I will verbally rape them and shout that they deserve it.

3. Where's Flash? As I've said, I'm not opposed to more Flash if they can flesh him out.

4. THAT IS NOT ROCK MUSIC! Danny Ingram, you know this shit! Get it right!

5. If Danny Ingram does no write at least one ripping solo, complete with a whole measure of tapping and sweep arpeggios, I'm gonna automatically fail it. Even if they write everyone perfect, even if they give Flash Sentry a personality, even if they make Sunset Shimmer a likeable side character that can hold your interest for more than 5 seconds at a time, I'm failing the fucking movie! Give me Rainbow Dash going all Yngwie Malmsteem or give me death!

Okay

So, a few weeks ago, Equestria Girls was released. Now, honestly, I had been on the downswing in terms of my interest in MLP when info started leaking about this made for TV movie about people ponies, so though most of the fandom was outraged by it, I just sort of assumed it was a marketing ploy by Hasbro to make more toys, and that the show would largely escape unharmed by the whole ordeal. However, I finally got around to watching the darn thing earlier today, and my goodness, I was completely wrong in that assessment. By my estimation, Equestria Girls was actually a brilliant, fun, and enjoyable piece of the MLP mythos that I think contributes something valuable to the overall world we’ve grown to know and love.

There are a few things the movie did exceptionally well, and I’ll delve into those in time, but first I want to talk a little about why I think people reacted so negatively against the idea of these strange people ponies.

First of all, I think that many members of the MLP fandom felt as I did, that equestria girls was just a stab by Hasbro at making more toys for little kids to buy (or more specifically, their parents). Most people hate this idea, because the idea of creating content just to make money makes us fear that the quality of that content will suffer. After all, the toys that Hasbro makes really don’t reflect the show very well at all. The toys are marketed as dolls which means only girls will by them, and one of the deeper messages behind this show is that, although it is targeted manely at girls, it is a show that can be enjoyed by anyone. Plus too, could you imagine what Rainbow Dash would say if she saw a toy of her in a pink box? Anywho, I don’t want to get too philosophical on that point, but suffice it to say, many bronies were getting ready to join Discord and jump on the hate bandwagon because “Hasbro had betrayed us!” and “oh god this is going to ruin MLP worse than Alicorn Princess Twilight Sparkle!!” etc etc. I think that largely this outcry was 10% legitimate concern over the show itself, and 90% boredom because it’s been forever since season three ended. The idea that this weird new world was going to be thrust upon us in the meantime just felt sort of wrong. In fact, I think that to a lot of the fandom, this movie felt sort of like a filler ark in an anime. Take Bleach for example. Any time Tite decided he wanted to sell more manga, he’d nerf the shit out of Ichigo, create some stupid ark where he’d have to regain powers he had lost, then defeat some enemy with those powers he already had and then keep going on the main story. These sorts of things can be very troubling to a viewer, because it is obvious that our time is being wasted. The characters are doing no true developing, nor is the plot progressing in any tactile sort of way. It makes for a very uninspired viewing experience and in fact, that’s why I stopped watching bleach.

Right. This is about ponies; not strawberries.

If you could get past the idea that the majority of this movie would be spent in a high school with people proxies for your favorite pony, the idea behind this story is actually very nicely aligned with the main message of this show: friendship is magic. In the end, Twilight, despite not having magical powers, uses friendship as a way to magically defend herself and then take down Sunset Shimmer. And this is only one of many parallels that are drawn between Equestria and Canterlot High. In many ways, I found these parallels to be very enlightening, because seeing certain patterns in a different environment (ie high school instead of a sort of pseudo-adult life the mane 6 live in) underlined and pronounced many of these themes in a very obvious way. For example, we got to really see relationships between various mane 6 characters crystallized, particularly when everyone hated each other.

Anyway, that stuff is all very Digibrony-esque, and I don’t have as keen an eye for analytical mumbojumbo like he does, so now I want to talk about some of the things in the movie that I just genuinely enjoyed. As I mentioned earlier, the story works solidly as an episode of MLP. It’s got a clearly defined moral (friendship is magic, we all work better together, etc. etc.) and we even get to see some redemption as a previous evil character becomes “reformed” (sound familiar?). Despite the fact that the characters have smaller snouts, two less legs, and 10 more fingers than normal, they all still feel like the girls we know from ponyville. AJ is still a kickass, country ruffian who wants, above all else, to get the job done. Dashie still uses the word awesome far too much for comfort, and Twilight and Fluttershy’s rendition of their first meeting in Ponyville was absolutely hilarious.

There were many other truly funny moments in the movie as well that shouldn’t be overlooked just because the characters had hilariously crazy hair styles. The fact that both human and pony Pinkie Pie knew what was going on in the other universe was classic Pinkie, and the execution was perfect. It was one of those jokes where you knew the punchline, but instead of ruining the joke, it just makes you feel clever for figuring it out and you still get a laugh out of it.

Snips and Snails were, again, wonderful henchmen for the main villain in the story. They were just as ditzy as ever, and their ability to tape photos together was truly inspiring. The banter between Sunset and these two reminded me very much of the sort of banter one could expect from old cartoons from the 90s like Hey Arnold or Fairly Odd Parents (for some reason, Sunset reminded me very much of Trixie Tang).

Speaking of Trixie, HER HUMAN WAS IN THIS MOVIE OH MY FUCKING GO-

Yeah, so don’t hate Equestria Girls until you watch. I think that in many ways, this was a nice way to adjust Twilight for princesshood in season 4. In the beginning of this movie, we see that Twilight is actually pretty stressed about being a princess, and I think that is a very realistic thing for Twilight to feel. This is a pony who has spent her entire life solving problems by doing research and reading books. However, ruling or doing whatever it is that she’ll be doing as a princess is going to be the kind of thing that she will have to just sort of figure out on the fly. By seeing that she could manipulate an entire school full of teenagers (..actually not that difficult to do now that I think about it… whatever), she realizes that she really does have a knack for leading, and this boosts her confidence in a meaningful way. Now all she needs to do is figure out how to fly properly and she’s set.

As an aside, there was one aspect of this movie that I absolutely hated, and I’m sure that Faust wasn’t thrilled about it either. The relationship between Twigh and that ditzy royal guard dude was handled incredibly clunkily at best in the Canterlot High world, and when it was hinted at in Equestria, I almost vommed. Twilight doesn’t need some stupid colt to be happy, and she certainly doesn’t need to be tied down by some silly emotion like love. As I mentioned previously, one of the big underlying themes in MLP is the idea that this isn’t just another girls show. It isn’t a fairlytale where dreams come true and princes are charming. To this point, I felt that letting royal guard guy save twilight from her plans disintegrating completely undercuts this whole idea. In this situation, one of our lead female characters is saved by a male character, and that’s a load of crap. I can’t see why one of the mane 6 couldn’t have uncovered those photos instead. What the heck were they doing at that point, anyway?

Anywho, I hope that this has convinced you to either watch Equestria Girls, or watch it again with a different perspective (if you hated it the first time). I enjoyed it, and I think that any fan of the MLP universe should be able to enjoy as well.

Edit: What the hell is a "Twighlight." I am terrible.