My Little Pony, Franchise Reboots are Magic

"My Little Pony"
The 1986 movie that started it all, a series and toyline, and made Hasbro big for not only their other boy lines, but then for girls also. The movie is at times ridiculously cute. The little creature horses have developed a society where everything is great and cheery, run by girls, but villains from a volcano threaten to destroy it all. Ha. They are also all boys. This movie is not subtle. At times the villainy is actually too intense, like the villains in equally odd Care Bears from the same time period. But they have magic, so they also are like He Man, and later She Ra. The ponies must defeat the witch lady of the mountain and return peace and harmony to the village. This is also a little like the Smurfs. Kind of.

It came out the same year as Transformers 1986.

It spurred two sequel series in the 2000s, one of which survives today as My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic.

The cleverly rebranded update features a sassy cast that includes voice talent from Cartoon Network alumni and is on point, althoug never fully released onto DVD, not all complete seasons, but their spin off is out.

I am not a brony. I just know. I am not the target audience. 

"My Little Pony: Equestria Girls"
Well, they have this show called Friendship is Magic, but the fan base of adult males is annoying, so the studio decided to really force the issue that it is for girls, so they made a show that appealed to nobody. They set the film in an alternate universe where the pony girls were Monster High uncanny looking horse faced girls in high school, because sure! Girls love that right?

Well it wasn't the Brony's, 20 to 40 year old males into a TV show meant for 8 to 14 year old girls, that did it, it was marketing mismanagement, that thought what girls want his post scarcity High School Musical and Glee rip off stuff with girls in school and angst. Yeah. No.

A toy line and some episodes proved to not sell too well, and they rebranded it a parallel story, and not really a change in the story. Uhu. Admit it Hasbro. That idea was stupid. It sits on shelves while the Friendship is Magic brand, a sassy reboot of the 1980s original, does not have any complete series DVD box sets.

Note that I am not a brony, but that one of the producers is.

Now comes the studio system deciding to actually do a follow up movie.

"My Little Pony: FIS"
The film starts off in the Pony version of the land from the show, where a similar concert or festival is happening, but this time the party crashers are in a storm ship, a floating blimp vessel like an evil Teddy Ruxpin ship. The pony girls, all of them are save for the guards, who are with the rock star horse, all must go on a quest to find the special ponies of another land and save them from the storm lady, who works for the male antagonist, the storm King.

Also the odd inclusion of the parrot pirates is clearly meant as some sort of copycat spin off series coming soon, with a matching toyline of shelf warming action figures, and a playset pirate ship. The ship was cool. Wouldn't mind having one. Ha. 

It appears they are saying the stormy guys as\re like Bronys and thus suck and will ruin the movie because they will become dark and stormy, and emos are out too. Nice. It is an ironic plot point that the storm lady pony has a broken horn, and that is why she is mad, so all she needs are friends to help her over her disability. Als that she is clearly a G1 character you will get at the end.  

The bait and switch of two groups of these fantasy horses changing into the other form is kind of silly, but it is aimed for children.

The storm lords are like something out of the same cloth as the volcano lords in the first, and could be intense for small children.

The sequel or update does immediately suffer from the cliche of, we don't trust our voice talent to carry this, so chuck in five or six actual names so it will sell. This is marketing madness. The reason equestria girls didn't sell wasn't the talent, but the story was stupid.       

That said, a packed opening weekend with adults and children present made for a curious and well liked follow up, unlike the one about high school.

Some of the pejorative groupof bronys in one camp do actually like Equestria Girls, but it still sucks.