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[ShinySylvee]

Someone on Reddit posted a brief review of the Movie saying he saw it at the New York premier. He said it was pretty good although there was nothing mindblowing and said that it felt like a 2D Disney movie. It's not super long and you can find it here

Also kinda surprised that no one has switched to a punk Rarity avatar. I'm really happy with my EQG one but I figured with how well-received it was someone would want to switch to it.


Other Stuff: Short Princess Skystar movie stuff on Kelly Rippa

Short ad for Marks and Recreation

Movie screening interview stuff with a bunch of the VAs for the movie. It's nothing crazy but if it sounds interesting to you it's worth watching because it's only 4 minutes

 

[SigmasonicX]

You failed to highlight the real takeaway of that review: the CGI is much better in the final movie! Also, worth noting that in one of the comments, he states that while it's 7-8/10 among animated movies, he gives it 10/10 as an MLP story.

 

[Ogodei]

I'm kind of on the fence about going. Lion's Gate's utter lack of interest in promoting it is giving me red flags, and if it is just another pony story (albeit a really good one), then it might be worth waiting.

 

[UberTag]

Also kinda surprised that no one has switched to a punk Rarity avatar. I'm really happy with my EQG one but I figured with how well-received it was someone would want to switch to it.

I've got one lined up to hype up the movie during its premiere week.

 

[Trigonometrize.]

You failed to highlight the real takeaway of that review: the CGI is much better in the final movie! Also, worth noting that in one of the comments, he states that while it's 7-8/10 among animated movies, he gives it 10/10 as an MLP story.

Oh thank god. When the first trailer came out I was kind of embarrassed for them that the CGI was as bad as it was.

 

[ShinySylvee]

I'm kind of on the fence about going. Lion's Gate's utter lack of interest in promoting it is giving me red flags, and if it is just another pony story (albeit a really good one), then it might be worth waiting.

The advertising only really started this past week, although I don't watch any channels that they would potentially put adverts for the move on. Also I mentioned it before but Lionsgate has a history of of publishing extremely shitty animated movies (Talking Food Fight and Norm of the North levels of shit here) and not giving them any real advertising so they might be a bit iffy in terms of marketing. Any sketchy marketing I feel could largely be chalked up to inexperience or incompetence rather then lack of faith in the project. With all of the stuff we've seen about the movie it seems extremely doubtful that the movie will be a stinker. I'm likely going to end up seeing the movie at least twice regardless of reviews but if you're skeptical there's no harm in at least waiting to see how it ends up reviewing. I guess it depends on what you're willing to go to the theater for.

Oh thank god. When the first trailer came out I was kind of embarrassed for them that the CGI was as bad as it was.

One advantage of playing Marvel vs Capcom Infinite is that it's pretty hard to look worse then the models in the CGI cutscenes for that game. In all seriousness though the CG ship was of SUCH a lower quality then the rest of the movie that it was extremely unlikely to be anything other then a placeholder. Now that I know it's not going to be terrible it'll be interesting to see all of the places they decide to use CGI instead of 2D animation.

 

[UberTag]

I'm really looking forward to hearing Trigonometrize's impressions of DRV3.

 

[DrForester]

Boxoffice.com has updated their forecasts, and there's no change to the MLP movie.

$7.5m opening weekend
$21.5m total domestic

What they did add was the theater count. They're saying it's only going to be in 2,100 theaters. Just over half of what LEGO Ninjago opened in.

 

[UberTag]

Boxoffice.com has updated their forecasts, and there's no change to the MLP movie.

$7.5m opening weekend
$21.5m total domestic

What they did add was the theater count. They're saying it's only going to be in 2,100 theaters. Just over half of what LEGO Ninjago opened in.

A $7.5m opening weekend for an expected 2,100 theatre count is actually pretty favorable.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Hmm, would that number of theaters reflect more on Hasbro's intentions or the theater companies' interest?

Discovery Family is airing a The Making of MLP: the Movie special on September 30th. They mentioned at HasCon that they filmed a bunch of behind the scenes stuff but weren't sure how it was going to be used. I guess this is it.

 

[ShinySylvee]

Did some digging around, Boxoffice.com's theater amounts are just estimates. For example in late August they predicted IT would open in 3500 theaters and it actually opened in 4103, and in early September they predicted 3500 for Kingsman 2 and it actually got a little over 4000. Those estimates were further away from the actual release date then this movie is but it goes to show they can be off by quite a bit, and if my theory that they just saw "Lionsgate animated move" and thought it was going to be trash is correct then they could be WELL off on their estimates.

Anecdotal but my theater has some times up for preorder for the movie's release and although the day overall is missing a ton of times it currently has 5 times listed on opening day for it which is the same as the amount they have for the new Blade Runner movie if you add up 2D+3D times. Also anecdotal but I checked the movie theater in Hermiston, Oregon. (Population 17000) That one only shows around 7 movies at any given point and that theater had the MLP Movie listed as a coming attraction and even has a one night event on Oct 14th showing off the first EQG movie. If even a fairly small rural Cinema is showing the movie I don't see how it's going to be getting half the amount of screens that a normal animated movie would be getting, especially since there's virtually no competition for family movies outside of Lego Ninjago which looks to be performing substantially under estimates. (20 Mill vs boxoffice's projected 38 Mill) In addition there's no major family movies being released for the rest of October to my knowledge as well, so if it gets favorable reviews families may be more inclined to end up checking it out by virtue of there being no other real options.

 

[Trigonometrize.]

I'm really looking forward to hearing Trigonometrize's impressions of DRV3.

Bad CGI pirate ships in that too, huh?

 

[ShinySylvee]

We got some clips from the movie, unfortunately many are in fairly low quality:

Songbird Serenade clip (She sounds so normal)

We Got This Together (Song) (Half is what we've already seen but the bit right before that is shown is Pinkie's part of the song. Also we get what is likely our only shot of Starlight and Trixie in the whole movie yay. Cheese Sandwitch is in there too. The cuts to those characters feel kinda forced, like they're just throwing them in there to be like "hey it's those characters you know." Also looks like the shading might be here to stay, although I hope not. Everything looks dark even though it's in the middle of the day)

Time to Be Awesome (Song) (The magic for Twilight looks really slick. The glow around her horn has a lot more detail then the glowing blob thing that the show has. Also holy crap the ponies dancing along is adorable.)

One Small Thing (Song) (The stylized looks of the seaponies when they were dancing was really cool, makes me curious as to how the whole song will look)

 

[SigmasonicX]

At this point, I think I'll stop watching movie clips, but I did look at the video thumbnails on ED, and yeesh, those are low quality. How the hell are those officially released clips? Given that, I wouldn't put too much weight on the shading there.

Legends of Magic #5 - Mage Meadowbrook
I didn't make the connection until ED's roundup post about "A Health of Information", but Meadowbrook has Fluttershy's eyes.

Oh hey, Little Witch Academia cameo from Akko and Sucy. The other background ponies on that page might also be cameos from there, but it's a bit harder to tell.

Funny that Sunburst is taking Starswirl's legends with him specifically because if there's something important in them, he wants to find out before Twilight. I guess it pays off!

This was a decent enough story, though there wasn't much too it. I would have preferred more focus on Meadowbrook's healing, rather than her running away from zombies, to better reflect the observation skills and determination we saw in the episode; maybe have her be forced to confront them again to get something for the cure. That said, the zombie part was fun, and it turns out she has sweet ninja skills, all while wearing a giant skirt. Though I guess we did see that in the episode too. The narration was too intrusive this time, I felt. I'd mention the musical insert, but Sunburst complained about that too. Still no explanation for how Meadowbrook is known for spells, even though they bring it up here again.

Silver Quill's review brings up the narration too, and says it would have been better if Meadowbrook had someone to talk to, like with the previous Legends issues. He also makes the point that her brief appearance in FiM #58 did a better job at demonstrating her character strengths than this full issue, which I can't disagree with.

Still, overall a fun and enjoyable issue, but on the weaker end of the surprisingly good Legends of Magic series.

It looks like the ending of the issue leads directly into the season finale, and that the Legends were indeed the previous Elements of Harmony, though Starswirl interpreted them back then as: strength (honesty), bravery (loyalty), healing (kindness), beauty (generosity), hope (laughter), and sorcery (magic).

EDIT:

Twilight, maybe you should have waited a bit before drinking

EDIT: When making the episode guide, I re-listened to "Winter Wrap Up", and wow, Twilight's singing voice sounded way different back then. Compare to "Best Friends Until the End of Time".

 

[ShinySylvee]

Been quiet the past couple days. Probably going to change with the episode tomorrow but in the meantime we got some more stuff:


A Netflix Series called "Tales of Canterlot High" is due for release on Netflix on October 10th. Of course, the first date for when the first half of Season 7 was supposed to be released was over a month off I believe so that doesn't really mean much, but it does look like there's some sort of EQG Netflix thing that will be released at some point. I'm guessing at the very least we'll see the 3 Magic episodes from earlier in the year and some uploads of the DHX shorts but past that we'll have to wait and see. Eqd link


Some digital app version of the MLP movie has been released, just in case you haven't already been completely spoiled by the Novelization and the Comic adaptation. Eqd link.

There's a behind the scenes promo for the Movie airing on Discovery Family at 7 PST tonight. I'll be posting a link to it and my thoughts as soon as I can get a hold of it. The promo for it can be found here. (Side note: It's pretty bad that the 30 second promo for another promo for the movie is my favorite marketing I've seen for it. I like this one a lot more then all of the other TV spots)


There's 2 more TV spots for the movie that you can find here
and here.


Lastly, Boxofficemojo (Different website from the other one that's been posted here) does listings for upcoming movie releases and lists how many theaters they anticipate it opening in. The number for the MLP movie is 2500. Although that's a hellova lot better then the 2100 that boxoffice.com posted it's still awfully low for an animated movie. Most major movies get around 3500-4000 theaters and that's still substantially lower then that. Worth mentioning though is that once again Boxofficemojo's numbers are just estimates. Using the wayback machine I found that IT and Kingsman 2 both were pegged at 3900 theaters but got over 4000. Obviously not a massive difference but I didn't do that much digging and them being off by a couple hundred is not unreasonable. Mentioned it before but Ninjago not doing well is a good sign for this movie since that was its biggest competition, so in the wake of that movie performing under expectations theaters might be willing to pick this movie up.


Some cynicism to balance out all the optimistic posts I've been making about all the movie news: as of right now this movie is not getting any hype outside of fans of the show. A couple days ago I did some digging and found a fandango poll for movies people were looking forward to. In the category of Fall family releases MLP got 5th. It was behind Ninjago and some other movie that didn't surprise me but it was also behind 2 movies I've never heard of, including some animated Christian movie. To put things bluntly the trailers and TV spots for this movie haven't been very good and given that this movie is already going to be a tough sell for a lot of people that is not doing it any favors. I'm personally hyped for the movie because I'm familiar with all the people working on it and there's a lot of stuff I've seen for it besides the core advertising that looks good, but if I were someone that didn't know much about the series and had only seen the two trailers for the movie and a couple of of the TV spots, I would not be interested at all in the movie. The only really notable things have been the fact that it was 2D instead of CGI and aside from the CG it looked really pretty. If this movie does not get good reviews and word-of-mouth I don't see it doing well at all because the most noticeable advertising for this movie has not done a good job at selling it. On the other hand, I think it absolutely could get good reviews and word-of-mouth and end up being a sleeper hit. Overall I imagine the opening weekend is going to be unimpressive but if the movie does well with non-fans then I could imagine it having strong legs.


Almost forgot: It's Friday and that means more Movie posters:

You can find the whole collection here.

 

[Trigonometrize.]

All the things in my life that I want to see do well get a disproportionately low amount of marketing and attention. MLP: Movie is no different. If it gets mildly positive reviews I'll be happy though.

 

[SigmasonicX]

It's worth keeping in mind that the movie not doing well will hardly get the show canceled early or stop the upcoming EQG series from happening or end the comics. Either things remain the same in terms of the content we get, or the movie does well enough that we maybe get a sequel a couple years down the road. And we probably get framed better in the 2010's retrospective documentaries.

Next draft of the movie OT, which I plan on creating tomorrow or whenever impressions start rolling in. By the way, since it's now the movie OT and not a spoiler thread, any more suggestions for the title?
Ex:
My Little Pony: the Movie |OT| And magic makes it all complete

I'll fill in links and such later. I also plan on making section banners later, including one based on the comic cover art, which is why it's absent below. The character guide ended up taking some vectors from the season 7 guide (for Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack).

Director: Jayson Thiessen (show director of Friendship is Magic)
Writers: Meghan McCarthy (former head writer of Friendship is Magic), Rita Hsiao (assistant writer for multiple Disney movies)
Produced by: Hasbro Studios, Allspark Pictures, DHX Media/Vancouver
Distributed by: Lionsgate
Rating: PG

Early screenings start: September 30, 2017
US Release date: October 6, 2017

In late 2010 and early 2011, the Internet at large gained a sudden and inexplicable obsession with a show aimed at little girls about ponies, with a force strong enough to leave lasting impacts even here. Everyone thought it would be a minor fad that would burn out in a year, but now, Hasbro considers My Little Pony one of its pillars, mentioning it in the same breath as Transformers, and it culminates here, with the first MLP theatrical film for over 30 years!

... The Equestria Girls movies were direct-to-video specials that got limited theatrical screenings, they don't count.

Synopsis

In order to stop a threat to the town of Ponyville, the "Mane Six" – Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Rarity – must leave their home kingdom of Equestria, meeting new friends and overcoming challenges in the process.

To expand on the official synopsis: the newest princess of Equestria, Twilight Sparkle, is setting up the Festival of Friendship, when it's suddenly attacked by the evil Storm King's forces. His commander, Tempest Shadow, uses magic artifacts to turn the other princesses into stone, forcing Twilight to flee with her friends. They must travel across a desert, face sky pirates, and even go to the underwater kingdom of the sea ponies to find a way to defeat the Storm King.

So, a pretty straightforward story, but it's one that's sure to be elevated by well-done 2D animation, including hand-drawn effects art from Michel Gagné (special effects for The Iron Giant, various Don Bluth films), and most of all, the fantastic cast of characters.

There are all kinds of guest stars, but we should look at the actual main characters first. Note that the show designs are used below.

And then there are these people. Vector sources linked in character names

Emily Blunt - Tempest Shadow - Tempest left Equestria long ago after failing to find a way to heal her broken horn. Now, she follows the evil Storm King, who promises to fix her once she has collected the magic of all the princesses, with the aid of his technology and magic artifacts.
Zoe Saldana - Captain Celaeno - Once a fierce and free pirate, Celaeno and her crew were humbled by the Storm King and now simply deliver supplies for him. But an encounter with Rainbow Dash could rekindle something in her.
Michael Peña - Grubber - Ostracized from his species for being too small and weak, Grubber found his niche as a right hand man of the Storm King that's too stupid to ever betray him. He's kind and gentle at heart, but he has no way out.
Liev Schreiber - The Storm King - The Storm King has already conquered most of the known world, and now his sights are set on Equestria. With the magic of the princesses, he'll be able to control the weather and truly rule everything.

Kristin Chenoweth - Princess Skystar - Skystar is the secluded princess of the seaponies, who just wants to make friends with someone, anyone. Maybe even a clam. Also, shoo-be-doo.
Uzo Aduba - Queen Novo - Novo is the queen of the seaponies, who keeps them away from the outside out of fear of the Storm King's threat. However, she has a power that may be able to turn the tides.
Taye Diggs - Capper - Capper is a charming gentleman living the the desolate city of Klugetown, but you don't succeed there by being nice. After experiencing Rarity's generosity, something starts to change.
Sia - Songbird Serenade - Songbird is a popular singer who sings at the end, like in that other recent-ish movie with talking animals.

All the songs on the soundtrack are officially on YouTube for free, and while I haven't listened to them myself, I hear they're great.
Known to be in the movie:
1. "We Got This Together" - Mane Six (Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity), Apple Family (Granny Smith, Apple Bloom, Big Mac)
2. ”I'm The Friend You Need" - Capper (Taye Diggs)
3. ”Time To Be Awesome" - Captain Celaeno (Zoe Saldana), Rainbow Dash, Celaeno's crew, non-Twilight Mane Six, Spike
4. ”One Small Thing" - Princess Skystar (Kristin Chenoweth), non-Twilight Mane Six
5. ”Open Up Your Eyes" - Tempest Shadow (Emily Blunt)
6. "Rainbow" - Songbird Serenade (Sia) - Link is to the music video, which does contain some footage from the ending.

Credit songs at best:
7. "Off to See the World" - Lukas Graham - No official free upload yet.
8. ”Thank You For Being A Friend" - Rachel Platten - Yes, this is a cover of the Golden Girls theme.
9. ”Can You Feel It" - DNCE
10. ”I'll Chase The Sky" - Jessie James Decker
11. ”No Better Feelin'" - CL
12. "I'll Be Around" - Palmer Reed
13. "Neighsayer" - Lukas Nelson

Trailers/Clips
Note that from reports, the footage used in the trailers is outdated and/or badly compressed. Keep in mind that the shading and especially the CGI are supposed to be better in the final movie. For some reason, the released clips are very low quality. Blame Lionsgate, I guess.
Teaser
Trailer 1
Trailer 2
Songbird Serenade clip
"We Got This Together" clip
"Time to Be Awesome" clip
"One Small Thing" clip

GIFs
https://derpicdn.net/img/2017/9/18/1538808/small.gif[/IMG
[IMG]https://derpicdn.net/img/2017/6/29/1473922/small.gif[/IMG
[IMG]https://derpicdn.net/img/2017/9/21/1540562/small.gif[/IMG
[IMG]https://derpicdn.net/img/2017/9/19/1539732/small.gif[/IMG
[IMG]https://derpicdn.net/img/2017/6/29/1473891/small.gif[/IMG
[IMG]https://derpicdn.net/img/2017/9/12/1533693/small.gif[/IMG
[IMG]https://derpicdn.net/img/2017/9/12/1533733/small.gif[/IMG
[IMG]https://derpicdn.net/img/2017/8/25/1519355/small.gif[/IMG

[URL="https://derpibooru.org/1538808"]Pegasi[/URL]
[URL="https://derpibooru.org/1473922"]Cake[/URL]
[URL="https://derpibooru.org/1540562"]Rarity messy hair flick[/URL]
[URL="https://derpibooru.org/1539732"]Menacing Tempest[/URL]
[URL="https://derpibooru.org/1473891"]Sonic Rainboom[/URL]
[URL="https://derpibooru.org/1533693"]Rarity drama[/URL]
[URL="https://derpibooru.org/1533733"]Dodging lightning[/URL]
[URL="https://derpibooru.org/1519355"]Spike[/URL]

And [URL="https://derpibooru.org/1537734"]ENDING SPOILER with Twilight looking epic[/URL]

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/gHdiUXw.png
Before the actual movie is a short based on the new Hasbro property Hanazuki, which has a YouTube exclusive series that you can see for free officially in this playlist. The series is pretty decent, and I recommend checking it out if you like MLP. Perhaps more importantly, we actually have a GAFfer who works at Titmouse Animation, who worked on both the series and this short! And they'd really appreciate it if you post your reaction to it, even if it is just "what the hell is this acid trip?!"

The movie is meant to be standalone, but it's in the same world as the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic TV show. As of thread creation, it has aired 162 episodes, 156 of which are on Netflix. There probably isn't too much danger in just starting the series from the newest episode, but if you're uncomfortable with that, then good news, we at PonyGAF have an episode guide! Last year, we made an image-based guide, but that's not quite ready yet, so I prepared a text-based one, linked below.

Introduction
Season 1
Season 2
What is Equestria Girls?
Season 3
Season 4
Season 5
Season 6
Season 7
Online Shorts

Friendship is Magic Season 7 OT
Friendship is Magic Community Thread
Movie Trailer Thread
Movie Announcement Thread
IMDB
Rotten Tomatoes

 

[UberTag]

By the way, since it's now the movie OT and not a spoiler thread, any more suggestions for the title?
Ex:
My Little Pony: the Movie |OT| And magic makes it all complete

My Little Pony: The Movie |OT| This film is Sean Spicer-approved
My Little Pony: The Movie |OT| Melania's New Speech Source Material is Finally Here!

 

[Strider_Blaze]

A couple days ago I did some digging and found a fandango poll for movies people were looking forward to. In the category of Fall family releases MLP got 5th. It was behind Ninjago and some other movie that didn't surprise me but it was also behind 2 movies I've never heard of, including some animated Christian movie.

Oh god no! You are referring to the Star, which is a Sony Animation project. I’ve seen the trailer and it looks awful IMO. The animation looks terribly low budget for a theatrically released film and really don’t want to debate on it further given the subject of the film is pretty touchy. Surprised a film like that is even close to top 5 given the negative reception of the Emoji Movie, unless the polls have been done awhile ago, before that film was released.

I’ll have to admit, Lionsgate should have advertised it better, though as long as it turns out good, I’ll be satisfied.

I assume it’s Coco and Blue Sky’s Ferdinand that are among top 5 as well. (Was trying to find the poll myself but no luck do to using my phone.)

 

[meltingparappa]

I'm vibrating wildly with equal excitement and anxiety, hoping any review or impression even mentions the 'Hanazuki' short attached to the beginning of the movie that I worked on.

I expect most theatergoers to be surprised to see a tangental property squeezed between them and the movie they actually came to see, but I hope there's one or two people casually remarking on Twitter that it made them interested in the show.

 

[Trigonometrize.]

I'm vibrating wildly with equal excitement and anxiety, hoping any review or impression even mentions the 'Hanazuki' short attached to the beginning of the movie that I worked on.

I expect most theatergoers to be surprised to see a tangental property squeezed between them and the movie they actually came to see, but I hope there's one or two people casually remarking on Twitter that it made them interested in the show.

I'll keep an eye out for it and let you know what I think! (though I'm not a reviewer or anything)

 

[SigmasonicX]

I'm vibrating wildly with equal excitement and anxiety, hoping any review or impression even mentions the 'Hanazuki' short attached to the beginning of the movie that I worked on.

I expect most theatergoers to be surprised to see a tangental property squeezed between them and the movie they actually came to see, but I hope there's one or two people casually remarking on Twitter that it made them interested in the show.

Is it the same animation style as the YouTube shorts, or was it spruced up a bit?

 

[SigmasonicX]

I didn't pay much attention to ED's post about the Movie Facebook stickers, but looking at the animations on Derpibooru, they're pretty fantastic. Just a sample:

Pinkie Pie Says Goodnight: Wonder Blunder

New headers that will go into the movie OT OP.

(source)

As for the Friday art dump, I'll have to wait on that again.

 

[ShinySylvee]

All the things in my life that I want to see do well get a disproportionately low amount of marketing and attention. MLP: Movie is no different. If it gets mildly positive reviews I'll be happy though.

It's an animated movie that looks like it's going to have a great soundtrack, will look beautiful, and isn't a cynical cash grab. Those things alone will keep it from reviewing too badly regardless of the story, which seems at the bare minimum competent. Whether it will be carried by those elements or the rest of the movie will be at that quality is yet to be seen but I can't imagine that the movie will end up reviewing THAT badly.

Also I went to Rotten Tomatoes to see what other animated movies ended up getting and I got an MLP banner ad. That's the first advert I've seen for it so far lol.

It's worth keeping in mind that the movie not doing well will hardly get the show canceled early or stop the upcoming EQG series from happening or end the comics. Either things remain the same in terms of the content we get, or the movie does well enough that we maybe get a sequel a couple years down the road. And we probably get framed better in the 2010's retrospective documentaries.

It won't impact the immediate future sure but to me it seems like they're trying to expand the franchise in anticipation that the movie will bring new people into the ecosystem, the biggest thing being the second animation studio they're working with and all of the new EQG stuff they're making. If the movie does end up bombing horribly then it would show that the franchise isn't going to get any bigger then it already is which could end up resulting in them downsizing, which likely won't impact the stuff they have planned for next year but could have serious ramifications for the following ones.

Oh god no! You are referring to the Star, which is a Sony Animation project. I’ve seen the trailer and it looks awful IMO. The animation looks terribly low budget for a theatrically released film and really don’t want to debate on it further given the subject of the film is pretty touchy. Surprised a film like that is even close to top 5 given the negative reception of the Emoji Movie, unless the polls have been done awhile ago, before that film was released.

I’ll have to admit, Lionsgate should have advertised it better, though as long as it turns out good, I’ll be satisfied.

I assume it’s Coco and Blue Sky’s Ferdinand that are among top 5 as well. (Was trying to find the poll myself but no luck do to using my phone.)

The Star is indeed one of the movies that placed higher lol. The time window for the movies was fairly small as Ferdinand didn't make the list. Coco was one followed by Ninjago (surprised would have thought Lego would be higher since Coco doesn't seem to be getting THAT much traction) and then Wonder, (Some live action feelgood family movie I haven't heard of) then The Star, and finally MLP. At any rate I refound the page so if you want to look through it you can find it here.

I'm vibrating wildly with equal excitement and anxiety, hoping any review or impression even mentions the 'Hanazuki' short attached to the beginning of the movie that I worked on.

I expect most theatergoers to be surprised to see a tangental property squeezed between them and the movie they actually came to see, but I hope there's one or two people casually remarking on Twitter that it made them interested in the show.

Best of luck man. I'll be sure to keep an eye out for it.

 

[meltingparappa]

Best of luck man. I'll be sure to keep an eye out for it.

I'll keep an eye out for it and let you know what I think! (though I'm not a reviewer or anything)

Thank you thank you! I'm hoping to pass around screengrabs of mentions to the rest of the team, so even your optimism is happy news for everyone.

Is it the same animation style as the YouTube shorts, or was it spruced up a bit?

I didn't see your question in the western animation thread until now, but I'll answer here!

Just like MLP, we got a little bit more time and money than usual to make it, so we were able to do all of it ourselves, instead of sending out the bulk of the animation duties overseas. I am of course super biased about it, but we all put in a ton of extra effort,and the art direction already set up from the show benefits from a few more tweaks to colors and depth.

I wish Hasbro's marketing would release a single screen grab from the short, so the handful of fans can see the difference and maybe push them over the edge and get them to see the movie.

Two interesting things about making a theatrical short instead of a web/tv show --

We had to rent regular theater time from a local art college with a moderately-sized theater, because the things that look 'ok' when you're watching it on your monitor or tv look very much not ok when it's blown up to a giant 40 foot screen, and you have to check that on every frame.

Hanazuki is kind of a weird show, as far as concepts go, so there was quite a lot of discussion and tweaking to try and give it a story that would make even the smallest but of sense to someone watching it fresh, while still including elements of the brand(tm). If we get a mention by a a slightly older reviewer writing about the movie through sheer obligation and it doesn't include the phrase "incomprehensible rabbit rainbow thing", then I think we succeeded!

 

[SigmasonicX]

That's really neat to hear! I recall that when I was posting about the YouTube shorts, you referred to the team that worked on it as people you work with. But for this theater short, you're using "we". Does that mean you specifically worked on the theater short?

I'll be sure to call out the Hanazuki short in the movie OT OP, including that a GAFfer helped animate it.

BTW, I'll continue to edit the draft post above throughout the day. Before I make the movie OT, I'll have a mod remove the MOVIE part of this thread's title to reduce confusion.

Speaking of which, I still need a subtitle for the Movie OT. Something referencing the princesses being captured would be funny, but it doesn't feel right going negative for the thread title, since it would give the wrong impression. Well, maybe something like:
Confound those (ponies)! They drive me to (capture princesses)!

But I don't know, too early '10s memey?

Anyway, today's episode is,
21. Marks and Recreation
Wanting to help as many blank flanks as possible, the CMCs start a Cutie Mark Day Camp, but are surprised when one of their campers doesn't want a cutie mark.

A clip of this was shown at Hascon, and what I saw looked fun.

 

[Deleted member 10571]

So one german cinema in my city shows the original version of the movie at 8pm.
I bought tickets and I'm curious about the cringiness of the audience.

Also I still have to catch up so many episodes argh

 

[SigmasonicX]

So one german cinema in my city shows the original version of the movie at 8pm.
I bought tickets and I'm curious about the cringiness of the audience.

Also I still have to catch up so many episodes argh

OK, so we do have someone going to an early showing! Be sure to post your reactions in the Movie OT when I make it. That will also allow you to avoid show discussion, haha.

 

[Deleted member 10571]

OK, so we do have someone going to an early showing! Be sure to post your reactions in the Movie OT when I make it. That will also allow you to avoid show discussion, haha.

It's on Oct 4th I think, so I'm not sure about "early showing", but sure, will post

edit wow, it's officially releasing on 5th, so it seems to be. I didn't even know!

 

[meltingparappa]

That's really neat to hear! I recall that when I was posting about the YouTube shorts, you referred to the team that worked on it as people you work with. But for this theater short, you're using "we". Does that mean you specifically worked on the theater short?

I'll be sure to call out the Hanazuki short in the movie OT OP, including that a GAFfer helped animate it.

Thank you! Here's a small assortment of photos that are a little nicer than the first few results on google, if it helps with the OP

The team that has been doing the youtube show is relatively small as far as shows of that scale go. But for the theatrical short we were able to get almost all of the animators in the studio to do a shot or two, and so it's a much larger team effort. I think it'll be pretty apparent if someone is used to the show, and isn't expecting that visual style to get an extra heavy layer of polish. I've been doing bits of storyboard/design/animation for both the show and the short, so it's wonderful to see how much it's grown, even if it's still a super niche little Hasbro toyline.

Hooray for papa Hasbro giving a few extra bucks to make things more presentable on the big screen!

 

[draetenth]

I thought today's episode was enjoyable. I wasn't expecting a song and certainly not when it wasn't done by any main characters...

Interesting to see Rumble and Thunderlane get a nice amount of screentime. I believe they are among the early side characters that the fandom took some liking to.

TBH, I'm surprised the concern over getting "boxed in" to doing only whatever your cutie mark is hasn't come up before, but I guess ponies were more concerned over not finding something and the ones that do have so much fun doing whatever it is that it never occurs to them. I could actually see Rumble's concern that he found something he liked and was worried he would be unable to do it again (though isn't this something Thunderlane should have picked up on/pointed out given that Rumble wants to do the same thing? Shouldn't Rumble be aware that his brother does other stuff?).

From Thunderlane being sick on Tornado day in... season 2(?) to a Wonderbolt seems like an amazing development for a side character. We knew he was in Wonderbolt academy, but he seems official now..

 

[SigmasonicX]

Marks and Recreations
I thought this was a fun episode, though it did go in a different direction than I was expecting from having seen the song before (from HasCon). I thought Rumble would have more conviction behind his blank flanks forever thing, but no, he was just being childish. Which is perfectly fine for this episode, though they didn't bring up Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle's speech from their introduction at the end of "Call of the Cutie", where they say how it's better to be a blank flank, like I was hoping. The song is still good.

I thought actual story was pretty interesting, with Rumble becoming worried that if he gets a cutie mark in something else, he won't become a Wonderbolt like his brother. Though it isn't a one-to-one equivalent, it is a nice lesson for kids that only ever want to do the one thing they think they're good at, that they should still try other things. I'm a bit surprised he didn't end up getting a cooking cutie mark in the end. Or that there wasn't a gag with someone actually getting a mark while everyone was trying to do nothing.

The CMC themselves weren't too interesting, though, with all of them basically acting as one character, minus Shouty Belle. Also, they sure are throwing around the word "blank flank" a lot now. Whatever happened to that being an insult?

Just for the target audience, I really like that everything was resolved by the CMC going to Rumble's brother, an adult, for help. Not a big fan of his voice, though; why do so many stallions sound like they have a hard time speaking?

Overall, nice episode, and it was neat seeing focus on existing background characters like this. Wait... did Rumble or Thunderlane appear in "Slice of Life"? Asking for my bingo card.

I thought today's episode was enjoyable. I wasn't expecting a song and certainly not when it wasn't done by any main characters...

Interesting to see Rumble and Thunderlane get a nice amount of screentime. I believe they are among the early side characters that the fandom took some liking to.

TBH, I'm surprised the concern over getting "boxed in" to doing only whatever your cutie mark is hasn't come up before, but I guess ponies were more concerned over not finding something and the ones that do have so much fun doing whatever it is that it never occurs to them. I could actually see Rumble's concern that he found something he liked and was worried he would be unable to do it again (though isn't this something Thunderlane should have picked up on/pointed out given that Rumble wants to do the same thing? Shouldn't Rumble be aware that his brother does other stuff?).

From Thunderlane being sick on Tornado day in... season 2(?) to a Wonderbolt seems like an amazing development for a side character. We knew he was in Wonderbolt academy, but he seems official now..

Rumble was popular early on as one of the few colts that could be shipped with the CMC, but I don't recall seeing him much in art after season 2. Thunderlane was also largely used by fans for shipping, notably in this pegasus mating dance comic and this other bird comic.

About Rumble not knowing what Thunderlane likes besides flying, he did mention that he only started cooking after becoming a Wonderbolt. And many other things he liked were probably bundled up by Rumble into being Wonderbolts-adjacent, like the horseshoe tossing.

We actually saw Thunderlane as an official Wonderbolt in season 6's "Top Bolt", but no one in-episode commented on it, so I figured it was just a case of flippant character design reuse for a background Wonderbolt. I was really surprised to see that was actually canon.

When you think about it, people always thought it was odd how just a few ponies getting sick was enough to ruin the record breaking effort in "Hurricane Fluttershy" (which yes, is in season 2), but now we know that Thunderlane was actually pretty close to Rainbow's level, so now it makes more sense that him falling sick had such a big impact.

Thank you! Here's a small assortment of photos that are a little nicer than the first few results on google, if it helps with the OP



The team that has been doing the youtube show is relatively small as far as shows of that scale go. But for the theatrical short we were able to get almost all of the animators in the studio to do a shot or two, and so it's a much larger team effort. I think it'll be pretty apparent if someone is used to the show, and isn't expecting that visual style to get an extra heavy layer of polish. I've been doing bits of storyboard/design/animation for both the show and the short, so it's wonderful to see how much it's grown, even if it's still a super niche little Hasbro toyline.

Hooray for papa Hasbro giving a few extra bucks to make things more presentable on the big screen!

Thanks, I'll probably use the second image for a banner about the short. Interesting to hear the show was made with a fairly small staff.

 

[ShinySylvee]

Really couldn't get into the episode. The whole time I was thinking "ok so your big plan is to do what you guys had been doing for 5 seasons and didn't work?" I feel like the main point of the CMC storyline is that it would happen eventually and you shouldn't spend a bunch of time worrying about it and that doing a billion things to find the one thing you're good at was silly, but in this episode they present that as being sensible? IDK I can't really look at the episode in a remotely balanced way so I'll sit this one out.


Digging around, I found some more MLP Movie stuff. First off the embargo seems to be lifting tomorrow. Secondly, I found some more impressions/"reviews" out there in the wild. First off, on Cartoon Brew.com a commenter said that he heard from Michael Gagné that the response from the people that attended the NYC premier was enthusiastic, critics included. link

A website called newsday has a column called "kidsday" which was invited to said NYC premier. The publication seems to be very much aimed at kids so keep that in mind. The article spends most of its time talking about the fanfare but briefly talks about the movie and says that it's awesome and was good for kids age 3-10, but that they heard adults in the audience laughing and clapping as well. They gave it 5 smiles, and said it "turned out to be the best day ever." Granted they might give super amazing reviews to everything so take it with a grain of salt. link


Lastly I found a review by a user on mlpforums who also attended an advanced screening and his review was very enthusiastic. He mentioned that the visuals were stellar, the songs were great, the voice acting was top notch, and that the Mane 6 were perfectly in character. His screening was largely occupied by kids that won tickets from a ToysRUs giveaway and he doesn't mention how others were receiving the movie. He answers a couple of comments but they're not super relevant in terms of quality. You can find the thread (now closed) here.

EDIT: Found another impressions post on Reddit. Consistent with the trend, he loved it. It's pretty sparse but you can find it here

Another edit: putting this Reddit review I've already linked here so I've got all the impressions in one post. link

Obviously this is just a couple of first-hand accounts but reception seems to be glowing so far. Hopefully when the reviews drop they'll echo what these people have been saying.



Also for clarity it seems that the Hanazuki short was NOT shown at any of the prescreening stuff so it looks like we'll first see it when the movie is released publicly.

 

[SigmasonicX]

I thought the entire "try everything" part was fine here. It's more framed here as exposing yourself to new things for a few days then going back to your normal life, rather than ignoring the things you know you're good at and getting desperate about it. That said, the CMC definitely could have framed things better.

About the movie, good to see more positive impressions. Hopefully this persists when actual reviews come in. The embargo does explain things, along with today's screenings being for contest winners and invites only, and the Hanazuki short not being in the early screenings. I suppose I'll create the movie OT later tonight, and you can make a post rounding up the impressions we got so far.

EDIT: Oh, and if you hadn't noticed, the MOVIE part of the thread title has been removed. I'll create the new OT in about two hours from this edit, 9 PM PT.

 

[ShinySylvee]

About the movie, good to see more positive impressions. Hopefully this persists when actual reviews come in. The embargo does explain things, along with today's screenings being for contest winners and invites only, and the Hanazuki short not being in the early screenings. I suppose I'll create the movie OT later tonight, and you can make a post rounding up the impressions we got so far.

EDIT: Oh, and if you hadn't noticed, the MOVIE part of the thread title has been removed. I'll create the new OT in about two hours from this edit, 9 PM PT.

My plan is to post the random impressions that I've found so far on the internet that snuck through the embargo tonight, and once the embargo is lifted I can edit in some actual reviews. Can you try to upload exactly at 9 PST? I want to try and claim the second post so the thread goes from your OT and then after it I can post in the reviews/impressions since we're probably not going to be getting one of those threads so we can try to combine them together.



I dug around 4chan and there was an Anon there that also get an early screening. His stuff is very spoilerific but he was very positive on the movie and said that the novelization and other retellings really don't do the movie justice. He said that the kids in the theater were absolutely in love with the movie and thought it was amazing. The showing was packed and he insisted that everyone needs to check out the movie in theaters because the visuals are incredible. He also mentions that the visuals are lighter so it sounds like the shading was just in promotional stuff for some reason.


Almost forgot, I checked out the "Making of" special that aired. It's basically a big celebration of the film with all the people saying how great it is and that they worked really hard on it. There's a TON of new footage in it but a lot of it is kinda spoilery so stay away if you're worried about that. It doesn't really get into a whole lot of specifics as to how it was actually made but it does a way better job at hyping up the movie then the official promotional stuff does. Really wish this team was the ones working on the Trailers and TV spots.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Got it. Still need an OT title, though. Suggestions so far, for the now-defunct spoiler thread, are:

[SPOILER THREAD] Riders on the Storm King

[SPOILER THREAD] Movie Magic

[SPOILER THREAD] Thanos Kills Fluttershy

[SPOILER THREAD] Call Upon the Seaponies

[SPOILER THREAD] Oh Hi, Ponies!

[SPOILER THREAD] Big-Picture Perfect Ponies

[SPOILER THREAD] Glitter In My Popcorn

[SPOILER THREAD] The princesses get captured in this one

Then OT ideas:

|OT| And magic makes it all complete

My Little Pony: The Movie |OT| This film is Sean Spicer-approved

My Little Pony: The Movie |OT| Melania's New Speech Source Material is Finally Here!

Confound those (ponies)! They drive me to (capture princesses)!

Not really feeling any of them. I'm looking for something that references the show or fandom, but isn't baffling.

 

[Fat4all]

My Little Pony: The Movie |OT| Big Screen, Small Horse

My Little Pony: The Movie |OT| Another Good 2017 Horror Movie

My Little Pony: The Movie |OT| I guess people DO still watch it

 

[ShinySylvee]

Here's the stuff I'll be doing for the thread:


Reviews/Impressions

The embargo for this movie drops Sunday, October 1st. When that happens I'll go ahead and edit this post with some exerts from them. However there have been a couple of impressions that have slipped through the cracks largely from fans that have gotten to see it early

They did my waifus great justice.

- Some 4chan anon (In all seriousness he was very positive on the movie and highlighted the stellar animation and mentioned that the kids in the audience were loving it)

I heard from Michel Gagne, an effects animator who worked on the movie due out October 6, that the film held it's premiere in NYC yesterday and the response from the people who were invited, including critics, was enthusiastic, yet they are withheld from posting reviews until the review embargo is lifted

- A commenter on Cartoon Brew

This movie is good for kids ages 3 to 10, but we even heard some of the adults in the audience laughing and clapping.

It turned out to be the best day ever. We give it 5 smiles

- Kidsday review (Review column largely geared towards kids)

The movie's special effects, presentation, and animation are on point. The scenes in certain portions are very well animated and everything about it is gorgeous eye candy.

- A poster on a site called mlpforums (He has gone on to gush about the film on virtually every other platform I've seen)

Finally it really feels like a classic hand drawn movie

- Redditor review (Probably the most "negative" one we've seen so far)


Worth mentioning that aside from the random Cartoonbrew comment and the kidsday review all of the info here is from fans of the show so take it with a grain of salt.



Any feedback is good. It'll work if I just copy/paste this post in the next thread, right?

Also we should totally use that 4chan guy's quote for the OT

 

[Strider_Blaze]

Good to here that early reception is postive. Makes me confident that the film will be a critical hit. Please have a decent box office run. I mean it won’t be close to easy given that the new Blade Runner is much more highly anticipated. Eh but I at least wouldn’t consider it as bad as the whole Winnie-the-Pooh/Harry Potter situation, which was when Disney choose to release the Pooh film at the exact date as the then-final Harry Potter (now the Wizarding World Series) film. I honestly didn’t think the BR film wouldn’t create this much buzz.

Concerning the Fandango, I honestly don’t want to assume this can determine how well it will do. I doubt it represents every movie-goer, same for RT which currently has the audience score at around 65%. *me winces* It’s gonna be up to how good the word-of-mouth is.

I’ll just hope for the best when the movie is actually released. I’m just thankful the crew took the risk of doing another theatrically-released, traditionally-animated film.

 

[Jawmuncher]

You know i haven't even watched the series in awhile. I'm not caught up. Last episode I recall was the one with the character who could steal cutie marks. But i'm still gonna see the movie lol.

 

[ShinySylvee]

Good to here that early reception is postive. Makes me confident that the film will be a critical hit. Please have a decent box office run. I mean it won’t be close to easy given that the new Blade Runner is much more highly anticipated. Eh but I at least wouldn’t consider it as bad as the whole Winnie-the-Pooh/Harry Potter situation, which was when Disney choose to release the Pooh film at the exact date as the then-final Harry Potter (now the Wizarding World Series) film. I honestly didn’t think the BR film wouldn’t create this much buzz.

Concerning the Fandango, I honestly don’t want to assume this can determine how well it will do. I doubt it represents every movie-goer, same for RT which currently has the audience score at around 65%. *me winces* It’s gonna be up to how good the word-of-mouth is.

I’ll just hope for the best when the movie is actually released. I’m just thankful the crew took the risk of doing another theatrically-released, traditionally-animated film.

Blade Runner and this movie have entirely different audiences, I don't think there's going to be a terribly large amount of overlap. The biggest competition it has is Lego Ninjago until the end of October so it's being released in a pretty good time, especially since it will be poised to sell a bunch of merch for Christmas. Aside from maybe releasing a week later I don't think the timing could be better.


As I said before the movie didn't have good press coverage so it's going to largely be up to word of mouth. The fact that kids seem to absolutely love it is a great thing though since they'll probably want to buy the merch which acts as more advertisement for the movie.

You know i haven't even watched the series in awhile. I'm not caught up. Last episode I recall was the one with the character who could steal cutie marks. But i'm still gonna see the movie lol.

The movie is a self-contained story and aside from some neat callbacks to characters in the background there isn't much you're going to be missing by not being up to date.

Also IMO season 5 is the best season there's been, and season 7 has been fantastic so far. If you end up digging the movie I'd definitely recommend checking the rest of the episodes out.

 

[UberTag]

You know i haven't even watched the series in awhile. I'm not caught up. Last episode I recall was the one with the character who could steal cutie marks. But i'm still gonna see the movie lol.

Man, you've missed out on all of Starlight Glimmer's character development.
She's all the way up to #2 in my fave pony rankings now.

I must say I'm digging the staging and direction during Rainbow Dash's Time to Be Awesome song based on this clip from Equestria Daily.
It exudes charm and I think it's cool that Zoe did her own singing. Song's the latest track to get stuck in my head for a good while.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Any feedback is good. It'll work if I just copy/paste this post in the next thread, right?

Also we should totally use that 4chan guy's quote for the OT

You should probably give the same qualifications to those sources you did before, particularly the Kidsday review.

My Little Pony: The Movie |OT| Big Screen, Small Horse

My Little Pony: The Movie |OT| Another Good 2017 Horror Movie

My Little Pony: The Movie |OT| I guess people DO still watch it

I'll probably go with the first.
Or maybe:
My Little Pony: The Movie |OT| Big Screen, Small Horses (even less Celestia)

 

[Jawmuncher]

Blade Runner and this movie have entirely different audiences, I don't think there's going to be a terribly large amount of overlap. The biggest competition it has is Lego Ninjago until the end of October so it's being released in a pretty good time, especially since it will be poised to sell a bunch of merch for Christmas. Aside from maybe releasing a week later I don't think the timing could be better.


As I said before the movie didn't have good press coverage so it's going to largely be up to word of mouth. The fact that kids seem to absolutely love it is a great thing though since they'll probably want to buy the merch which acts as more advertisement for the movie.




The movie is a self-contained story and aside from some neat callbacks to characters in the background there isn't much you're going to be missing by not being up to date.

Also IMO season 5 is the best season there's been, and season 7 has been fantastic so far. If you end up digging the movie I'd definitely recommend checking the rest of the episodes out.

Man, you've missed out on all of Starlight Glimmer's character development.
She's all the way up to #2 in my fave pony rankings now.

I must say I'm digging the staging and direction during Rainbow Dash's Time to Be Awesome song based on this clip from Equestria Daily.
It exudes charm and I think it's cool that Zoe did her own singing. Song's the latest track to get stuck in my head for a good while.

Damn it sounds like I’ve missed some good stuff. I might just see if I can manage to catch up before or after the movie.

 

[UberTag]

My Little Pony: The Movie |OT| Big Screen, Small Horse

I really like this one... pretty much verbatim.
We don't need to troll DrForester about the absence of Celestia.

I also like keeping "small horse" singular. It's not My Little Ponies the movie, after all.

 

[ShinySylvee]

I must say I'm digging the staging and direction during Rainbow Dash's Time to Be Awesome song based on this clip from Equestria Daily.
It exudes charm and I think it's cool that Zoe did her own singing. Song's the latest track to get stuck in my head for a good while.

From the 4chan Anon he said that the Capper song "I'm the Friend You Need" was extremely well done in terms of animation as well. All of the shots from the "Making of" special looked fantastic as well. The direction in this movie has been extremely fantastic from what we've seen so far

You should probably give the same qualifications to those sources you did before, particularly the Kidsday review.



I'll probably go with the first.
Or maybe:
My Little Pony: The Movie |OT| Big Screen, Small Horses (even less Celestia)

I did some editing on the post and put some parenthesis descriptors as well as a disclaimer at the end saying that most of the impressions so far are just fans of the show. Most of the stuff besides the Kidsday review are probably going to be edited out once some professional reviews get made. Also the 4chan comment is staying too.

Also that title was my favorite and will probably end up working fine, minus Celestia since most people that don't follow the show won't get it and it's kinda lame anyway.

 

[Fat4all]

Damn it sounds like I’ve missed some good stuff. I might just see if I can manage to catch up before or after the movie.

they lean heavier and heavier into the fandom as the series goes on in a lot of fun ways

 

[Fat4all]

you could also go with 'Small Horse, Big Screen', whatever you think sounds better

but yeah, i thought about 'Horses' and it didnt sit right on my tongue

 

[SigmasonicX]

"Big Screen, Small Horse" it is.

(also, did anyone else actually watch today's episode?)

EDIT: Movie OT

 

[Fat4all]

I didnt have a chance to, but I usually dont deep dive into episodes like y'all anyways