After recovering from Twilicorn, I now am faced with Equestria Girls!
And you know what? I kinda liked it.
But let's take this apart piece by piece. First, I'll go over the designs. Then I'll go over the toys, and finally I'll review the movie. There aren't any major spoilers until the last one.
1. Initial Designs
I admit I've gotten used to them for the most part, but these designs could have been done a lot better. My first issue is the skin colors being the same as the pony counterparts to the Mane 6. They most likely did this because of politically correct buzzkills possibly complaining about racial diversity if they gave them human skin colors. If you know me, I HATE people like that, who nitpick the tiniest little things. Soccer moms that are afraid minor violence or swears will corrupt their children. People who over-analyze everything instead of seeing through the eyes of a child. To all you assholes out there, go fuck yourselves with a sheet of sandpaper. As I often say, I'd rather be tactless than brainless.
Second issue is how out of character the outfits are. I can believe Twilight's, Pinkie's, and Rarity's, but AJ and RD DO NOT belong in skirts, and Fluttershy's just weirds me out for some reason. I admit when put in motion they're not half bad, but they would look so much more appealing if they were in character.
I actually don't mind the fact they don't have horns, but do have wings, that's actually how I've always imagined human ponies. I don't care for the pony ears and cutie marks on their faces, though (luckily the latter was not incorporated into the film).
Oh, and since I don't really care for Spike as a character, I never had a huge problem with him being a dog. I had a feeling from the start he would still be able to talk anyway, an assumption proven correct.
2. The Toys
THESE JUST CREEP ME THE FUCK OUT.
Okay, I'm exaggerating a bit, but like before, these could have been so much better. I guess my only real (but quite big) problem with these are those faces. I know the toys pictured are prototypes, but the final dolls have the exact same faces so it doesn't really matter. Anyway, onward!
I really hate girls' toys nowadays. Why? Because they design them with loads of makeup that didn't even look appealing when I was in the target demographic (I was born in 1999, so I was unfortunate enough to grow up with grotesque, heavy-makeup-laden toys). Something I (and presumably a lot of fans) liked about the designs for FiM is that they DIDN'T have this trait. They looked cartoony, cute, innocent, not slutty and disgusting like Bratz or Monster High dolls. Thank god the EG film retains the appealing style of FiM.
Unfortunately, the dolls are not so lucky. It's too bad, also, because if they ditched the makeup and made the dolls a little plumper and less skeleton-like, they wouldn't be half bad. I may have even purchased some. I suppose that's Hasbro's loss, though. I'm 14, so I'm still a little bit in the target IP for EG, and all my female and male brony friends of similar age (as well as their younger siblings) agree the makeup is unnecessary.
3.And now, the spoiler-ridden moment you've been waiting for, my thoughts on the movie!
I adored the animation in the movie, and found the music catchy as hell. The story, while plenty cliched, still was somewhat interesting. And thankfully, they kept the TwiBrad plot to the bare minimum. I still wish he hadn't been included at all, though. I'm jumping ahead though.
As I said before, the music is super catchy. My favorite was probably the "Help Twilight Win the Crown" song. I wish they had used more variety to the music genres, I don't mind pop but I would prefer they had used more than one genre.
Animation, like always, was spot on. My favorite scene (both animation wise and story wise) is the Mane 6's Magical Girl transformation scene. The visuals were eye popping and I loved the motion of their "tails".
Again, the story is cliched, but the characters somehow make it work. I like the villain, Sunset Shimmer's design and voice (who is ironically Twilight's singing VA). I wish more creativity was put into her demon form at the end, her design there seemed kind of lazy. I also wish more time was devoted to her scene. Ah well.
The nods to the fandom were nice too, like Trixie's scene and Derpy being in the end credits.
Overall an alright movie. With a much larger time slot to work with the story could allow more details. If some of the episodes from FiM, like A Canterlot Wedding or Magical Mystery Cure were given this amount of time, they would be mind blowing.