Astrobrony

I have sucessfuly integrated "Eeyup" and "Nope" in my everyday vocabulary! I'm now challenging myself to throw out "Schmoopy Doo!" somewhere to finish the Big Mac trifecta.

I perosnally wouldn't mind a change of pace for Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. They're probably the flatest recurring characters on the show, and I'm amazed with all the learnings about friendship all over the place in Ponyville, that these two JUST DON'T GET IT!!! Yeah I know, story convenience and all, but seriously if everypony else is learning about being a good friend and being an overall nice pony, then Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon should have learned SOMETHING by now.

To be fair, Iron Will should have included when and when not to be assertive in his lessons. With that said, it was still mainly Fluttershy's fault for taking things all the way up to bullying other ponies.

I read somewhere that Lauren originally envisioned the Mane 6 as having different body types, but they went with the same template because it wound up being less expensive for they toys having one standard pony template, and also it helps speed up the production of the show in terms of animation (also explains why all six are the same height in Equestria Girls). I think that it is amazing to see how varied they can still make the designs for everypony while working off of one single template.

I wouldn't call it a "mistake", but I can understand the sentiment. I'm just saying that Sunset Shimmer worked fine as designed for the movie. Did she have potential to be a lot more? Definitely! I was fine with what we got, but I see where others might not.

I think you have to think of Sunset Shimmer more as an "antagonist", and not a purebred villain. Keep in mind that the scope of Equestria Girls is limited to the high school, so having a full blown villain like Chrysalis or Discord show up at Canterlot High would have been too jarring, especially if we are to believe that this world is our own everyday world. Any "villain" based off of a high school setting ("I want to be popular by any means necessary!") would even come close to comparing to the villains we saw in Equestria. And to answer your other point, I believe they DIDN'T need to create Sunset Shimmer at all. To be honest, they could have easily used Trixie instead if it weren't for "Magic Duel", and IMHO, Trixie would have been a more engaging EqG antagonist if she was still in her boasting mode. I am ok with Sunset Shimmer, but they really should have used Trixie.

I dunno. I think for a 70 minute movie, Sunset Shimmer works fine as is. Like I pointed out earlier, she isn't the strongest villain by a long shot, but at the end of the day, she didn't need to be. Keep in mind that Sunset Shimmer is just an average pony compared to Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis, and Sombra. And also, being the same age as the Mane 6, she is nowhere near experienced enough to be a "Great Villain" like those others. Like the Mane 6, she is still a young pony/young girl still learning about the world. And also like the Mane 6, she is liable to make some really dumb mistakes when she really should have known better. However, while the Mane 6 have each other, Sunset outright rejects friendship. That's part of the message Equestria Girls is trying to send (The magic of friendship is everywhere), and IMHO Sunset Shimmer helps execute that message effectively exactly as she was written, someone who destroys friendships in order to gain power. Again, this makes her a pretty weak villain compared to the others, but that's to be expected. She's just a teen/pony who just took things a bit too far (ok, she had sinister intentions, but the same principle applies).