Them's Seeing Ponies

1. Considering how backhanded and deceitful pre-reformation Sunset was, she probably forged some guardian signatures. Twilight getting in was a plot hole with pretty much no explanation even implied during the events of the first movie. 2. Yes he did, so that Twilight could verbally interact with someone during the first half of the first movie, and because without the ability to talk, he'd be, well, a dog. Not much potential there past a few facial expressions (unless they went to town with him as a silent character, which I doubt they would have been able to commit to creatively). 3. The Dazzlings are shown to have hypnotic abilities (at least prior to their defeat). If they can dope up nearly the entire population of a moderately large school into a hoard of mindless admirers within a few musical numbers, they probably could have pulled off being let into the school without guardians. As for where they live, they probably hang out in some motel or low-rent accommodation. 4. Because the plot, I guess. The franchise in general have never really been that consistent about justifying whether Twilight uses telekinesis or not during specific occasions. She teleports every ten seconds over about 15 feet of ground in 'Applebuck Season' then 11 episodes later she suddenly becomes unable to teleport forty feet across a ravine and nearly dies thanks to this. 5. Because it wouldn't be a movie set in a high school without a teen romance, now would it? It was mostly just superficial attraction to begin with anyway (Brad Flash just happened to be the first individual willing to aid Twilight in a highly unfamiliar setting, and the attraction sort of developed (although 'developed' is likely too strong a term) from there). 6. Timber Spruce is 17 (or 18, considering his demeanour I'm guessing 17) according to Ishi Rudell. Twilight is 16. Technically, this doesn't pose any major issue in this regard.

The guy makes some good points, but I feel he missed the reason why fans were issuing complaints about the Pony of Shadows. It's not that he wasn't threatening in a direct way, it's that we had a ton of exposition dropped onto us throughout both parts that build up the Pony of Shadows as a threat, and the episodes treat him as an antagonist akin to the other two-parter big bads (including the serious tone of both parts) but ultimately we don't actually see most of what he does or any major reasons that justify the episode's treatment of him (including the 22-minute buildup to his return), which makes the conflict feel thin and 'stakeless' as a result. It's an unpopular opinion, but that's my two cents on the matter.

Season 1 also had unnatural dialogue to an extent, but there was a kind of charm to it that endeared the viewer. Seasons 5-7 have less of this charm, so the unnatural dialogue that does show up feels much harder on the viewer. The verbal humour has also degraded to an extent, from the fun, quirky wordplay of the Faust and Renzetti days to very weak and monotonous dry humour during more recent seasons ("that was better than the first eleven times", "seriously, all of them [the books in Twilight's library]", etc. all have the same basic gag at their root and that gag wasn't funny the first time it was told), which may add to this effect.

It would be fun to see a CinemaSins video on the movie, but I feel worried that they'd be unfairly biased towards it. That and their humour becoming increasingly routine and monotonous (as there are now so many parodies of the channels in addition to the hundreds of videos uploaded onto the channel itself). HISHE is nothing more than a collection of tedious, unfunny shorts that do little more than point out a reference in the hopes that someone finds it amusing. It isn't.

I'm pretty sure they'll make it to 10 seasons, considered FiM's current marketing momentum (which is still going pretty strong). Asides from Perfect Pear, I wouldn't say the show has had a stellar episode in a while, but considering that season 7 was at least a decent improvement over season 6, I'm definitely open to future seasons as long as they don't overuse the villain reformations and give new elements of the show the respect they deserve (such as giving a few appearances to the Pillars in season 8).

Not much of a fan of Starlight either (the vote percentage for her is insanely high in comparison to the other mane 6 and Spike; I'm not speaking out of spite, but more out of bewilderment as to why her vote is so much higher when both Twilight and Fluttershy had some great roles this season as well) but I can see why she gained a majority vote to an extent - season 7 did try its damnedest to integrate her into the cast better than season 6, and that's appreciable.

'This meant to imply reincarnation is possible in the MLP universe? I wouldn't say Tempest is 'old' based on the Fizzy Pop suggestion. 13 years (wasn't that when G3 Fizzy Pop was first issued?), like it or not, isn't that long a period of time. On the same grounds, we should be creating threads about Applejack being a 'very old' MLP character.

Not sure 'childish' was the right term to use here. Obviously that wasn't the tone you were going for, but describing the show's idealism as 'childish' felt a little too derogatory. Equestria's moral code and ideology are different to the real world, yes, but it's not exactly inferior either. It works for the ponies most of the time similar to how our ideology works for us most of the time. It's just how Equestria is. Personally, I don't have a problem with reformation within the show unless it feels unneeded/overused or disrupts the flow or message of a story/is poorly executed (I'm even fine with most of the reformations, excluding a few such as Discord or Starlight Glimmer (more for the natures of their reformations instead of the fact that they were reformed in the first place) being addressed to kids as long as they understand that isn't how our world always operates).

That would be awesome. I have to wonder how if possible, griffons receive different birds as bases. How do their genetics tie into this? Do all griffons resemble birds of prey, or do different populations have different species or types of bird as bases (for example, a wetland variety resembling flamingos as suggested above, or a rainforest-dwelling variety resembling birds of paradise?). Hey, the MLP Movie art book featured various bird bases for the hippogriffs (which have way less bird-like final designs than the show's griffons do), so it can't be impossible.

I also remember there being an owl-headed griffon. Aren't some of the griffons' heads also designed more akin to hawks/ospreys as well? I seem to remember there being a griffon with a more hawklike head.

Jim Miller's currently supervising director (since season 6), with Denny Lu and Mike Myhre as directors. You read the thread above you? A good chunk of it is discussion about Jim Miller.

I also wonder if this was impacted by creative decisions as well. Searching through the movie's art book, there are character sheets dated from early 2016, around the time season 6 and 7 were in production. While I doubt the crew were aware of the show's developments with Starlight at the time, it isn't impossible that they were (particularly with season 6 second-in-creative-command Mike Vogel joining the movie as a writer), therefore including Starlight in the final script (written around the middle of 2016, from what I can garner) wouldn't have been impossible. So why not then? The movie was focused on the Mane 6 and Spike being a unit. The focal point of the movie is clearly set on the comradery and friendship between the Mane 6. Including Starlight (basically a back-and-forth seventh main cast member) in the mix would have confused the movie's themes (why isn't Starlight heading out with the six? Is she their 'friend' then?). Adding Starlight would have also muddied the pacing. The movie already suffered a little from stretching too little time over a large number of new/returning characters. Adding Starlight would stretch the runtime even thinner for scenes introducing her, and related to the above, the writers would be essentially forced to add scenes of her being proactive in Canterlot during the Mane Six's adventure to justify introducing her, which would have taken runtime from the Mane Six's journey and disrupted the flow of said quest, breaking the intended tone of the group's increasing isolation from Equestria (particularly on Twilight's part). It wouldn't have been as effective. Including Starlight would have made the movie's place on the FiM timeline less ambiguous. Technically, this would give the movie a clearer standing in the show's continuity as being set after Starlight's redemption (counteracting all the arguments that the movie is set during or before season 5), but it also makes the 'why aren't the dragons/changelings/Pillars contributing to the film?' issue more inexcusable as the movie would have written away most of the benefit of the doubt ambiguity it generated by not including Starlight as a character in the script and pretty much outright stating that it was set after season 5 (and likely 'No Second Prances' additionally), therefore clarifying the above issue as a genuine plot hole and complaint.

The Hungry Hungry Hippos reference. Having the character reiterate 'hungry' and 'hippos' for the sake of clarifying the reference felt kind of superfluous and unnatural. Also, Pinkie laughing as the Mane Six fell from the pirate ship. I know Pinkie is the element of laughter, but that just seemed a little... psychotic to me. Could I also add Sia's role in the film? Songbird Serenade had virtually no relevance to the plot asides from the showcase at the end and was hardly even referenced during the middle stretch of the film despite several parts in the opening building her up as a major star (implying she was intended to be seen as important when she was ultimately inconsequential to the film), which gave the impression she was forced in there as little more than a celebrity guest (technically, the new major characters were nearly all celebrity guests, but they weren't as conspicuous as Songbird).

I think the writers were a little too nervous about integrating Starlight in season 6. You can sense a kind of uncertainty in her earlier episodes because her inclusion was a departure from the normal at the time. One thing I definitely will give season 7 is that this timidity largely disappeared and Starlight's appearances now feel more confident than in season 6, hence her larger number of focus episodes in the former.