I will crack down my thoughts in parts and such.
1. Animation: The animation in this movie was awesome and I think that it was top notch and managed to actually make the emotions that could be garner in the show even more powerful here with the facial expressions, voice syncing, and effects being amazing and extremely well done. The animation is perfect.
2. Music/OST: I find it great how they were able to get a full blown orchestra for this movie to really makes the songs unique from a traditional Mlp Fim song. For example when twilight says: “Friendship didn’t fail me, I failed friendship”, the music gives me goosebumps because of how powerful the music makes that moment. Imo the best songs were “We got this together” and “ A friend indeed” as they both stood to me as very well done and pleasant to listen too. From time to time I like to listen to these songs however I believe the third best song was “Open up your eyes” as I love the backstory and the dark themes in the song as well as. Emily’s singing voice. Overall the Music is very much good and fits what I believe the writers were going for and such. I wouldn’t say however that all of the songs are amazing but all of them are above average and again the orchestra was awesome.
3: Show Characters: I like how they did the mane 6 except for flutter shy I felt like they could have given fluttershy more important things to do other than say yay and act afraid. It seemed like they were trying to depict flutter shy as she was in earlier seasons as less assertive and timid. I like how they kept the characters consistent to who they are in show and it didn’t feel like there was one time where they acted like not themselves in this movie. All of the princesses were good too despite them being in the movie very little besides as statues. I think the characters from the show were very good and they written pretty much exactly like they are in the show.
4. New Characters:
Villains: I think the three villains in this movie were good antagonists. I personally love Tempest as she seems to fit the darker themes in this movie I like her design, character and voice actor. I actually like Grubble because he is basically a sillier evil version of spike. He’s tempests assistant, he’s small, and he likes to eat sweets kinda like how spike likes to eat gems. The Storm King could have been better and I think they should have worked on him more but he was decent and a little funny his voice actor did great though.
5. Voice Acting: I think the voice actors were really good for every character in the movie and I felt that they were done pretty much flawlessly.
6. Story: The story in this movie is very much like a season finale except on a bigger movie scale. There were some cliche aspects to the story but what I think was great about it was the darker theme to it. It’s like mix of Return of Harmony and The Crystal Empire in terms of darkness with a mishmash of adult jokes which I think helped the movie be more accessible to non fans such as parents.
7. My Verdict As Well As other Notions: In my opinion there were flaws to this movie but all in all it stayed very much true to the series as well as trying different things which was very impressive to me. I’d give it a 10/10 as it had some problems but not enough to match how great its execution was. It’s definitely one of my favorite animated movies ever and definitely the best animated movie of 2017 and movie based on the entire Mlp series ( Rainbow Rocks is the only other notable film but it’s equestria girls and a lower budget so I don’t think it can be compared ) I think every Mlp fan should watch it and I also look forward to seeing more people watch it and see their thoughts.