I heard that the movie is very disappointing. Is that true?

[AlicornSpell 146]

I have heard from many fans of the TV show "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic" that "My Little Pony: The Movie (2017)" is not that good. 

 

Some of the major problems with the movie that I heard from the fans is that because of the animation being very different from the TV show (despite being better than the animation from the TV show itself), it makes the movie not feel like the TV show at all. Also I heard that the story and plot of the movie is not that good. And also I heard that the main villain of the movie is very lame. 

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,824]

No! The animation made it look better! It's just the fact that people need to get used to the new style. The plotline is really good and there are many lessons that could be learned from it. 

[Megas 27,569]

No, most fans are really liking the movie. But go watch it for yourself

Edited October 7, 2017 by Kiryu-Chan

[DonMaguz 1,023]

Best to check for yourself and form your own opinion.

I can tell you that I liked it and since I wasn't so hyped for the movie, it was a pleasant surprise to see the results.

[shy0wl 484]

There's a saying that goes, opinions are like a**holes, everyone's got one.  lol, but to be honest, I loved the movie.  I agree with everyone else, you should go check it out for yourself.  I don't think you'll be disappointed.

[Jeric 46,850]

The general audience consensus is that it's pretty good. Parents and fans alike. Critics have been trending negative. 

Currently the difference is about 30% on Rotten Tomatoes. It's good. You should check it out. 

[cmarston1 5,959]

Not if you went in with reasonable expectations.

[Toon4Thought 274]

The thing is, even though this film is trying to appeal to both fans and non-fans, the consensus seems to be that fans are far more likely to enjoy it. The Rotten Tomatoes' critic consensus even reflects this.

Quote

Charming and sweet, My Little Pony: The Movie will please its dedicated fanbase, even if it's unlikely to encourage non-devotees to gallop along for the ride.

That about sums it up. I'll admit, I was very hopeful that this would be the thing to completely break any doubts people still had in this property, and while the movie did indeed do what it could to accomplish this, I guess it just wasn't enough for some. Though even the majority of the negative critics at least seem to respect the fans.

Personally, I thought the film was very good, even kind of refreshing in several respects considering how most mainstream kids films are made nowadays. It had its problems, but it also did much of what I really wanted an MLP film to do, with the great elements completely outweighing any lackluster ones.

[Theknightofdraconia 31]

To me, the movie is for the fans, not the general audience(not a bad thing!) had this been a TV movie, it would have been a ratings hit.

[Toon4Thought 274]

3 minutes ago, Theknightofdraconia said:

To me, the movie is for the fans, not the general audience(not a bad thing!) had this been a TV movie, it would have been a ratings hit.

I think this film was made for a general audience, but is primarily successful with the fans (it seems anyone who likes the show at all has been able to get some enjoyment out of it).

[TBD 17,254]

I don't care much for these Rotten tomatoes critics since half of their reasons why it's bad was out of expectation for it to be a failure and list of bias toward mlp  when coming in to see mlp. And worst is half of them acted as if they watched the tv series and compared it the movie to make their point across. suuure...you guys did..sure. Even so they acted like they never seen a happy-friendship" movie before (*cough cough* disney..) and criticized the movie for it. But yeah it's not much of critic review  to why is it bad rather more of backlashing against mlp. 

Nevertheless, I'm glad some people out there who aren't mlp fan still give it a try and would be okay with it as much as I would be. It coulda been worse or could be better. I would listen to their critics instead of the RT ones.

[Unlikeable Pony 2,698]

Good movie. would rank it 8.5/10 myself. Nothing groundbreaking for the series, but still a good romp. A bit dissapointing in that they played it safe and didn't expand on lore and things that fans have wanted touched on for a while (Alicorns, EOH, Tree of harmony, ect.), but still good.

 

I will admit as a fan I might be biased, so 7.5/10 might be more accurate though.

[caseyastevens 49]

Hell no.  From what I've been hearing vast majority of fans loved it.

[HereComesTom 2,266]

I liked it, personally.  It seemed like there were some out-of-character moments for Twilight, but in some ways, they made sense...I'm not sure if I should go in-depth about that here, though.

The animation being different didn't bother me too much; it was closer to the show's animation than SFM stuff on youtube, and we can enjoy SFM videos just fine, so...you see where I'm going with that

[Tazool 43]

Although I do feel the story was a bit lackluster at some points, for the most part, the movie is a visual wonder, and the songs are really good combined with the choreography that goes along with it. Seriously, most of those songs had very mesmerizing visuals on top of being pretty good and catchy.

[Adderbane 121]

First things first.  It's not Rainbow Rocks.  It's a decent movie, but not a great one.

The movie suffers from trying to cram a lot of new settings in (probably at the direction of the toy department) which makes it hard to focus, many of the plot developments feel rushed (again since they had to cram so much in), and Twilight winds up with a bit of an idiot ball to fit the traditional movie structure (and I tend to not mind that sort of thing much if it's at least a plausible idiot ball).

However, the movie is still entertaining, and while I have no interest in watching it again, I am glad I saw it.  The animation is a lot less different from the show than it appears in the trailers; the differences are mostly in the backgrounds so you tend not to notice.  The "main" villain actually is not the one with the majority of the screen time, and the minion who does most of the work is suitably menacing and cool.

 

[ShadOBabe 18,997]

Well I enjoyed myself!

Granted the story isn’t STELLAR. There were some predictable problems that the MLP writers have ALWAYS had.  But there’s still great character moments and fun new characters. And my gosh, it is GORGEOUS to look at. Like wooow...

Probably will go see it again. X3

[Jeric 46,850]

2 hours ago, Toon4Thought said:

I think this film was made for a general audience, but is primarily successful with the fans (it seems anyone who likes the show at all has been able to get some enjoyment out of it).

I thought so too, except a common statement among some reviewers is that they had no idea what the hell was going on and who anyone was. The reason some are saying it's fine for fans is because it's out of complete ignorance since they assume what went over their head would be understood by fans. Problem is you can't objectively determine if it will be fine for fans because ... you are ignorant of the show and the fandoms tastes. 

It's a weird spot to be in if you are a professional media critic. 

1 hour ago, Unlikeable Pony said:

Good movie. would rank it 8.5/10 myself. Nothing groundbreaking for the series, but still a good romp. A bit dissapointing in that they played it safe and didn't expand on lore and things that fans have wanted touched on for a while (Alicorns, EOH, Tree of harmony, ect.), but still good.

 

I will admit as a fan I might be biased, so 7.5/10 might be more accurate though.

About the same rating. If I compare this to Pony it's higher than if I look at it independent and measured against what I expect from animated movies. I gave it higher for the fan rating and lower for the general. 

[Unlikeable Pony 2,698]

8 minutes ago, Jeric said:

I thought so too, except a common statement among some reviewers is that they had no idea what the hell was going on and who anyone was. The reason some are saying it's fine for fans is because it's out of complete ignorance since they assume what went over their head would be understood by fans. Problem is you can't objectively determine if it will be fine for fans because ... you are ignorant of the show and the fandoms tastes. 

It's a weird spot to be in if you are a professional media critic.

yeah, one review I read faulted the movie because they didn't understand why some ponies had magic and others didn't.

[Lambdadelta 1,462]

I havent watched the movie yet (i will watch it on 20 Oct), but i heard the only consistent compliments of the movie are Visuals and Musics, not the Story and Pacing, which kinda disappointing because story is the most important thing to break the 'girly show' that every anti-brony always use it against us. I will watch it to judge it for myself, let hope it will be decent at least.

[Star Petal 215]

The only thing that is disappointing about the movie is the storm king and that we hyped it too much setting too high of a bar to be satisfied. Just like the song "Flawless" what logic you got to think this movie was suppose to be flawless? 

[Toon4Thought 274]

4 minutes ago, Star Petal said:

The only thing that is disappointing about the movie is the storm king and that we hyped it too much setting too high of a bar to be satisfied. Just like the song "Flawless" what logic you got to think this movie was suppose to be flawless? 

Yeah that.

But once the feeling I set my expectations too high settled in, I did indeed enjoy the film, especially given it did still hit all the marks I felt a pony film ought to hit.

[Jeric 46,850]

15 minutes ago, Lambdadelta said:

I havent watched the movie yet (i will watch it on 20 Oct), but i heard the only consistent compliments of the movie are Visuals and Musics, not the Story and Pacing, which kinda disappointing because story is the most important thing to break the 'girly show' that every anti-brony always use it against us. I will watch it to judge it for myself, let hope it will be decent at least.

Some say the pacing is off. I liken that complaint to "it has too many notes". What they mean is that it may have too many characters. The story moves fast and slows down at specific moments like it should. If a story has an even pace ... that's usually bad. If scenes that move too fast where they should have a moment to rest .. that's bad. Pacing should be varied. It should  mirror the scene. I think that the fandom is generally apt in many things, but a strong majority have no idea what they mean when they say there is a problem with pacing. 

Pacing is not an issue with this film. It has issues in the technical department, but that ain't one. I guarantee you that film editors and directors laugh their asses off when the self-taught film experts weigh in on pacing. Some here sound like a home owner shadowing an HVAC tech acting like an expert as they try and find what's wrong with their condenser. 

The film, like a musical piece, has a harmonic rhythm where tempo changes where it needs to. Pacing is fine. 

[Steve Piranha 29,419]

It's no Disney, but I think it's a decent animated film at worst. Just go with reasonable expectations. 

[KillerKingBakudan 702]

The movie's good, but that's mostly because of the production value behind it. The voice acting's as good as always, most of the songs are catchy (though I didn't care for "Rainbow" sung by SIA to be honest), and the animation is fucking fantastic. The trailers don't do it justice. The spectacle that they achieved with the Toon Boom software is worth the admission alone. If you love 2D-styled animation, you owe it to yourself to see the movie at least once, regardless if you're a fan of MLP or not. I swear, I have not seen a movie that looked this good since the Princess and the Frog.

But the story left a lot to be desired. I was thoroughly enjoying myself until about halfway through the movie, when a certain plot point came up that was so forced, so aggravating, the characters not only felt like they were regressing to make everything work, but also OOC. I was especially taken aback by Twilight. I would have expected the shit she pulled from the old, stuck-up Twilight from the pilot who didn't want friends. But after seven seasons of learning so much about friendship, AND becoming the PRINCESS of Friendship? There's no excuse for it. I generally don't like ripping MLP episodes apart, but there were so many problems with the second and third act that my criticisms left me feeling like the very brony analysts I despised for so many years. That's never a good sign. As a standalone story, it's just passable at best. There were some great moments, and a lot of cameos that I truly appreciated, but ultimately, it's not up to the standards set by FIM itself.

I just hope that if a sequel is approved, they bring the current writing talent from the show on board. Their work on Season 7 is unmatched; I can't even imagine how amazing another movie would be if they were given a shot at penning the script.

Edited October 7, 2017 by KillerKingBakudan