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spoiler Am I the only one who didn't like SIAbird?


KillerKingBakudan

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Yes, that's what I'm calling her, because she's one of those few things I wholeheartedly disliked about this movie. What was the point of having her here? She's not even a character so much as a walking advertisement for SIA's next album, and I doubt many of her fans even care about MLP. I don't know how much she got paid for this movie, but could you imagine how much better the result would be if that money was put towards revising the script more? Like extending the run time to resolve the pacing issues, and give every new character besides Tempest a chance to develop?

They could have axed SIAbird completely, and nothing of value would have been lost. For such a highlighted part in the trailers, you'd think they'd do something interesting with her so we can see what she's about besides entertaining ponies; she was just there. I didn't feel anything for her even when she was captured. And "Rainbow" is nothing beyond epic posturing. It's emotive to the point of being over-the-top in a movie where the payoff isn't strong enough. Yes, the Mane Six had just saved Equestria from an evil bad guy, but they've done this plenty of times in the past. And any time someone burst out into song after the fact, it never felt like they were shooting to win a fucking Grammy. The Equestria Girls films had more fitting songs than this.

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I dunno; I found her inclusion to be harmless; at worst. If anything I would contend that "Rainbow" is really the best song in the movie, especially as it seems to really relate to Tempest and her struggles. When the song plays; it tends to make me tear up, so yeah. It has it's effect on me.

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She is meant to be a representation of a celebrity, not a full, fleshed-out character of her own. :P I wish she had more of a character too, but there's only so much you can do with so many new characters and locations in a ninety-minute film, and I don't think they had any intent on extending the run time past that "magic mark for kid's films" to begin with.

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Think there's general critical consensus that she comes off as a glaring celebrity spotlight. Again, I think a lot of the problems can be distilled down to characters not interacting much in the movie. 

Imagine like Twilight was captured and actually personally instigated the start of a resistance with the regular supporting cast plus the celeb guest while the thing with the other 5 was happening? They could have used her motivational singing there.

Overall it's not a big deal to me, but do agree the way they used her mostly just served to cut the wings of storytelling momentum by veering off on unrelated notes

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She was simply a celebrity guest, not much more than that and I am glad they didn't try to make her anything more than that. It kept her out of the main picture until the very end and I am in agreeance with @PathfinderCS here that the song was wonderful and made me all teary eyed. With that, I found her inclusion to be just fine. She sorta appeared, didn't do much else and then had a good song at the end. Nothing crazy, nothing terrible, just 'there'.

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4 minutes ago, Kyoshi said:

She was simply a celebrity guest, not much more than that and I am glad they didn't try to make her anything more than that. It kept her out of the main picture until the very end and I am in agreeance with @PathfinderCS here that the song was wonderful and made me all teary eyed. With that, I found her inclusion to be just fine. She sorta appeared, didn't do much else and then had a good song at the end. Nothing crazy, nothing terrible, just 'there'.

She wasn't terrible, and sang well - but would have preferred to see RaRa :)

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Didn't like? Sure I didn't like her...

But I didn't dislike her.

I felt she was pretty tone neutral.

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But a few notes. (Because I seriously have a thing for numbered lists... Like its starting to bother me)

#1: She's a celebrity. That's it. It really did not matter who they got. Honestly she's just Cheese Sandwich with less development.

#2: You would actually be stunned at how well cross promotion works. Having worked for a large mouse based Media Company. Its actually crazy how well it works.

As in, Yes some of her fans will look into the movie and or the fandom at large.

And More importantly for the point of cross promotions, Some of the fanbase will become fans of hers. (The Reason you don't have to pay that much for Cross Promotion) Actually a lot of times you Don't pay at all. So you are literally getting a professional level song for nothing in a lot of cases.

 

#3: As far as her taking up time that could have been used? No... The movie needed some empty time....

Not only that the ideal of making the movie longer (It was only 99 minutes) is a no starter. Literally it is death in most cases for a Kids movie to run over about 100 minutes. (Because let's not forget we are enjoying a kids show that's just happens to be good enough to be enjoyed by adults)

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Over all the movie was on the high end of what I expected in that I give it a 6-7 out of 10 for a Adult friendly Kids movie...

And I consider this character about the same, Better then what I figured it would be. But still not great.

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I am neutral, I thought her inclusion was like Shakira's in Zootopia. We don't know anything about Songbird Grenade (not even her eye colour). The song was good at the end, it didn't make me tear up really, but as @PathfinderCS said the song relates to Tempest's struggles. I am really 50/50 in this one.

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2 hours ago, CypherHoof said:

She wasn't terrible, and sang well - but would have preferred to see RaRa :)

Now THIS I could get behind. She's already been established as a close friend to Applejack, and we already know she can sing well. Having her there as the celebrity guest wouldn't have felt gratuitous. And I'm sure Lena Hall would have loved another chance to sing as a pony again.

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5 hours ago, The Artist Formerly Known As A.V. said:

IMO, she was the Pony version of Gazelle from Zootopia, right down to the feelsy end-credits song.

I feel the same way, except that Gazelle at least got to contribute to the plot of Zootopia a little bit, unlike Sonbird Serenade who didn't even get to do that much.

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To answer the question in the title, OF COURSE NOT. 

I quite thought it was fine, and she served her intended purpose in the film. I like her voice and the design was fine. 

But no, you aren't unique if you don't like her. 

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I agree that she didn't really do much in the film except sing a song that I thought was alright. I expected her to have a bigger role, but now I realise she's just in the movie to attract more viewers, since she is a really big singer. 

17 hours ago, CypherHoof said:

She wasn't terrible, and sang well - but would have preferred to see RaRa :)

I would have preferred to see her too. Songbird Serenade felt almost exactly like RaRa, but without any personality. It would have been cool if she actually did something else in the film that actually mattered.

Sia needed to provide the catchy pop song at the end which most other animated films have, probably.

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Overall, I don't really care. She was cute, they were cute, they were all cute, and it put me in a good mood! I didn't expect this to be a deep movie, because it's a children's film. It's marketed to children. No deep plot, or super fleshy characters needed. If I want to watch something cute and enjoyable, I watch this. If I wanted to watch a movie that goes deeper, i'd watch something else.

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I like that Rara idea, I definitely would have felt more of a connection to her. But I do understand the cross-promotion thing as well. I guess I'm neutral on it. 

Spoiler

Gotta say, though, I started laughing in the scene when captured Twilight is being brought back to Canterlot and she sees Songbird...I know they were supposed to be sharing a "look" but because Songbird's eyes are covered the scene just came off as comedic to me. My wife and I started giggling, saying stuff like, "Huh? I feel like someone's looking at me, but I can't see..." :lol:

 

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4 hours ago, strangepigeon said:

I agree that she didn't really do much in the film except sing a song that I thought was alright. I expected her to have a bigger role, but now I realise she's just in the movie to attract more viewers, since she is a really big singer. 

Will have to take your word for that - I had never heard of her before the movie.

 

4 hours ago, strangepigeon said:

I would have preferred to see her too. Songbird Serenade felt almost exactly like RaRa, but without any personality. It would have been cool if she actually did something else in the film that actually mattered.

RaRa has an established character, has already stated she hopes to be invited back, and is apparently a pegasister herself.  But of course her episode was after the movie planning began (so, another glimglam that didn't get retrofitted to the movie)  and songbird didn't have a significant role in the movie anyhow, so it wouldn't have been a great slot for her.  Ah well, maybe for the *next* movie. I don't think glimglam or trixie have met her onscreen yet :D

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I didn't care much about her or her songs, but I was cracking up when Twilight was captured and she looked at the Sia pony like saying "sorry, I have failed you". That's basically how irrelevant she is to the movie and my opinion of it, the fact that giving her 3 seconds of screen time in the middle of the movie felt so out of place that I couldn't help but laugh.

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Well, she is just there for promotional purposes because having Sia in the credits probably sounded worthwhile.  As for her song...I'm pretty meh about it.  It's about as easy to understand as a Shakira song unless you watch a vid where you can also read the lyrics.  Even then the lyrics themselves are almost as muddled as a Lady Gaga song.  But...this song is a thing...I guess.  It's alright.  It's not the greatest, but it happened.  It's certainly no Open Up Your Eyes...

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