FiM Special: Rainbow Roadtrip

[bwrosas 252]

Caught the last 20 mins, animation was a good blend of movie and show, last song was good!. Will catch the rest later, when DVR recording gets DVD Recordered

[Plonkett 345]

My god what a disappointment. This special would've been just fine as a regular episode. They should've done something way more exciting with that 60 minutes. When people said that the cancelled movie sequel was the basis for this special, they clearly lied. Hell, even the title was a lie, the "road trip" wasn't even central to the plot. No villain or real conflict or anything, so boring.

[bwrosas 252]

1 minute ago, vgmaster9 said:

My god what a disappointment. This special would've been just fine as a regular episode. They should've done something way more exciting with that 60 minutes. When people said that the cancelled movie sequel was the basis for this special, they clearly lied. Hell, even the title was a lie, the "road trip" wasn't even central to the plot. No villain or real conflict or anything, so boring.

with commercials , 86mins

[Sparklefan1234 170,568]

Rainbow Roadtrip was "okay", IMO not the best but pretty good considering where they got their story from. 

 

My favorite thing about the special was the fact that it didn't have any antagonists.

 

I thought that was a wonderful change from the repetitiveness of the last nine seasons premiers/finales/specials. 

 

Edited June 29, 2019 by Sparklefan1234

[bwrosas 252]

Nothing between Spike and Rarity? Probably saving for 2nd half

[n1029 227]

9 minutes ago, vgmaster9 said:

My god what a disappointment. This special would've been just fine as a regular episode. They should've done something way more exciting with that 60 minutes. When people said that the cancelled movie sequel was the basis for this special, they clearly lied. Hell, even the title was a lie, the "road trip" wasn't even central to the plot. No villain or real conflict or anything, so boring.

I mean, it's certainly possible it was a cancelled movie sequel. They evidently had more of a reason for cancelling it than money alone.

 

Guess I should've expected this. I'm not sure what the point was of even making this if it was just going to be a low-energy retread of the "everyone just needs to get along" narrative that the show has done better many times before in less than half the runtime. A few laughs here and there, but definitely far from a good representation of why FIM ever got as popular as it did. I'm still not really sold on Toon Boom, almost seems like it's more constricting than flash.

 

 

Edited June 29, 2019 by n1029

[bigbertha 414]

Rainbow Roadtrip is shit. Everything drags out for way too long just to pad out the runtime to 60 minutes and the special doesn't even have the decency to tell jokes. It's not that the jokes don't work, the special doesn't even attempt jokes.

I know this was made for babies, but honestly I don't think even babies would like this. They'd just be bored. What a goddamn waste.

Score: 0/10

[Rushing cash 836]

There really was nothing that screamed at me as bad, but just like the town it was bland and boring for the most part. Some of the new characters were interesting and the main 6 were handled pretty well for the majority but there was nothing really interesting, I mean sure, not everything needs an antagonist to make it interesting but there was not enough intriguing stuff for such a long special, it could have been an 40 minute special easily. The songs were pretty boring too. 6\10.

The animation was nice, not as good as the movie but still good.

Edited July 5, 2019 by Rushing cash

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,161]

Gotta say; this was probably some of the best pacing, story, and character-driven drama I've seen in the entire show! I'd probably even say this was even better than the movie itself!

I really liked how low-key it felt, and as such the focus felt so clear. I never felt jumbled, and overall just felt like an episode that was given proper time to develop. Gotta say; pleasantly surprised overall.

[ChB 18,550]

"Yes, sir! ... I mean ma'am! "

[Steve Piranha 29,424]

11 minutes ago, ChB said:

"Yes, sir! ... I mean ma'am! "

Oh yeah, I think she was mistaken for a dude when the movie was around, right ? Or could it be..... “that”?

Spoiler

 

[StitchandMLPlover 930]

MLP Rainbow Roadtrip

 

SPOILER ALERT

 

So I just saw “Rainbow Roadtrip”. First off I love the animation. It looks similar to the MLP 2017 movie with the designs like the more horse like ears and fluidity. Frankly its pretty obvious this has a lower budget than the movie because the ponies look rounder, fatter, overall shorter, and the backgrounds even when the color returns seem less impressive. However that’s a nitpick since this was not meant for a theater release. Plot wise the story reminded me of the movie “Pleasantville” where people turn colors when they embrace new parts of themselves. MLP has used color in this way before with “Return Of Harmony” and “Cutie Map”. Whenever a pony does not act like their true self the colors disappear. The friend I was watching the special with remarked that the color in the pony world is a metaphor for living life vibrantly and when ponies stop living vibrantly the vibrant colors are absent. I liked Twilight in the special better than in the movie because she was kind, open minded and helpful like she usually is. I like that Twilight was challenged in the movie and I would not change Twilight in the movie but it’s nice to see her happy rather than stressed in the animation style. I liked how each of the Mane 6 got to do something and I loved seeing a bit of Spike with his wings. When the Hope Hallow mayor finally asked the hotel pony to marry him I was like “Finally!” At first I wondered if she was the secret villain of the story but I’m glad she turned out to be a good pony. I’m also glad that the problem turned out not to have to do with the rainbow maker even if it was a bit cheesy. Some parts of the special dragged when they could have focused more on what exactly made the town lose hope which was not quite focused on enough. When I see plots drag I get the feeling the staff are running out of ideas hence why season 9 is the last season. I also get the sneaking feeling this is like a Toon Boom trial run for G5. If Bronies give the special a hooves up the staff will use Toon Boom and similar plots for G5 and yes I could totally buy this as a scrapped MLP movie sequel as that's what my friend thought. I could see why this was moved to TV release instead of movie release if that's the case since its too basic for a full length movie and kind of what non Bronies stereotype the show as with the rainbows etc like Storm King's "Friendship,flowers ponies bleh" joke in the film. 

Edited June 29, 2019 by StitchandMLPlover

[MangoFoalix 24,956]

Sorry guys for not updating, I had somethings to attend to. I edited in a download link in the OP post.

[MangoFoalix 24,956]

1 hour ago, bigbertha said:

Rainbow Roadtrip is shit

Ever thought that you might be shit?

[ChB 18,550]

16 minutes ago, TheTaZe said:

Sorry guys for not updating, I had somethings to attend to. I edited in a download link in the OP post.

It's okay, my Friend!  

Take as long as you need.

[ggg-2 3,553]

1 hour ago, bigbertha said:

Rainbow Roadtrip is shit. Everything drags out for way too long just to pad out the runtime to 60 minutes and the special doesn't even have the decency to tell jokes. It's not that the jokes don't work, the special doesn't even attempt jokes.

I know this was made for babies, but honestly I don't think even babies would like this. They'd just be bored. What a goddamn waste.

Score: 0/10

Whoa! Somebody's a pessimist.

[KH7672 1,604]

I guess I'm going against the general consensus to say, I loved this special and you know what, I loved it more than the movie, but not as a movie because it wasn't framed like one it was clearly a special but it did such a fun job at it.

This special was about one thing and it delievered which was the characters. I feel so much more camaraderie for Barley and Pickle or the Hoofingtons and Moody Root than Celaeno and the pirates, I related more to Torque and Kerfuffle than Capper and Skystar, and honestly I sympathized more with Sunny and Petunia than Tempest .

The interactions felt genuine, the feelings felt sincere, the characters felt like characters than just set pieces across a movie backdrop, although it probably helps it was only in one location. They each had other characters to act off of for their strengths and not just to make them look good or bad. Plus Applejack and Fluttershy (maybe slightly less but she doesn't have the most commanding group personality) contributed equally to the plot.

If your draw to MLP is the world and adventure than I understand this special isn't going to appeal to you, but definitely watch it if you just want to see the characters you love keep being those characters and actually helping out more characters to love.

It is a great family special because while the conflict was low key, the characters weren't dumbed down, they didn't talk down to the audience, it just felt so real and down to earth like a nice roadtrip.

Also I'm not going to lie that was the probably the most seamless advertising tie in the show has ever done. Not only making your gaudy design fit into the character motivations but also make sense in universe and not a deus ex machina. Brilliant!

[Will Guide 21,360]

Found a place to watch it later. I'll give my thoughts then. 

[MangoFoalix 24,956]

I absolutely adored that. Yes, I did shed a few tears during it.

One of the gripes I had is that Applejack was seemingly ignored for the plot development but oh well.

The artstyle was really cute since it was movie style.

Overall I really did enjoy it. 8/10

I'm going to add a poll to to this in a second.

[StitchandMLPlover 930]

Link to full episode 

One other thing I noticed in contrast to the MLP movie was how the Mane 6 worked together when the balloon crashed instead of Twilight doing everything which shows she learned since the last film. The sonic rainboom looks great too. 

Edited June 29, 2019 by StitchandMLPlover

[bigbertha 414]

On 6/29/2019 at 1:13 PM, bigbertha said:

Rainbow Roadtrip is shit. Everything drags out for way too long just to pad out the runtime to 60 minutes and the special doesn't even have the decency to tell jokes. It's not that the jokes don't work, the special doesn't even attempt jokes.

I know this was made for babies, but honestly I don't think even babies would like this. They'd just be bored. What a goddamn waste.

Score: 0/10

Okay I just rewatched this and I can safely say that I was way too harsh originally. I think a lot of my initial hatred came down to watching this with commercials, which contributed heavily to the special feeling dragged out and leading to me tuning out a chunk of the special from boredom, and generally going in expecting to dislike it. I know that's not a healthy mindset and I usually try not to do that, but we all make mistakes.

Anyways, now that I've rewatched it I can see why people love it. There is a charm to the special that I haven't seen from MLP in a long time and many of the new characters are interesting to watch because of that charm. There's isn't much of a conflict, but there is enough of a general goal to keep things focused enough while still allowing the characters to breathe and go off on some tangents. And Sunny Skies's guilt, while nothing great, does the job for keeping the audience invested in an otherwise uninteresting main conflict.

And that leads to the negatives. The biggest one is that we never learn why everyone stopped getting along. The initial exposition song doesn't go into detail and it's brushed off whenever it's brought up again. The lack of an explanation makes the entire story feel contrived and makes me care less. It's a similar problem to The Crystal Empire. Also, I'm not a big fan of the two kids who look up to Rainbow Dash. They're not particularly charming and the schtick is something we've already seen before. And yeah, this did not need to be 60 minutes. I love slow pacing, but I think a shorter running time would've helped to cut some fluff and tighten things up.

Overall, I think this is best comparable to the first episode of the show. It's charming and fine to watch, but it's not really good. There are too many problems and charm can only get you so far.

Score: 6/10

 

Edited July 5, 2019 by bigbertha

[Goat-kun 2,527]

Yet its rainbow light shall be devoured by oblivion. It has no home in the thoughts of the beholder.

[ggg-2 3,553]

Nice special, but the marriage proposal was kind of out of left field. There was no indication that i can see that Petunia and Sunny were even dating, besides Petunia being the only one on a first name basis with Sunny.

[KH7672 1,604]

7 minutes ago, ggg-2 said:

Nice special, but the marriage proposal was kind of out of left field. There was no indication that i can see that Petunia and Sunny were even dating, besides Petunia being the only one on a first name basis with Sunny.

I mean you don't have to date some one to propose to them, you both just have to feel comfortable with the idea of spending your lives together (ideally......). Plus, it's not like they just met each other, even during his flashback song we saw chemistry between the two. One could assume that he may have proposed sooner but the internal guilt of supposedly ruining the town had to be overcome first before he could truly be happy.

I just hope he at least helps contribute to her multitude of town responsibilities. Although I'm also hoping Petunia having all those jobs was just an effect of the town not caring and not her actual life. Poor girl's going to burn herself out with the town being lively again.

[RDDash 19,172]

I have no strong feelings whatsoever about the special, it was extremely dull and had no spirit whatsoever. The Mane 6 felt like they were forced to be there. 

The town was a litteral dump and being colorless was the least of their problems.

Edited June 29, 2019 by R.D.Dash