A Non-Brony Take On Equestria Girls

Allow me to be straightforward.  I attended a brony meetup to watch My Little Ponies:  Equestria Girls.  As a non-brony, I have no emotional connection with the MLP franchise.  I'm familiar enough with the source material (Generation 4), but I'll leave all the heavy lifting to all the fans of the television show.  That said, I'll try to give as concise a summary and review as possible.  Plus, I showed up about five minutes late to the screening, but with experience with other films in this genre, plus bearing familiarity in the G4 series, I can at least imagine what went wrong.

Basic summary:  Twilight Sparkle, fresh off become an alicorn princess after learning the magic of friendship, begins ready to resume her royal duty as Alicorn Princess Twilight Sparkle.  Princess Celestia's former student Sunset Shimmer, in a fit of jealousy, sees fit to steal Twilight's element of harmony.  In trying to recover the crown, both Sunset and the crown fall through the looking glass (a la Alice In Wonderland), through which Twilight and Spike have to go through to recover it and defeat Sunset.  Once on the other side, Twilight becomes a teenaged girl, and Spike becomes her little dog, too.  (How Wizard of Oz.)

Twilight Sparkle finds herself in a place more dangerous and mysterious than anything she could have anticipated:  High school.  It is here in the real world (or human world, if it matters) that she finds that she truly is a fish out of water.  Unable to be honest and forthcoming about the truth lest everyone consider her to be cuckoo, she has to think fast in order to try and fit it.  Twilight's biggest challenges are in trying to recover the element of harmony, trying to reunite the human versions of her friends, and coming back through the portal she went through to return to Ponyville.

In the human world, Twilight's friends have human counterparts.  To be honest, the reason her friends' human counterparts had stopped being friends was kind of predictable:  Sunset Shimmer.  But they didn't know that, and could've have been resolved easily had they just confronted each other to try and resolve things.  Which happens only at Twilight's insistence.  That said, they come together to help help Twilight (you guessed it) become princess of the formal.  It's a running theme of the series, so why ruin a good thing, right?

Sunset tries to sabotage those plans, they keep pressing forward, and in the end Twilight is elected princess and is able to retrieve the crown.  Sunset, not content to concede defeat, challenges her to a boss battle, becoming a demon-teenager as the mane six discover the human magic of friendship (her god mode carrying over to this world) to defeat Sunset so that Twilight can recover the element and return home with Spike.  Sunset remains human and stays behind in the human world, with Twilight asking her human friends to help Sunset by becoming friends with her.

Now, for the nit-picky gritty opinion everybody wants to read.  A lot of the humor and references in this movie come straight from the show.  Meaning that it would be necessary to at least be familiar with the series before watching this movie.  This movie is also marketed for little girls.  Of course, given that the series produced such that a wide demographic that its audience isn't just little girls, but also grown adults, I wasn't surprised to find that the theater I attended was in the area of 90% adults, 10% parents with children.  Sitting in the back (due to being late), I did notice one parent with a child in the stroller get up from the middle of the theater and just go to the back to enjoy the film from there.  He really did seem uncomfortable having to watch a cartoon for children while sharing the experience with a lot of grown adults, mostly men.

Of course, I was uncomfortable while taking my nephew to a kid's film once.  But that was only because I had to take him to see the film Kangaroo Jack.  I was so ashamed of having watched that movie that I didn't even demand my money back.  That would have required I actually admit to having watched that movie to begin with, so I just hung my head in shame (sans cone) and just take my nephew home.

Now, my opinion on My Little Ponies:  Equestria Girls is this.  While it's not one of the greatest films I've seen ever (such as Terminator 2 and Invaders from Mars), it's nowhere near terrible, nor was it a terrible waste of a Sunday morning.  I've seen terrible films before.  Films like Hop, Austin Powers:  Goldmember, Terminator 3, Terminator 4, the Star Wars prequels, Hancock, you get the point.  MLP:EG is more the sort of film that, by contrast to its cinematic predecessors, is actually quite a decent enough film to watch.  Either alone, with friends, or (dare I say) with one's own children.  It's pretty much a decent enough film at 70 minutes to be enjoyable, despite having some moments in there that could have used a bit of refining.  Perhaps, if I had a copy of the film, I might be enticed to do a bit of MST3K-style commentary for it some time in the future.

If you're a fan of the series, then it's definitely worth buying, since you probably will enjoy it based on being a fan of the show.  If you have doubts, and don't want to go out and see it, there's always Netflix, or watching with someone who's a fan who will eventually own it.

That's it for now.  I'll have to see what the next film will be in my line up.  Peace out, and see you later.

Presumptuous

I know this'll sound presumptuous on my behalf, but I can afford it. I know for a FACT that I'm going to be attending Further Confusion. It's the first con I ever attended, and I feel it's my obligation to continue on at least attending on a yearly basis, until I either drop dead from not enough awesome or AA&E, Inc. becomes defunct and/or insolvent. Now that I've stated that, on to other cons that I'll be attending, would like to attend, or might consider attending if money wasn't an issue. First off, there's Califur. I know this year was a bit controversial, but I feel it's my obligation to go. Not because it might be the greatest convention ever, or even the greatest furry convention, but because it's right there. I live in San Diego, and seeing as how the closest con I can afford to attend outside of San Diego Comic Con (or whatever the hell it's called now) is held in Orange County, I feel it would be easy to attend. To clarify, "afford to attend" and "easy to attend" refer to my ability to afford both travel expenses and a place to stay. Sure, I may have felt a bit uneasy having a drunken frat boy with a thermal full of beer sit right next to me, offer me something, talk to me, and overall fondle me, but I take joy in knowing that, once he rushed the stage to hug the talent, con security escorted him back to his seat before eventually (perhaps two minutes later) escorting him out of the room where the Cabaret Le Fur Dance was hosted. No, please, stop, do not spam my inbox with mail saying how I'm a fool for possibly making plans to attend Califur V. I'm a big boy now, and more importantly, a masochist. I like a good challenge. It keeps me going. Moving along, there is the issue of Anthrocon. I've heard stories about how AC is supposed to be more awesome than cornbread (my simile, not actually something I heard somebody say). Keep in mind that for me, cornbread is pretty much the most awesome thing I've had up to this point. If AC > cornbread, great, I'll have to make it a point to attend AC each year, while eating cornbread as I always do. If AC = cornbread, excellent, I'll have to do both simultaneously. If AC < cornbread, then I've really not lost anything, and I'll have attended a convention in a state other than California, and even Washington, and I could continue to enjoy cornbread in my usual manner, while eating it with some salad at the Souplantation. Plus, I figure that going to AC would probably make for an awesome as hell road trip, if I can plan it way in advance. That leaves me with perhaps one more convention I can attend before going broke, and that's Eurofurence. Yes, I know, the most expensive part of attending is the plane ticket. Preliminary (and I use that term roughly to figure things out before I commit to anything) plane ticket costs would kill me at USD $3300 or so. *Floored* That is, by the way, a round-trip ticket, so at least I am able to return. Then again, how often will I be able to say that I've been in three countries on two continents in my life? And besides, if the world's going to end at that time, I at least want to be able to be surrounded by Jager. What do you think? I'd like to get some input on this. EF, or no EF? Because, if I decide to go, I very well have to decide right now, so I can save my money to buy the ticket to go there. We'll talk more about this later.

I suppose...

I suppose letting Mr. Thompson blog here might have seemed like a good idea at the time.

Oh, well. Good night.

Film project under way

I'm filming this project for my 16mm class. I've already reserved the equipment and the studio, and have the script. All that's left really is to buy the film, find my crew, and cast and rehearse with the two actors that I have in mind.

No problem. It's only a month before I have to check out the equipment. Be calm, Wolf. It's cool.

-Peace

Wanted: A Really Good Job

I'm in the position to accept employment at the moment. Potential employers must meet the following requirements: #1. No idiots. Especially those who constantly ask me "what's wrong with this picture", knowing any answer I give is the wrong one. #2. No job where I have to deal with middle-management. We all know they're power-tripping fascists who didn't have enough ambition to climb even higher on the corporate ladder. And worse yet, they all act like #1. #3. As little possible face time with the customer as possible. The lesser, the better. And no, they're not really "guests". If they were, you wouldn't be charging them to "shop" there, would you? #4. If you're going to interview me, don't ask my why I'm leaving my last job/applying for work here, because I'm going to get "cute". I'd say something like, "If I wanted to stay there, I wouldn't be here, moron!" Or, "I was busted for smoking weed on the job. And not sharing." Or, my personal favorite, "So I can make you jerk-squirts pay for an expensive drug test, just to quit the minute I clock in." My qualifications: -Lounging around on the company dime; clogging toilets if my ire is aroused; passing silent, but deadly farts and scooting away as stealthy as possible. You want to hire me, send me an email. "What's my email?" Can you tell me what's wrong with you not knowing my email? Ciao. 4 November 2021 Update: I had to edit out the word 'retard' and replace it with 'idiots' because I've grown to realize that it is offensive. It may have seemed funny to 27-year old me in 2008, but I'd like to think that I'm not as bad and narrow-minded as I used to be. Sometimes you just gotta go back and try to make things right, or at least not so wrong. Such is life.

Making a Short Film Soon

I'll be shooting a short film soon, on Super 16mm film, using (hopefully) the school's Aaton A-Minima camera, and Kodak Black and White film. I'll be adapting part of a friend's story.

Rock Band: The Billy, Ray, and Jack Story

I've got this treatment that I wrote a while ago, and I'm going to adapt a part of it for my 16mm film class. It's about this rock group that, despite going through so much Hell, still pull themselves together at the end of the day and make it happen. At the end, they don't win, but they use the energy that might have been wasted otherwise, and keep moving forward.

Price list:
Kodak 200-foot Black and White film: $36.12 X 2 reels = $72.24
Fotokem Film developing: $.10/ft X 400 feet = $40.00
Video Prep for Transfer: $30.00
Video Tape Transfer: $123.75

Total cost: $295.99

And that's just for a 3-5 minute film.