MLP 2017 Movie Thread (Spoilers Inside)

[Pacifist]

I'm curious how this whole thing will play out, in terms of how well the movie will sell. I see three main factors:

1) Animation. This movie will be visually distinct due to its heavy use of 2D elements in an age where theatrical movies have long since abandoned it for full 3D Computer Generated animation. However, the actual CG elements in MLP:TM, while appealing in some areas, is fairly mediocre in others. It's a bit of a tossup whether the movie will look cheap as a result. This results in whether the movie will draw people in due to its unique style or push them away due to some rough CG elements. While elements of the 2D animation is downright beautiful, I do not think it can carry the movie itself.

2) Feel. Overall, the trailer has a fairly typical kid-movie tone. Fortunately, the kind of crass humor that I find grating is entirely absent, and most of the humor it has I feel is fairly on-point (Hopefully that comic relief villain won't interfere too much, he could easily become obnoxious if overused). It goes a bit for a grand feel, but doesn't quite achieve it yet. It does get close, though. I'll need to see more before I can make the call on that. But, what I can say is that the tone overall isn't too different from most other kids movies these days. Perhaps if they expanded a little bit on the serious angle (Tempest Shadow definitely seems to be a very serious character, perhaps focus on her, or maybe the peril the ponies are in) in the next trailer, it'll give the movie a touch more weight. Granted, I won't know any of this until the movie actually releases, but what I do know for certain is this: The movie is going to live and die on its story. As long as the characters are fleshed out and well written, with good interactions throughout, this movie will work quite well and have more heart than the majority of generic kids fare these days.

3) Timing. This is going to be a bit brief. It releases a week after the Lego Ninjago movie, and the same day as Blade Runner 2049. If this were any other kind of movie, the latter would be a massive problem. But, it's My Little Pony. As seriously as the Brony fandom can take it, in the eyes of the general public it's going to be seen as a very, very different kind of movie than BR2049. Most likely, the audiences that would go see BR2049 first-day and the audiences that would see MLP:TM first-day have little overlap. As such, it shouldn't hurt the movie too badly. But, then there's the movie I mentioned previously, the Lego one. That film franchise has seen massive success so far, so it could potentially could eat into Pony's profits. At the same time, though, It's marketing a very specific Lego-only brand. I just am not nearly as interested in seeing it as I was in seeing the first Lego movie or Lego Batman. If enough people feel the same way, then perhaps the effect on Pony won't be too bad. Overall, it's not the best week to release the movie, but it's not the worst, either.

Overall, I think it should do pretty well critically and financially. I doubt it's going to be seen as the next great animated classic unless they seriously polish the CG elements and make sure to bring their A+++ game with the writing and story. I do expect at least one song to get an Oscar nomination, of course. Perhaps a nom for Best Animated Picture, but I doubt it will win. Probably Lego Batman will, unless the Oscars decide that Pixar needs another oscar for some reason.