Rainbow Rocks: The Non-happening Review

Part 1 Of an ongoing series of HN reviews of Rainbow Rocks


So, today was the day they came to take our waifus away.
Except, they didn't.
Welcome to the non-happening that is Equestria Girls 2: The Search for More Money.




Today I attended the Rainbow Rocks premier with Capper. The audience was mostly families with small children, and about 3 people besides ourselves in their early 20's. We were excited to see the screen declare that the movies was "Rated R", but were disappointed to find that it was a fuckup by the theater, so there would be no sexytimes (Flash was equally disappointed).

Anyway, the movie began with all of the clips that we had already seen, played in proper order, and then had a short opening credits that utilized the "Rainbow Rocks" song we heard on the recently released soundtrack.

From then on, we watched in nail-biting anticipation of that scene.
You know the one. The one we were all worried about. With Flash embracing twilight, cheeks flush.

Well it happened. And in that moment, it didn't.


Trixie saved the day, by cockblocking Brad in the moment we expected a kiss. That is what Seth is celebrating over at EQD right now.  Flashlight is postponed yet again. We were all told that we would "like what the writers did with Flash Sentry", and if by that they meant "leave him mostly ignored" then yes, we were ecstatic. Flash barely had any discernable character that was truely his own, yet again. He is seen being aggressive and snarky, but those traits are only caused by the Dazzling's Siren Song Spell which caused the entire school to be on the rag (except for Vinyl Scratch, but we're getting to that). So Flash is still a non-character.

The fan service is right upfront and center for Rainbow Rocks. Trixie gets plenty of screentime, and her character is actually done well and she is a crucial part of the plot (arguably more-so that Twilight herself in most cases).



Derpy is there, she doesn't talk, but she does play one of these. Vinyl Scratch (which we will call her because she isn't addressed by name) becomes the savior, and a member of the band. When the Mane 7 (yeah, 7 because Sunset Satan is a big character now), get trapped below the stage, Vinyl rescues them, as she was the only person unaffected by the Siren's songs. This is explained by Spike, who is absent for most of the movie, because she never removes her headphones.


 Vinyl saves the day AGAIN when the girls need to go Tenacious D rockoff on the sirens, and need to play their instruments. Vinyl drives up with her car, which transforms into a literal DJ booth Bass Cannon.


Rainbow Dash uses the phrase "20 percent less cool" in the dialogue. Just so you know. Her overzealous amount of self-centered bitch behavior saturates the movie and becomes a major plot point as well, when the band is tore apart by it, and Applejack's disdain for Rarity's dresses. The Daft Punk helmet happens too. Pinkie lives with her sister Maud, who is seen trying to feed Boulder crackers or something, so that's neat.


The songs were decent, and weren't shoehorned into the film like they were in the last one. On most occasions, we don't even hear the entirety of songs that were released on the soundtrack, which could explain WHY it was released before the movie itself. Twilight explains that the Sirens were banished by Starswirl the Bearded 1000 years ago, when everything was fucked up. She explains this from her Brand New Castle Playset, which can be seen for just longer than it should have, bearing down on the tiny houses of Ponyville below (which is about ALL we see of Ponyville in this movie). Twilight tries science and makes the portal work whenever she wants it to now, plugging the plothole of "30 moons" which wrecked the last movie.

And by plugging that hole, it opened up the Equestria Girls franchise to more continues.

At the end of the movie Twilight says "this isn't goodbye, it's just bye until the next time", confirming she can and will return whenever she wants. Sunset Shimmer's diary acts like a cellphone, glowing and buzzing an identical book that Twilight has, whenever she writes in it. So it's a texting device now. Sunset asks Twilight if she can write to her for friendship advice, which re-introduces the "friendship report" mechanism from the first 2 seasons, now that Sunset Shimmer herself is trying to learn about "the magic of friendship" too.

The villains themselves actually have intelligence and personality compared to "Evil Sunset" from the last movie. Their goals are well-defined and actually seemingly obtainable, (they want to use the equestrian magic, to force the world to do their bidding) and they would have gotten away with it to if it weren't for those meddling kids and their dog. Sonata is just as ... uhh ... charming? (Read: ditzy) as we have come to think of her as? She likes Tacos. So that's neat.

The story is predictable, but not boring, and reasonably well-paced. Some of the art effects get interesting as well. All in all we really can't find anything structurally wrong about the film to complain about, outside of the fact it exists, and regular pony movies don't. As an anon in one thread said "it's not happening". There is nothing to be particularly excited about, nor is there to be upset about. Waifus remain untainted, for now at least.


There IS a sequel heavily-implied by the ending of the movie after the credits, (remember way back when we warned you that EQG was going to be a trilogy?) when human-world Twilight is seen "connecting the dots" and looking at a seismograph and commenting "there is something going on at that school spike".

So yeah, that's a thing. I could prattle on about the story itself, but you can pretty much guess it if you've watched the preview videos or have ever seen a movie before.

So I guess what we're saying is, we are, for the first time, lowering the happening-level.

We now return you to the hiatus. Which is really painful to think about.

Oh, and PixelKitties had a cameo sort of.


Comments (16)

  1. OMG REALLY!!!!!!!!THAT ENDING CREDITS!!!!!!!! TWILIGHT,HER MEET,TOGETHER,PINKIE'S THERORY,WAS RIGHT!!!!TWI LIVES IN THE CITY, TWO OF THEM!!!!OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOGMG!!!!!!!

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    1. "Your" theory? Pinkie outright said that EQG!Twilight lives in the city.

      Shut your face.

      Delete
    2. I didn't say MY THEORY I said PINKIE'S THEORY, I messed up when I was typing

      Delete
  2. Equestria Academy confirmed.

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    1. Hinting at future content =/= confirming a TV series

      Delete
  3. I do not regret driving an hour to get to the theatre, paying 11 bucks to park, and driving an hour to get home at all. Loved the movie, met some cool people, and, shockingly of all, my 'three-way tie' for best pony (Twilight, Trixie, Scootaloo) was knocked down to second best by Sunset Shimmer.

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  4. Now we just need a dl link... some kind base anon there?

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  5. OK. Guys, I have two statements regarding this movie.

    One, it was NOT the greatest shit that Ishi Rudell talked about, not by any chance.

    Two, it was NOT the horrible nightmare, waifu-stealing included, that too many people doompauled about.

    The movie is watchable. It's not really a good movie, but it's way, way better than the first one and that's already something.

    You will probably like it if you watch it without any expectations, neither good or bad ones.

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  6. Okay, this film is better than the first for a few reasons:
    1. Not as many pointless plot points (i.e. framing Twilight for trashing the auditorium); more focused.
    2. Sunset Shimmer actually developed a character in this and you could actually sort of sympathize her.
    3. The jokes were funnier this time around. In the theater, there seemed to be a bit more legitimate laughing at the jokes than the 'tee-hee' weak laughing at the first one.
    4. The fan service didn't feel as shoehorned in as the first one, and even if it did, it was entertaining at the very least.
    5. A lot of the plot elements are actually explained this time, and you can actually understand why characters do what they do.
    6. Rarity dressed up like Ringo Starr on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover. I don't care what anyone says; my life puzzle has fit in one more piece seeing best pony as the best Beetle.

    Another thing is that when I saw the first Equestria Girls, I pretty much knew what its problems were before I walked out of the theater. With this, I had to think pretty hard to find something wrong, and even then, it was mostly minor nitpicking (that magic book showing up at Twilight's castle just then and having the portal on stand-by was kind of oddly convenient). Other than that, I could actually enjoy the movie in the moment.

    Maybe its just me, but I felt like the creators actually put more effort into this one. The last one seemed like they just went for the barest minimum and wanted to get it over with as quick as possible. Here, I felt like they said "You know what? Since Hasbro isn't letting us make proper pony movies, let's just have some fun with this. It won't be as great as the show, but we can still get some level of satisfaction out of this."

    In the end, the word I'd use to describe Rainbow Rocks is 'competent'. It fixed a lot of problems the old movie had, was worth the time it took to watch it, and I didn't feel as guilty liking this one like the last one. Hell, I actually liked this more than some of the subpar episodes on the show. If the films keep improving at this rate, the third film might be actually be up on the level of the best episodes on the show. And that's something I'm more than willing to get behind.

    P.S. What if the ending credits Twilight is actually the set up for an actual Pony movie? Like, what if Human Twilight goes to Canterlot High to discover these strange happenings, but goes through the portal to Equestria? Not sure how you would frame that, but it's an interesting idea at least.

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    1. Twilight's the only character they could have go to the pony world and not have it be confusing, since she's an Alicorn now and the human Twilight would (or rather, could for convenience) be a Unicorn.

      Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "and you can actually understand why characters do what they do. " It was understandable why they did what they did in the first movie, too.

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    2. Well, true, you could understand why they did things in the first movie. But I feel like this movie gave a little more reason behind their decisions. Sunset Shimmer has a reason to go through a character arc in this movie, instead of just a briefly mentioned anger management problem in the first movie.

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    3. that's, thats brilliant! That said however, I don't think thats what will happen, though. But, with Celestia as my witness I swear that I hope to heck I am wrong about that!

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  7. This sounds basically like what I was predicting for the movie.

    Not that any of the people who spent the past several months posting Doompaul memes are likely to admit it this late.

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  8. I would like to see a third movie of My little pony.

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  9. Its a pretty great movie especially the episodes I do want to see it, if they make it

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