Staring: Tabitha St. Germain, Chiara Zanni, Janyse Jaud
Directed by: Victor Dal Chele
An Introduction
As this site knows I’m a brony, a male fan of the show My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. So when I was told to review this dvd from the previous generation of mlp, ya know, the one that single handedly killed it until Lauren Faust brought it back, I was worried. Now I’ve never seen a generation 3 mlp episode or film, so I looked hopeful that it might be interesting or at least on par with a bad episode of the series I’m familiar with. To my horror it was worse.
The Movie
The film (which apparently actually got a theatrical release back in 2007) is about a pony named Minty who accidentally breaks the “Here Comes Christmas Candy Cane”, which directs Santa on where ponyville is. So now she has to go and fix it. To say that this is a disaster on almost every single aspect doesn’t quite say it. It’s a travesty.
While I understand there is a very big difference between gen 3 and gen 4 the very first shot of this almost made me want to vomit. The animation is incredibly poor even by 2005 standards. It looks like it was made with the same technology that was used on the Sega CD-I. Every scene looks like it was crunch time at the animation studio and while I may be harsh on it; it deserves every criticism it gets. At one point I looked at a pony on the ground and thought it was dead cause the eyes looked shockingly like dead eyes. It terrified my very soul.
What really makes me sad is the songs used in the film are sickeningly bland and made my ears bleed. Nothing like this has ever made me wish for seeing gen 4 pony, with the characters I know and love.
Anyone who gives MLP shit, should watch this, and then watch the new show and see a vast increase in quality. If you still don’t quite know how bad this was, let me give you an example. When I was eight minutes into this, I contemplated turning it off and giving up. That bad.
1/10
Video
Video on the other hand is handled well actually with very little problems (other than the bad animation). Colors are vivid and bright, with the only problem I could find being that the animation sometimes has some jagged edges, probably coming from a SD master, but this being on DVD should not be here. I did not notice any pixels or any other defects.
7/10
Audio
Audio is presented in a Dolby Digital English Stereo 2.0, and is handled as best as can be used with what was going on the screen. While it is not used aggressively, its mostly used strictly for vocal and some music. I guess the best thing I could say about it is that they didn’t waste their time with a 5.1 mix.
7/10
Special Features and Packaging
The DVD comes in a simple white package dvd case with no insert or anything special. The box/dvd art still gives me nightmares though, and that’s putting it lightly. Special features are incredibly light on this one cause it only comes with sing-a-longs from the two songs used in the film. According to the back of the box, a special feature is apparently that its in a “full screen format”. Ok, I’m making a new rule: it is now illegal to have “interactive menus” or “stereo sound” as a special feature utilized on the back of your dvd box.
2/10
Overall
Who would I recommend this to? Maybe small children three or four olds, and that’s if they would actually watch it and not get distracted. While the audio and video is nothing to write home about, this is something either fans of gen 3 or curious people should steer clear from. Avoid at all costs.