Equestria Girls poster and synopsis revealed

There are no words. Really there aren't

So, we now know that 16 June (as we say in the UK) will be the day of reckoning, for that is when Equestria Girls will be released in American cinemas. Not all that many cinemas, mind: this list adds up to about 340, which is only about 6.5% of the total in the US, not counting drive-ins. So it doesn't look as though Hasbro is going for Disney-style saturation. After all, MLPEG.com still resolves to the main FiM site* — and we haven't even been shown a trailer! What we do now have, though, is a synopsis:

My Little Pony Equestria Girls is a brand new full-length feature introducing an exciting new dimension to the incredibly popular My Little Pony brand. When a crown is stolen from the Crystal Empire, Twilight Sparkle pursues the thief into an alternate world where she transforms into a teenage girl who must survive her biggest challenge yet… high school. With help from her new friends who remind her of Ponyville’s Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy, she embarks upon a quest to find the crown and change the destiny of these two parallel worlds.

The first and last bits of that sound okay, if nothing terribly thrilling. However, there's one phrase that elicits nothing but groans: "her biggest challenge yet... high school." This is an idiotic thing to say: Twilight has spent years of her life studying at Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns; are we really to believe that she didn't come up against any of the same experiences and annoyances there that she would in a humanised world? The CMC do at their own school, after all.

Worse yet: there's a rumour going around, which may or may not be true, that humanised Twilight will have a boyfriend. Who will be a stereotypical "jock", possibly an (American) footballer. And who has a pet name for Twi... "Princess". Yes, really. I think I'm going to cry. Though I will give Hasbro a point for humour if they have him say "Well, excuuuuse me, princess" at any point. Even though Friendship is Witchcraft has already done that one. Better.

Now, you may well object that, three years ago, many of us would have dismissed FiM. This is true to an extent... but that series had Lauren Faust, determined to make a TV show aimed at little girls that wasn't just like everything else, and that had strong female leads who were not reliant on boyfriends and the like. The problem with EqG is that, so far at least, it looks like every other high school cartoon, but with ponies shoe-horned in.

This may prove to be unfair. If I get a chance to see EqG then I will, though the very fact that Hasbro are being so quiet when it comes to trailers really does not bode well. Daniel Ingram is apparently involved, so the music should be good — but FiM also has a clear initial vision, coherent design, superb writers, wonderful voice actors and a large, active fandom. If EqG gets that lot, then it will deserve success. I just don't think it will.

* Update 10/5/13: It doesn't any more! Now you end up at a single-page holding site with a picture based on the one above.