Thursday 15 August 2019

EqG Mini-review: "Sunset's Backstage Pass"

"If I can just get this bike up to 88 mph..."
If Nick Confalone's understanding of the position of Equestria Girls is indeed Hasbro's as well, then the days of anything beyond a few more shorts in that universe are now at an end. According to Confalone, there were plans for a Season 2 finale, as well as a third season, but those have not been taken up. I suppose Boulder might be making them, but there seems no indication of that either. So, "Sunset's Backstage Pass" (written by Whitney Ralls, not Confalone – thanks, Zack Wanzer in the comments :) ) represents the end of an era. Possibly. Let's have a brief look at how it did.

Hey, it's a time loop story! Okay, nothing wrong with those – I'm one of those people who liked the FiM S5 finale, for one thing. I can't say the music festival backdrop was especially original, but it wasn't objectionable either; I can easily enough see the Mane Seven going to one together. Having Sunset and Pinkie spend time together is interesting and something we haven't had much of, but I don't know how common SunPie shippers are! No, I'm not a shipper, but let's be honest: this is EqG and I'm sure they knew people's minds would go there.

I had to look up the names of the PostCrush ponies (Kiwi Lollipop and Supernova Zap), since they weren't all that memorable. After all, the big deal for a lot of fans will have been the return of the Dazzlings. Like many people, I was expecting them to end up being the root cause of Sunset's time-loop strife, so it was a nice twist that actually they had no clue what she meant when she accused them. We did get a song out of the Dazzlings, but "Find the Magic" really wasn't a patch on their best Rainbow Rocks efforts.

"Don't even think about it. Do you know what happens when you let churros interfere with causality?"
I enjoyed the way that Sunset eventually managed to use her repeating day to her advantage, such as winning over the security guard with a kitten. (Not keen on the notion of giving animals as presents/bribes, though. Maybe not the best signal to watching kids?) As for the moral of the story, that PostCrush's fans don't care about perfection, they just want to see their heroes sing, there's nothing wrong with it as such. It's just a bit unexciting, especially when "The Point of No Return" had a fairly similar moral earlier this year.

All in all, another moderate effort, and while it was no disaster and will doubtless have given SunPie fans in particular a good time, I don't think "Sunset's Backstage Pass" is going to go down as any sort of classic. It's been quite a while since any of the EqG specials were any sort of classic, so hard as it is to say I think perhaps there's a case for saying that it might be for the best that this is (nearly) the end. "True Original" this no longer seems to be, underwhelming more like. This final special was... okay. Nothing less, nothing more. Okay.

Yays
  • Fun to see Pinkie and Sunset spending time together
  • Some funny lines, eg Twilight and Sunset talking about space-time
  • I can believe Pinkie getting distracted by those churros!
Neighs
  • Maybe one too many times around the time loop
  • The Dazzlings were a little underused
  • The PostCrush duo were pretty generic characters
★★

6 comments:

  1. Nick Confalone didn't write this special. Whitney Ralls did.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Quite right. Got distracted by the stuff I wrote in the first para and missed out the Ralls mention. Thanks for the correction! :)

      Delete
  2. Here's what is 'really' confusing:

    They said this would be the 'last' special for Equestria Girls. Yet word from some Polish site indicated an E.G. Christmas special of sorts, though I don't know how that'll work considering all the Christmas stories for MLP overall have nearly been covered. It seems to me if the rumors are 'true' and Boulder Media is taking over the 'Equestria Girls' material, it just 'might' be possible there may be another on the way. But then I'm just speculating based off a rumor.

    For me, if Equestria Girls was going to end I'd prefer a Graduation story of sorts with something big at stake like maybe they'd decide to cast a spell so powerful it closes ALL the portals between the two worlds yet Sunset Shimmer would have to make a choice:

    Should she stay with the humans or go home to the world she was born in?

    If that happens in the Christmas special, I honestly think it be a decent enough reason to 'maybe' introduce Sunset's parents and probably not be comfortable about the holiday considering it may be 'possibly' the only time Sunset was happy before she first went to the human world to get what she wants. I can't imagine how many Christmases (Heartswarming to the ponies) she had to spend alone before she started making actual friends (Probably skipped the holiday like Starlight did, I don't know).

    ReplyDelete
  3. I wonder if Supernova Zap is related to Indigo Zap.

    I do wish the Dazzlings had played a more substantial part, as the music video of their song released some weeks ago seemed to imply a lot more than this brief appearance did. But then if they had, they might have just rendered my best story AU, so...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I was most disappointed by just how crap PostCrush were. Like, I could buy Pinkie and Sunset excitedly discovering they're both fans of some super cool, obscure or perfect K-pop band, and bonding over that shared interest... but PostCrush seemed far too blandly unexceptional to inspire such devotion in anyone, let alone a rocker chic rocking Cool Kid like Sunset who is already in a much better band herself...!

    "Don't even think about eating our toast, Sunset Shimmer!" was glorious, though. I love the Loser Dazzlings. And Fluttershy remarking "...puns", several seconds after the moment for such an observation had passed, made me laugh much too hard.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm in love with this special. ;3 I never enjoy any EQG content as much as this special since Forgotten Friendship. I'm no SunPie shippers but they work well together this special, a straight guy and a crazy one, that's a bit rare nowadays.

    Adagio Dazzle: If the day's always the same, maybe you're the one who needs to change.

    Burn, Adagio doesn't need magic to roast Sunset, just spell a moral lesson of the day. The Dazzling serves their purposes for this special, as a red herring and a moral lesson reminder for Sunset. The actual villains are meh, human villains in EQG are suck even back to Friendship Games so that what prevent any future EQG content a 9 out 10, sadly. And I love time loop stories in any form so it's a plus.

    I usually complain about how writers write Sunset so boring after Friendship Games but this special just make me love Sunset again. This special make me love EQG again but it turned out it will be the last special so this special broke my heart at the same time. ;c

    I love this special, I give it a 8 out of 10. ;D

    ReplyDelete