Ever have those times that the more you think about something, the worse it gets? Well, this is one of those for me. The "something" I keep thinking about? Friendship Games. Specifically, the human world's Twilight Sparkle, or, as I'll call her for this post like I did for the movie review, Sci-Twi.
Don't get me wrong; I absolutely adore Twilight as a character. Her intelligence, her newfound status as a princess, there's so much to like about her... and as of now, my second favorite character behind Sunset Shimmer. With Twilight, she has always been the leader of the Mane Six, and in times of a crisis, most of the time, she's rational, but she has moments when she loses her cool completely and will often go insane, but for the most part, she gets flustered and becomes OCD at times. That's what makes her appealing.
Which brings me onto her human world counterpart - she's practically similar to her pony counterpart, but there are some differences; Sci-Twi is practically a wallflower, lacks confidence when under tremendous pressure, and believe it or not, she's a doormat.
Yeah, I'm gonna say it right now; Sci-Twi is a doormat. In the movie, because she has the highest test scores of any student at Crystal Prep, Principal Cinch wants her to compete in the Friendship Games (ironic, since they are anything but) so she can get into an independent study program. Yeah, Cinch is blackmailing Sci-Twi just to uphold her reputation for selfish, petty reasons, and Sci-Twi goes along with it if it means achieving her goal!
The difference between the two is that Princess Twilight does not bow easily to peer pressure; I mean, in Keep Calm and Flutter On, she was suspicious of Discord when Celestia assigned her and the rest of the Mane Six to reform him, and heck, one of her greatest moments, possibly her best, was in Twilight's Kingdom, where she gave up the alicorn magic to save her friends and Discord!
What does Sci-Twi do? She pretty much steals the Human Five's magic (in fact, they're treated like plot devices), therefore nearly causing chaos at the second round of the games, and before the third round even begins, she is pressured by Crystal Prep to unleash the magic, and it turns her into a demon, threatening everyone around her - hell, she even destroys the CHS statue and it's not rebuilt by the end of the movie. And when Sci-Twi returns to normal, what does she get as a consequence? Nothing! The blame is all piled onto Cinch and Sci-Twi transfers to CHS without problem! Yeah, a similar scenario happened with Sunset in the first movie, but at least there were signs that she wasn't forgiven straight away (she, Snips and Snails were made to repair the school as punishment)!
So apparently, with Sci-Twi, the moral seems to be "you can easily fall to peer pressure and cause havoc by mistake and out of your control, but everything will be fine since you'll transfer to your rival school." What kind of stupid, half-assed lesson is that?!
It looks like the problems from The Cutie Re-Mark have struck again (even though that episode aired two months after the movie, but I digress), which is ironic since both were Josh Haber scripts. Where do I begin? Let's talk about Sunset Shimmer's role in this film, Rainbow Rocks and the DVD covers for both films. With Rainbow Rocks, Sunset was the main heroine, and she isn't featured on the cover! Meanwhile, with Friendship Games, she's featured on the cover, but she's pretty much shoved aside as deuteragonist to Sci-Twi. Actually, very much everyone else was shoved aside to make room for Sci-Twi and dogpile so much crap on her (please, don't take it the wrong way) to the point that Shining Armor's human counterpart was thrown in as an afterthought!
Look, I get that Twilight Sparkle is the show's main character, fair enough, but does she always have to be featured? Brotherhooves Social, one of the show's most understated episodes, didn't even feature her! Nor did Sisterhooves Social, Sleepless in Ponyville, or Flight to the Finish - what I'm trying to say here is that you can't feature Twilight solely because she's the show's main character (looking right at you, Thomas!), however, you can feature her if she has a purpose in the story. Just don't leave everyone else to the side, okay? Sunset was going to have a subplot in the film, but it was cut because... well, I don't know! Why was it done? To prevent the film from having conflict? I get that Haber is a safe writer, but that's too far, even for him.
Actually, Josh Haber is the reason that Friendship Games (and, for that matter, The Cutie Re-Mark) failed spectacularly. Two-part premieres and finales and the Equestria Girls films are supposed to be bigger than normal 22 minute episodes. Bottom line, having a safe writer like Josh Haber write for both was a trap. Actually, the same thing could be said for Scott Sonneborn writing for Luna, Nick Confalone writing for Pinkie Pie, and Neal Dusedau writing for Discord. Let me explain.
Luna, Pinkie, and Discord are tricky characters to get right. Then again, some characters are difficult to get right, but whatever. Sonneborn, Confalone, and Dusedau are all rookie writers. Having rookie writers write about complex characters is a mistake; they don't understand them as well as the veteran writers who established their personalities. As a result, Luna ended being a self-harming crybaby whose mood swings could potentially endanger Equestria whilst Discord became an insensitive jerk whose face you want to smash with a baseball bat. And Pinkie? Well, she was pretty good in season five for the most part, but the two episodes which Confalone wrote for her leave a lot to be desired.
And Josh Haber with Twilight (or at least, Sci-Twi)? Well, in each of his episodes from both seasons four and five, he wrote for (in order) the Mane Six as a group, Rarity and Applejack acting like one another, Applejack conflicting with the Flim Flam brothers (again), Apple Bloom and Luna, and Twilight trying to stop Starlight from destroying the world because the latter was a petty childish brat. Why did he do so well in season four, and yet screwed up badly in season five and Friendship Games? He very much changed Twilight from being a pony who cared deeply about keeping the past unaltered to a meek pushover who doesn't suffer consequences for her actions! (I know that they're two different Twilights from different worlds, but still.) Say what you will about Cinch, but she did suffer some level of karma for her actions (she lost her reputation, respect from her students, and her best student).
Not too long ago, I wrote a journal talking about how many writers MLP should have - it's so far got too many to write for one season! Season five struggled with sixteen and somehow, season four did solidly with thirteen! Even though season two's quality is mixed, it only dealt with six writers!
As for Sci-Twi? Her portrayal in Friendship Games is not the Twilight I wish to see in the future. The Twilight I know is brave, intelligent, thoughtful, and has the best intentions at heart. That wasn't shown with Sci-Twi at all in the film, and it turns out to be a complete waste of potential, and a big reason that Equestria Girls needs more than just the movies. Why not make a TV series based on it, or better yet, a series of YouTube shorts or comics? It'd be a great opportunity to expand on the other characters and they won't feel cluttered in a 70 minute film. On that bombshell, whilst I don't find her portrayal in the film very flattering at all, Sci-Twi isn't the worst character of the franchise, but I do consider in the bottom 10.
