Finally watched the leaked finale. (SPOILERS)
This could of been a good story. They got a lot of good elements together, even though the backstory needed a TON of work to make sense while being credible.
But of course, this was a Starlight story, and while it wasn’t the only issue, it was still a big one. It devalued everyone. At the expense of our main characters and their predecessors, they turned everything about the elements of old and elements of new into meaningless cause none of them wanted to act like elements of friendship.
And, oh god, the self insert fiction with Starlight. Twilight was building up to be the next Starswirled the bearded for years, but when the Pony of Shadows charged a stronger blast against the already tired Twilight, it was STARLIGHT, who’s power was just as grand if not more, to add to the power and send the Pony of Shadows fleeing. This is like the “Starlight casting a spell that even freakin’ Celestia and Luna couldn’t dispell” all over again.
(This is getting ridiculous. Right now she’s just the outside observer that has all the answers and all the power when its needed the most. It makes her way too much like a badly written Self Insert OC. )
Then the last 10 minutes, while having a few cool collaboration scenes, has Starlight taking credit for Twilight’s feats or stuff neither of them achieved or earned, and vice versa with other stuff neither of them achieved or earned. The only thing Twilight got to prove Starswirled was that she was good at magic, and Starlight vouched for her being ‘the best friend ever’. Twilight barely did a thing regarding friendship until the very end, she was Starswirled’s yes pony for most of it once she regained his trust, cause all 12 element bearers were being made into doubting clowns.
Yes, Starwirled the Bearded, the MLP character with the most lore, was brought back as a jackass (who supposedly befriended Tirek’s brother), just so STARLIGHT GLIMMER could act smug around him for her being right allllll alongggggg. (GAG)
And apparently the Pony of Shadow’s backstory made it sound like none of his actions could of been interpreted as even stealing, and that all 6 were meat heads who never listened to the strategist. At least from his perspective. So instead of a conflict of moralities and personas, the source of the conflict was just a miscommunication problem any 7 of them should have EASILY been aware of before banishing the other or turning to dark magic.
Don’t get me wrong, there were a ton of good parts. There were a ton of good characters and good interactions, but even there I feel that they glossed over Applejack’s now super strength taking after her predecessor, while giving the other 4’s discoveries way less gravitas. If they wanted to make this more Applejack oriented, since everyone was flinging spells and spell theories left and right, they should of done so to balance things out. I would of welcomed it. But nope, nearly half the time was Starlight replacing the Mane 6 who should have been their usual inquisitive selves and learned more about the enemy they were fighting.
And the Shadows? Sorry but…did anyone even think that the sisters, the two most powerful ponies in Equestria, might be a little interested in how the Pony of Shadow was being dealt? It was an enormous plot hole, but they need to coddle Princess Twilight and make everything a happy ending for her with no caveats, they couldn’t have Celestia be around Twilight while she made a decision that risked all of Equestria for nice but selfish needs. (Jeez the student sure takes after the master when it comes to Celestia and Twilight). Even if its a bit hypocritical, even Celestia was getting sick of this brown-nosed, attention and idol seeking with no regards for others by S6.
Speaking of which, not only was Celestia, Luna and Discord just ignored safety nets for the story, there wasn’t even any tension. Their arrival to the forgotten village was near tensionless, the even elaborated that he was almost helpless in Modern Equestria, and that he only had his minimum strength where he was.
Not to mention that nothing about the Shadows was ever elaborated. He was just a shadow being completely separate from Sombra. No explanation given, just a random entity that fed on his feelings. Sure, that was enough to sacrifice 6 heroes for all eternity.
No wonder so little fanart has been done about the leaked finale, it was quite forgettable.
But that was mostly all the bad parts. It wasn’t all bad, some parts did work, and unlike the S6 finale, the S7 finale didn’t ruin something good to make something mediocre(mostly), but even though it was a disappointing story in itself, the results of the story may actually be positive instead of negative. One has to accept that the writers or Hasbro, whatever, the pander and indulge their asses off when it comes to Starlight and Twilight in the finales. When you consider this and try to push those details aside, this finale was not total garbage. The pandering toward’s the Writer’s Pets has been a lot worse in other finales.
It was clear the MLP Movie was written differently. I enjoyed the movie a lot more due to it not having a pandering theme for a lot of it.
