The show must go on!

Go on. . . go on. . . go on. . . go on. . .go on. . .go on. . .

Keldeo the Critic- Season Six

Episode 8: My Little Pony: The Movie (2017)

"Okay," Keldeo said, "So, now that we've pointed out all the weird, stupid, lazy, dumb, and crazy decisions made in this movie, it's about time that I put my money where my mouth is and talk about how this movie should have gone."

Keldeo frowned, "Well, first of all, how about a better title! This has to be the laziest title for a movie EVER! Even worse is the fact that this title had already been used already for the Generation 1 film!"

Keldeo then relented a bit and said with a shrug, "Well, okay, technically that movie was also called Rescue at Midnight Castle, but. . .wait a minute, that makes G4's lazy title even worse! They seriously couldn't be bothered to think up of a creative title? Well, fine! I guess I'll have to do it for them: My Little Pony: Friendship Under Siege."

Keldeo pranced in place and said with a satisfied smile, "There! Now that's a title! It's almost like the writers knew the movie was going to be sub-par, so they figured it made more sense to give it a lazy title."

At that moment, a notification rang on Keldeo's Chromebook. He blinked and remarked, "Huh? Someone's video calling me? Now? Why? And who?"

Keldeo answered the call, and none other than Fizzlepop Berrytwist, alias Tempest Shadow, appeared on screen.

"Hold it right there, Keldeo the Critic," the scarred unicorn said seriously.

Keldeo's eyes widened, "Wait, what? YOU!? Starlight Glimmer Version 2.0?! How did you get my contact information?"

"That's on a need to know basis, and quite frankly, you don't need to know," Fizzlepop said with a cold, hard expression on her face, "And I'm going to be the bigger pony and ignore that remark. Listen carefully, Keldeo., because I'm only going to say this once. You're looking a gift horse in the mouth by slandering this movie, so I suggest that you-."

"Uh, no," Keldeo said flatly, "This is a joke. A total joke. There's no way I'm going to let you of all people scare me out of critiquing this movie."

Fizzlepop's horn sparked and she said dangerously, "Even with my. . . type advantage?"

Keldeo was visibly unimpressed and unthreatened and said, "Type-Advantages aren't everything. Especially in the anime. And anyway, I really don't think I'm in any danger from someone who got beat by a squirrel, a Meh Emojii, and an offensive talking baby that wears a suit."

Keldeo then hung up on the Fizzlepop before she could even reply.

"Okay then," Keldeo said, "Now, we begin the movie NOT with We Got the Beat. Instead we get a little song called Equestria. Where did this song come from? Well, it turns out that it was originally going to be the opening song to the movie, but it was cut and replaced with a pop song."

Keldeo frowned grouchily and said, "That's just messed up."

Keldeo then smiled and said, "So, anyway, My Little Pony: Friendship Under Siege opens with THIS:"

Equestria (Equestria, Equestria)

Equestria (Equestria, Equestria)

Here in our land, our home

Everypony knows how to celebrate the magic

Of Equestria (Equestria, Equestria)

Equestria (Equestria, Equestria)

The Festival is coming (is coming)

The Festival of Friendship (is coming)

All around come running (is coming)

To celebrate together

The first ever one (is coming)

The Festival of Friendship (is coming)

So make some good weather

The Festival is almost here!

[instrumental continues]

"THERE! Now doesn't that fit the tone of the movie better? Doesn't that show more respect to the Brony fandom by holding up this series and this world as something special?" Keldeo asked rhetorically.

"Alright, so then we get a montage of Canterlot for the Festival of Friendship. We see Trixie, Starlight, the Stygian and the Pillars, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and finally the Mane Six. Like in the original, Twilight asks the Princesses to let her do that Sun and Moon alignment for the finale. But when they deny it, they actually give her an interesting reason."

Celestia: "Twilight, you have grown so much and learned so much as a Princess of Equestria, but you still lack the necessary experience."

Luna: "As a wize pony once said: 'you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Harmony. An Alicorn's power of can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power...It must follow knowledge, and serve need.'"

"That was a modified quote by Ursula K. Le Guin from her book A Wizard of Earthsea. I actually heard it in a video by the Brony Analyst Silver Quill," Keldeo explained.

Keldeo nodded and said, "So, that's one of the main conflicts of the movie. Twilight wants to prove that she's gained enough experience to not just be the Princess of Friendship, but also as an actual ruler of Equestria. This would also make Twilight taking the throne in the series finale more believable. We then hang out with a Mane Six a little bit, we meet Songbird Serenade, yeah, I'm keeping her in, but then the main conflict shows up in the form of Tempest Shadow taking on a squad of Royal Guards. She defeats them easily, causing Rainbow and Applejack to rush in to stop her. We get a short action scene with Tempest winning, only for Twilight to use her magic to freeze her in place.

Twilight: "What are you doing? Why did you attack those guards?!"

Tempest: "I'm here to see the Princesses, but they wouldn't let me speak with them."

Twilight: "I'm one of the Princesses. You may speak with me."

Tempest: "I mean a REAL Princess."

Pinkie: "Oooo-oooo-oooh!"

"So Tempest is brought before all four Princesses, and Shining Armor, and warns them about the Storm King and his armor of Satyrs. Yes, we're calling them Satyrs, NOT Storm Creatures, that's stupid."

Tempest: "You must cancel this stupid festival!"

Shining Armor: "The Royal Guard will protect Canterlot."

Tempest: "They couldn't even stop me. They're pathetic."

Celestia: "How do you know that these Satyrs will attack?"

Tempest: "Do you know of the Staff of Sacanas?"

"Celestia and Luna go on to explain of Scorpan cut a branch from the Tree of Harmony in order to make a staff to fight Triek when he started stealing magic. Maybe we could say it was used to defeat him, or maybe they ended up not needing it. Either way the staff was hidden away, and it turned out both Tempest and the Satyrs were looking for it. Tempest wanted it to fix her horn, and the Storm King sent the Satyrs after it so he could steal all the Alicorn magic. The Satyrs got to it first, so Tempest came to Canterlot to try and warn the Princesses."

Luna: "We can protect our subjects from whatever the Storm King is plotting."

Tempest: "You're all a bunch of sentimental fools. Going on about friendship, wasting all this magic, you disgust me."

"Tempest storms out, but Twilight and her friends go after her and speak to her in private."

Tempest: "If you want to protect your subjects, cancel this pointless festival!"

Twilight: "This is a celebration of friendship! The most powerful magic of all!"

Tempest: "You couldn't possible believe that nonsense! When someone wants to harm you, to crush you, to take everything you love away from youl do you really think something as soft as friendship will save you?"

"The rest of the Mane Six and Spike tries to chime in and convince Tempest, but she won't budge from her stance. But then everything gets interrupted when huge storm clouds appear in the sky."

Tempest: "Oh no. . . they're already here."

"A huge airship lands, the door opens, we see our main antagonist-."

Keldeo's Chromebook chimed again, and Keldeo frowned and said, "Ugh, Again!?"

Keldeo answered the call, only to see an image of the Swords of Justice as trapped in stone.

". . .WHAT!?" Keldeo exclaimed leaning back in shock.

Fizzlepop stepped into frame and said with a smug smile, "Do I have your attention now, Keldeo the Critic?"

"You crazy, plastic-looking, pony! You're doing all of this just because I'm not 100% in love with that movie?!" Keldeo exclaimed in a mixture of anger and utter disbelief.

Fizzlepop chuckled darkly and leaned in close to the camera. "Well, are you willing to rethink your opinion?"

Keldeo frowned and said, "I know you're not going to hurt them. You're not evil anymore."

"So you're just going to sit there and do nothing. . .like a coward?" the scarred mare remarked with a look of mock disappointment.

Keldeo pointed a forehoof at the screen and said, "You're not worth my time, Fizzlepop Berrytwist. But if you're going to go this far just because of a movie, if you're going to raise your horn against the Swords of Justice, then fine!"

Keldeo then smiled deviously and said, "I'm gonna send the sickest, psychotic, sociopathic killer the multiverse has ever known on you. . ."

Keldeo then ended the call and made a new one.

Frisk Dreemurr was sitting on the sofa while watching cartoons when her cellphone rang. She answered it and said, "Hello?" Frisk listened to the caller for a moment, then she held it out to her right and said, "It's for you."

Sitting in his pot, Flowey the Flower reached out with his vines and held the phone up to his face. "Howdy. What'd ya want?" he asked grouchily.

"I need you to beat up a pony for me," Keldeo said.

Flowey smiled and said, "Sounds FUN!"

"Just don't kill her."

Flowey frowned, "Lame."

"Well, I was gonna give you a copy of DOOM Eternal for the Nintendo Switch, but-"

"Okay, okay, I'll do it!" Flowey said quickly.

Keldeo hung up, and one of Hoopa's ring portals opened up behind him. Then Hoopa himself popped out of it and cried, "Allehooparing!" The Pokemon then grabbed Flowey, causing him to drop Frisk's phone, and pulled him through the ring portal, which promptly closed behind them.

Frisk stared at the place where the portal once was for a moment, then shrugged it off and turned back towards the newest episode of Total Dramarama.

"Heh-heh. Oh, Gwen. . ."

Keldeo nodded and looked up from his Chromebook, "Okay, now where was I? Oh yes, the main antagonist of this film is. . . . Grubber. . . Let me explain."

Keldeo smiled and said, "Grubber was kinda pointless in the movie. It was like they wanted him to be a foil for Spike, or maybe a way of opening Tempest up to the idea of friendship. . . but neither of things ever happened! Grubber did NOTHING for the movie. He just introduced Tempest and ate cake. . . that's it. I think having this little hedgehog guy be the both the emissary of the Storm King and the guy who chases our heroes all over the place while being a legitimate threat is a really cool way of using this character. He's small, people underestimate him, but he still can cause some major trouble."

"So Grubber makes his speech, like in the original movie, and he demands that the Alicorns surender so the Storm King can take their magic. Pinkie and Rainbow make fun of how short he is, and Shining Armor straight up defies him. Grubber responds by throwing off the cloak he's wearing to reveal the backpack-like device on his back. He grabs a nozzle attached to it and aims it right at the group, threatening them."

Grubber: "This could easily go really badly for you and your little capital city. So if you don't want to see this place trashed, you should really get smart and surrender."

Discord: "And I'd give your evil speech of evil a solid C+!"

"At this point, Discord pops in to mock Grubber and goof around arrogantly, and winds up daring Grubber to hit him with his best shot. Grubber does so by firing an orb at Discord. He snaps his fingers to block it or make it disappear, but we see his eyes widen as nothing happens and the orb nails him right in the face. The orb shatters, mist flows out, and Discord's a statue again. And no, this isn't a cop out. The show has shown us that Discord is already weak to Tatzlwurm mucus and Queen Chrysalis' throne. It's not that much of a stretch to believe that these orbs could affect him too."

"So then Grubber shoots an orb at Shining Armor and Cadence. Shining Armor creates a shield that block the orb, but it shatters and sends a mist out that goes through the shield and turns both Shining Armor and Cadence to stone. This causes all the ponies to scatter as more Satyr soldiers jump out of the airship and fight the royal guard with spears."

Keldeo held up a forehoof and said, "Now, here's the thing about the Satyr Kingdom in my version. They don't have any magic, or friendship cause friendship is magic, so they're all about advanced technology and stuff like that. For instance, there's a toy out there called the Guardians of Harmony Tempest Shadow Sky Skiff. It's basically a high tech flying car that never appeared in the movie. It would be cool for the Satyrs to be all about tech, specifically anti-magic tech, so when they take over Canterlot it doesn't feel cheap."

Keldeo put his hoof back down, "So before Celestia gets turned to stone, she calls out:

Celestia: "Luna! We go to Mount Aris-"

Keldeo nodded, "Yeah, I changed it. The whole thing where she's cut off in the middle of saying 'hippogriffs' is pointless and doesn't affect the plot at all. At least this way we have a clear goal: get to Mount Aris."

"So after Celestia gets turned to stone, Luna takes flight and the Wonderbolts zoom in the protect the last two princesses. We get to see Spitfire and Soarin leading the charge, dive bombing the Satyrs. But then some Satyrs wearing gliders zoom in and toss out ice grenades that freeze their wings and bring them down. This lets Grubber roll through and turn Luna to stone. Then he fires an orb at Twilight, only for Derpy Hooves to heroically swoop in to save her."

Derpy: "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Twilight: "DERPY! NO!"

Rainbow Dash: "C'mon, Twilight! We gotta go!"

Twilight: "But what about-?"

Rainbow Dash: "I know, I know. We'll come back and save 'em, but we gotta get outta here first!"

"Meanwhile, the Starswirl is leading Stygian and the Pillars against the Satyrs. They put up a good fight, but the Satyrs are armed with these handheld radar dish like devices that absorb magic and fire it back at them. So then Spike and the Mane Six fight their way through some Satyrs until they get cornered on the bridge. But before Grubber can fire an orb, Tempest jumps in and uses her magic to blow up the bridge, sending them all down the waterfall like in the original. They wash up some distance away and decide to head to Mount Aris because that's the only lead they got."

Tempest: "We can't just walk to Mount Aris? Do you have any idea how far away that is? We'd need an airship to get there!"

"The group has a quick discussion, and Tempest says that they can get a ride in an airship if they head to Klugetown, but warns the group that the Storm Kingdom controls the town and that they should follow her lead. Twilight is frustrated by this, but Applejack persuades everyone to let Tempest take charge because she would have more experience with this foreign land."

Keldeo grinned and said, "Okay, then we go back to Canterlot where we get the scene where Grubber contacts the Storm King. Here is how I changed it. First off, it's not a potion. It's a crystal powered device that creates a full hologram of the Storm King. The Storm King just stands with a serious look on his face, then he gives a big smile and speaks."

Storm King: "Hello there, my little second in command hedgehog! Has the Pony Capital been captured?"

Grubber: "Yes sir, Storm King, sir!"

Storm King: "Splendid! And did you get all four Alicorn for me?"

Grubber: "Well. . .I got three of them. . ."

"The Storm King's smile disappears, and he speaks in a dark, growling tone of voice."

Storm King: "You do realize that I need FOUR alicorns, right?"

Grubber: "OH, don't worry, boss, sir! I'll track her down quick!"

Storm King: "You see that you do. . ."

"The Storm King goes all smiley again."

Storm King: "But hey! Even if you don't, three out of four isn't bad! Hey! I've got it! If when I get there, you only got three out of four princesses, then you get to keep three out of four of your limbs! That's fair, right?"

Grubber: "*Gulp*, yes sir. . ."

Keldeo smiled cleverly and said, "So, here is my version of the Storm King: a bipolar, Heath Ledger-Joker type guy that switches between jovial and angry, but is still constantly evil and cruel and threatening. He's actually threatening and visibly evil, not just some goofy non-character that takes time away from Tempest Shadow."

Keldeo's Chromebook chimed again, and Keldeo frowned and answered the call.

Asriel Dreemurr appeared on screen and waved enthusiastically, a big smile on his face as he said, "This is AMAZING! I went to fight Fizzlepop like you said, and she led me to Ponyville, and Twilight Sparkle and her friends used the Elements of Harmony on me and turned me back to normal! I can't wait to show Frisk and my parents-."

One of Hoopa's ring portals appeared underneath Asriel, and he promptly fell in. The portal closed, and Fizzlepop walked into the frame and said with a bored expression on her face, "Really? You send a flower after me?"

Keldeo peered at Tempest and said, "Well, fine. He might have been a softee inside, but just you wait! The next monster I'm sending after you is so determined, so violent, so hardcore. . . that you'll never stand a chance!"

"YOU SUCK, FREIZA!" Dr. Alphys shouted at the television as she sat on the couch. Her cellphone suddenly rang, and she quickly answered it.

"Hello? Dr. Alphys here. . . .Okay," Dr. Alphys said, then she held out her phone to the monster sitting next to her and said, "It's for you."

Undyne grabbed the phone and said, "It's Undyne. Start talking."

"I wanted you to fight a unicorn, but it might be too much of a challenge for you, so-," Keldeo said.

"A unicorn? A challenge for me!? You're joking, right? That horse is going down!" Undyne shouted at the phone.

One of Hoopa's ring portal opened next to her, and Hoopa grabbed her and puller her through. Meanwhile, Dr. Alphys sat captivated by the anime action on the television, totally oblivious to what was going on right next to her.

"It's been way longer than five minutes!" Dr. Alphys shouted at the screen.

Keldeo blinked and said, "Wow. . .I didn't even have to offer to pay for their Crunchyroll for a year."

Keldeo nodded, "Okay, back to the movie. Our heroes arrive in Klugetown, and Fluttershy immediately notices all the rare animals in cages and is visibly distressed by this.

Tempest: "Just keep moving."

Fluttershy: "But, all those poor-."

Tempest: "We aren't here for that, we're here to find a ship."

"So then Capper overhears them and comes out of the shadows, and this time around his race is a little more unique. Instead of Abyssinians just being anthro cats, they're more like lynxes. Big ears with tufts on them. Unique markings. Stuff like that. He and Rarity have their moments and a song, but of course Capper ends up taking them up to Verko's office where he tries to sell them into slavery."

Keldeo got a bit serious at this point and said, "Okay, now this is the part where Verko goes over to Tempest and puts his paws on her. But there's a difference. Tempest doesn't just zap him, she blasts him with so much electricity that he gets thrown out the window and falls to his offscreen Disney Villain Death. If we can kill the Storm King onscreen, we can kill a slaver offscreen."

Twilight: "Wh-what!? You just-."

Tempest: "He was a heartless slaver, Princess. He's condemned thousands of creatures to lives of misery. He got off easy. Now, this mangy cat, on the other hand. . ."

"Before Tempest can presumably kill Capper, Grubber walks right in, clapping slowly.

Grubber: "Very nicely done, Scar-Face. You'd fit right in as a Commander in the Storm King's army."

Tempest: "I'd never associate with filth like you."

Grubber: "Do you really want to go down with the rest of those wimps behind you."

Twilight: "You and your Satyrs will never stop the eight of us!"

Grubber: "Uh. . . doncha mean seven?"

Rainbow Dash: "Wait! Where's Fluttershy!?"

Keldeo had a huge smile on his face, and he said, "Okay, we just had Rarity's moment with Capper, now we get Fluttershy's moment. You see, during Rarity and Capper's song, Fluttershy seems to disappear. At this point there's a loud commotion outside, and everyone looks out the windows to see that Fluttershy had freed a bunch of the animals and told them to go around stealing keys and freeing not only more animals, but the slaves as well. There's total chaos as escaped slaves and animals and running around attacking the Klugetowners, and Fluttershy is hovering about it all.

Fluttershy: "Fly my pretties! Fly! FLY! FREEEEEDOM! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA!"

Keldeo grin got even wider and he said, "Yeah, we're referencing how she went crazy in The Best Night Ever! Red background and lightning and all!"

"This distracts Grubber and whatever Satyrs he had with him long enough for the rest of the heroes to escape out another window and ride the giant wheel like in the original. Fluttershy notices and quickly rejoins her friends. In the chaos they're able to stowaway on an airship just as it takes off. This leaves Grubber with Capper, and the cat lies about which direction the heroes wanted to go. Grubber doesn't full trust him, so he has Capper taken aboard his airship. Capper is visibly uncomfortable with being about a ship with the Storm King's symbol on it, and we'll learn why later on in the movie."

Keldeo sighed and said, "Wow! This has been really something! Okay, let's take a little break. When we come back, we fix the pirates!"

We'll be right back!