So I've been studying all the concept art that's been released so far and with that in mind I'M GONNA WATCH IT AGAIN!
0:34 This G4 opening went through a few variations. They considered something longer, but cut it down to this. I think they made the right choice. Brevity works here.
1:27 Nope. I am still not prepared for how precious filly Sunny is.
6:20 Sunny's room. They spent a disproportionate amount of time designing this place for how little time we spend here. I don't know how many drafts the plot through but there is at least one earlier harsher version, in which filly Sunny seems to have been more of a loner. Her friends seem to have been a later addition.
7:02 Good God. They bothered to figure out where Sunny keeps her skates. We can see them in the background. If they spent as much time storyboarding mouth holds as they did working out minor details like this the movie would be perfect.
7:08 Nope. I am still not prepared for how precious adult Sunny is.
7:25 Sunny's song. This appears to have evolved from a scene where she's running late for work. Hey Sunny, if you didn't take extra laps around the whole town maybe you wouldn't be late for work.
11:17 Canterlogic. In the early plot this factory extracted energy from crystals, and Sunny worked here. I don't know what her job was. They spent a lot of effort figuring out the layout for this place and ended up dropping most of it. Considering Sprouticus Maximus, it was probably a good idea to turn Canterlogic into a factory for dumb defense gadgets. I do like the idea of Sunny working here. I would love for that to be canonized in her backstory as a nod to the film's development. It is not irreconcilable with the existing backstory in which she did something to get banned from this show.
12:32 It just occurred to me. A lot of this Canterlogic stuff is junk, but imagine if by sheer chance this anti-magic helmet actually works.
13:22 Hnnng.
22:20 It always feels weird seeing Sprout on the job, knowing how he's going to end up.
23:08 It seems weird that Sunny stops running right here, but Hitch doesn't catch up. Either he immediately gave up and followed Sprout back to the station, or it's a rewrite oops. In the harsher plot Maretime Bay had a wall, and Sunny escaped by climbing over it, so she couldn't have been followed. I guess someone said "Wait, they have a wall that keeps ponies in? Ma'am, this is a toy commercial." And the idea was dropped.
Or maybe it's just that Hitch gave up. In the early plot Sunny doesn't appear to have met Izzy until she escaped Maretime Bay.
23:47 Izzy is such a puppy.
27:15 The canyon and climb to Zephyr Heights. In the early plot Hitch was with them here, and it appears that they used disguises to infiltrate the city instead of being captured by the guards. As much as I'd love to reverse engineer the early plot, it may be impossible. The whole order of events appears to have been scrambled.
33:15 Symbolism! Sprout might have been planning to be a good sheriff here, but life immediately slammed the door in his face.
34:05 I'm trying with this song. The name is misleading. It's really not a mob song. It's just a Disney villain song, which is an incredibly overrated genre.
35:51 It is hilarious how spot on this Pipp commercial is. Kids aren't even going to know if they're only watching kid shows and seeing nothing but cereal commercials. That is if kids are even watching their shows on TV and not on their phones with adblockers.
37:04 If this movie weren't so well written, it could have seemed way too convenient that Zipp is such a good person and gives back the journal and lets them out of jail. She really doesn't know them at all yet. But Zipp's own life is such a dystopian nightmare that it works. She's not breaking them out of prison. She's breaking herself out of prison by following the first people she's ever met who have seen the outside world. She could have been the protagonist of the movie. It's just more of a journey if the camera follows Sunny and we get to meet the cast one at a time.
39:26 The happy mugshot never gets old.
41:10 This stained glass wasn't originally here.
44:44 Pipp's song. This scene originally took place in an elaborate amphitheater. Zephyr Heights was already a huge location to build so I don't blame them for dropping something. The castle works fine. Also Pipp doesn't seem to have a microphone here. Apparently she's classically trained.
45:23 This shot highlights something. Their mouths are too far from their ears. Because horses. Even with these distorted MLP heads. The point being, their phones should have been comically oversized.
48:52 We really didn't respect Pipp enough when this movie came out. How in the world did she escape?
53:04 There is no concept art explaining what Izzy is about to do to this tree. It's still a mystery.
53:26 Last time I noted that the third day ends too quickly. Well, there is a deleted scene involving a cave, and this may be where it was meant to happen.
55:50 Bridlewood. This place seems tiny and underwhelming after Zephyr Heights. That did make for a good surprise, but once the surprise wears off it ends up being kinda dull. Well, it appears that Zephyr Heights and Bridlewood were swapped. In the early plot Sunny and Izzy appear to have gone to Bridlewood first, added Hitch to the group somewhere along the way, and then went to Zephyr Heights, and gone directly from Zephyr Heights back to Maretime Bay. It was more of a linear escalation instead of the final film's ups and downs.
1:01:08 The Crystal tea Room. Bridlewood originally had a museum and a temple instead of this place.
1:14:47 Sprouticus Maximus. This thing was originally Phyllis themed. Yeah. Sprout being a broken pile of complexes was not only intended, but was originally intended to be worse.
1:14:58 He is so happy.
1:17:23 Another thing that was intended all along is how villainy changes Sprout's body language. He doesn't get a lot of credit for his villain qualities, but this is a good one.
1:17:52 Gak is a much more impressive weapon than it initially looks if it is strong enough to hold Alphabittle like this.
1:18:28 This is messed up. Sprout standing up to Phyllis ought to be a healthy moment, but they engineered a situation where him doing the healthy thing makes the situation worse. They better try to rehabilitate him. He is so broken.
1:19:38 It is actually not clear how Sprouticus Maximus is suddenly completely defeated. I think the idea is the lighthouse fell on it, but I'm not sure that should have tipped it over, and it's not covered in rubble.
