Western Animation / My Little Pony: A New Generation

This page will contain unmarked spoilers for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

We'll do our part, hoof to heart!^note Clockwise from bottom right: Sunny Starscout, Hitch Trailblazer, Zipp Storm, Pipp Petals, and Izzy Moonbow.

"Dear Unicorns and Pegasi, you have friends in Maretime Bay. Come visit us!"

— Sunny Starscout in her letter as a child.

My Little Pony: A New Generation is an all-CGI movie meant to introduce Generation 5 of My Little Pony and is a Distant Sequel to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. It premiered on Netflix on September 24, 2021.

The unimaginable has happened... the magical land of Equestria has lost its magic! Earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi are no longer friends and now live separately once more. But the idealistic earth pony Sunny Starscout (Vanessa Hudgens), inspired by the ancient stories of Twilight Sparkle and her friends, is determined to find a way to bring magic back to their world and reunite ponykind through The Power of Friendship. Teaming up with the open-hearted unicorn Izzy Moonbow (Kimiko Glenn), the pair travel to faraway lands where they are joined by the likes of the charismatic and brave royal pegasi sisters Pipp Petals (Sofia Carson) and Zipp Storm (Liza Koshy), and the ever-responsible fellow earth pony Hitch Trailblazer (James Marsden). Their adventure may be full of challenges and mishaps, but these new best friends each possess their own unique and special gifts that may be just what their world needs to restore harmony and prove that even little ponies can make a difference!

In 2022, the film was followed by Tell Your Tale, a 2D animated series for Youtube on April 7th, and Make Your Mark, a Netflix CGI series starting with 44-minute special on May 26th, followed by a season of 22-minute episodes on September 26th, as well as a Christmas-themed special Winter Wishday on November 21st.

A comic series was announced. Simply titled My Little Pony, It was created by IDW. The comic serves as a sequel to the movie taking place not long after it. The plot involves one of the unity crystals being stolen by a thief with our heroes tracking down the culprit's location to Canterlot. It was released on May 25, 2022.

A video game based on the movie, My Little Pony: A Maretime Bay Adventure, was also released in May 2022.

See the cast introduction trailer here. See the official trailer here.

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My Little Pony: A New Generation provides examples of:

Tropes A-L

• Actor Allusion:
  • This isn't the first time Ken Jeong plays a character who goes mad with power and turns into a dictator.
  • Jane Krakowski's character is not too dissimilar from Jenna Maroney, Jaqueline White, or Emily Dickinson's mother.
  • This isn't the first time either that James Marsden plays a sheriff from a small town who befriends critters.
• Added Alliterative Appeal:
  • Two of the five main characters' names (Sunny Starscout and Pipp Petals).
  • During "Fit Right In," Hitch describes unicorns as having "tongues like Tasers and teeth like tacks."
• Aerith and Bob: In addition to the usual pony names like Sunny Starscout, Hitch Trailblazer, and Pipp Petals, there are also ponies named Izzy, Phyllis, and Rob.
• All for Nothing: Combining the unicorn and pegasus gemstones turns out to do absolutely nothing. Sunny is so distraught that her journey didn't fix anything that she goes through a Heroic BSoD. Subverted when it's revealed the reason it didn't work was because it was missing two things: a gem representing the earth ponies, and The Power of Friendship.
• Alphabetical Theme Naming:
  • Four of the mane characters have double letters in their names: Sunny, Izzy, Pipp, and Zipp. The last two could be justified as they're sisters. (Izzy's last name, Moonbow, qualifies as well.) Hitch, the group's only stallion, has the Odd Name Out.
  • Two of the supporting characters, Phyllis and Alphabittle, fall into this group.
• Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear just how long ago the events of the previous series were, or how things ended up the way that they currently did. All that's known is that Friendship is Magic was so long ago that most ponies in the modern era now consider the life and times of Princess Twilight and her friends to be a fairy tale.
• Angry Mob Song: "Danger, Danger", in which Sprout, the film's antagonist goes about starting an angry mob because of danger. Sprout even says "it's all gonna work out painlessly if you follow my orders brainlessly" against the other races of ponies, and that "this is no time for sober thinking".
• Arc Symbol: A six-pointed asymmetrical starburst often surrounded by five smaller starbursts appears numerous times throughout the film, on a number of Sunny's belongings and an ancient stained glass window in Zephyr Heights, serving as a symbol for pony unity. Fans of Generation 4 would instantly recognize this as Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark, whose legacy as the Princess of Friendship forms the backbone of the film despite her never being mentioned by name, with her teachings being forgotten triggering the conflict and them being rediscovered forming the resolution.
• Arc Words: The words Sunny and her father use in the beginning are said several more times by Sunny herself and the other main characters. "We'll do our part, hoof to heart."
• Armor-Piercing Question: Hitch holds onto his old prejudices and suspicions for a while after meeting Izzy, Pipp, and Zipp, even as he grudgingly allows the group to get on with their mission. His turning point is when, as the group is settling in to camp for the night, Sunny asks him whether the other ponies they've been traveling with really seem like enemies, and he's forced to reply that he doesn't know. Shortly after this exchange, he offers to join in the quest.
  Sunny: What have we got to lose?
  Hitch: By giving magic back to our enemies? Uh, let me think. I know: A lot!
  Sunny: Come on! Do they look like enemies to you?
  [Hitch looks at Izzy, Pipp, and Zipp, then sighs]
  Hitch: I don't know.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: When Sprout is angrily listing off the things that makes Hitch great, he said he has a perfect mane, shredded abs, and a paid-off mortgage.
• Art Evolution: While ostensibly taking place in the same universe as G4, the pony designs here are slightly more realistic in terms of proportions.
  • Pegasi notably have much longer wings, which completely cover their cutie marks when folded and have a more impressive wingspan, with personalized wing designs compared to the copy-and-paste designs from G4.
  • Unicorn horns are longer and sharper, with ornate markings along their length, and may or may not match the coat color.
• Art Shift: The opening scene with the Mane Six is done in a semi-2D art style compared to the rest of the film.
• Artistic License – Biology: G5 ponies have a heart-shaped mark on the bottoms of their hooves, which is supposed to be reminiscent of the "frog" on the hooves of real-life horses. However, on real-life horses, the pointed end of the frog points forward, whereas on G5 ponies, the point of the heart shape points backwards. This becomes significant in The Stinger, where we see an earth pony foal leaving glowing heart-shaped hoofprints.
• Audience Murmurs: When Zipp is distracting the reporters so Sunny and Izzy can sneak into the palace, one reporter's question is "Where's the bathroom?!"
• Awesome, but Impractical: One of Phyllis Cloverleaf's inventions allow earth ponies to constantly examine the sky for incoming pegasi... while also preventing the wearer from seeing anything in front of them.
• Baby Talk: Sprout briefly mocks Hitch this way when he finally returns to Maretime Bay.
  Sprout: Awwww. Little Sheriff Hitchy came trotting back. Waaaah.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: When two pegasus guards, Zoom and Thunder, catch Sunny and Izzy outside Zephyr Heights, Thunder freaks out at the sight of an earth pony. Zoom ensures Thunder that earth ponies are harmless, which Sunny is happy to hear because she believes the pegasi will accept her, until Zoom continues to say that they have very tiny brains, to which Sunny scowls in response.
• Balloonacy: One of the earth pony defense items Phyllis sells is a backpack filled with balloons meant to carry the pony to safety. Unfortunately, she failed to consider how the pony was supposed to descend and the poor test subject gets swept out a window. He winds up floating aimlessly over Equestria for the rest of the film and only comes in for a landing at the very end.
• Bamboo Technology: In Bridlewood, Alphabittle challenges Sunny to Just Prance, a Rhythm Game arcade cabinet made out of wood and powered by armadillos running in a wheel.
• Bathos:
  • A giant robot, ready to wage war against the united ponies, threatening to squash them flat or ruin all they've worked so hard for? That's scary. The pilot pulling a string and honking this Humongous Mecha like a glorified truck driver? Hilarious.
  • In the middle of the fearmongering Angry Mob Song, the singers also take the time to point out some corn ("It's on the cob!") and a random pony nearby ("Uh, my name's Rob.") for seemingly no other reason than to rhyme with "mob".
• Beat: When "Danger, Danger" ends, there's a moment of silence when the participants all stare confrontationally into the camera. Then one of the crabs loudly clicks it's pincers together.
• Beatnik: The unicorn hosting Sunny and Alphabittle's dance competition sports the classic beret (with horn-hole), monotone way of speaking, and freeform poetry.
• Big Shadow, Little Creature: A big, scary shadow is shown at the gate to Maretime Bay, only for it to be revealed it's just Izzy. This shows the earth ponies' perspective, however, the mere sight of a unicorn is absolutely terrifying.
• Bland-Name Product:
  • Much of the branding on Zephyr Heights' billboards are takes on common brands:
    • The logo of Zephyr Heights is a riff on the T-Mobile logo.
    • The Zephyr Broadcast System (ZBS) has a logo that, from afar, resembles CBS' eye logo.
    • The Zephyr Heights Postal Service mirrors the United States Postal Service logo.
    • A generic "Pony" logo is based on Sony's wordmark.
    • There's a simple pony silhouette ad that follows from Apple's line of iPod ads.
    • The logo for "McWings" is an inverted double arch from McDonald's, but with wings.
    • The "Amplify" logo mimics the Spotify logo.
    • Though unnamed, a logo with a similar swish as Nike's also appears along with the phrase "Just Wing It".
  • The game "Just Prance", replacing Just Dance, but the gameplay is essentially DanceDanceRevolution.
• Born in the Wrong Century: Exaggerated given that the events of Generation 4 are referred to as ancient history, but Sunny longs for the Mane Six's era when all three pony races lived in harmony. She would have thrived back in ancient Ponyville, as would her father Argyle, who spends much of his time researching Equestria's past. However, the bigotry that prevails in their time makes their views unpopular, leaving Argyle as an eccentric and Sunny one friend away from being a complete outcast.
• Breaking Old Trends:
  • While there have been important male characters in the franchise before (such as perennial sidekick Spike the Dragon and an antagonist named Tirek, both of whom have appeared in multiple MLP generations), Hitch Trailblazer is the first male pony to be a main character.
  • In the past, the only known ponies who have become alicorns were those who completed high-level magic, and had only been unicorns or pegasi. Here, Sunny is an earth pony who never had any genuine experience with any kind of magic until she herself becomes an alicorn at the movie's ending for the act of returning the Magic of Friendship and thus magic itself back to Equestria.
  • In Friendship is Magic, pony villains are almost invariably either alicorns or unicorns made dangerous by their magical powers; the one exception is a pegasus. G5's first villain is an earth pony backed up by technology and an angry mob.
• Brick Joke:
  • At the Canterlogic show, a pony wearing a backpack full of balloons accidentally floats out of the factory. He briefly shows up several times during the film before finally coming in for a landing at Maretime Bay. Asking what he's missed, he promptly freaks out at the sight of a unicorn, two pegasi, and two earth ponies — one of whom is now an alicorn — actually getting along.
  • One earth pony is so terrified of Izzy that he jumps into the bay. During "Danger, Danger," he finally climbs out — only to fall back in again.
  • When complaining to himself that he can do stuff just as well as Hitch, Sprout tries to prove it by shutting a filing cabinet, only for the drawer above it to open. When it cuts back to him later that cabinet drawer is still open.
  • As the earth ponies panic at the sight of Izzy, Hitch rescues a foal from being trampled, but accidentally gives him to a pony who isn't his parent. The same foal is later seen with his actual parents during Sprout's song.
• The Cameo:
  • The Fake-Out Opening features the Mane Six from Generation 4, complete with the original voice actors reprising their roles. It's then revealed to be young versions of Sunny, Hitch, and Sprout playing with toys.
  • A stuffed toy version of Spike the dragon can be in Sunny's bedroom during the opening scene.
  • A plush next to Sunny in the opening scene is fan-nicknamed Fausticorn, Lauren Faust's pony character.
• Camera Abuse: During the scene where Sunny and Izzy are fleeing through Maretime Bay, one of the splatapults' projectiles hits the camera and almost knocks it over.
• The Caper: A major part of the film depicts a heist, with Sunny, Izzy and Zipp attempting to steal the pegasus Crystal forming the centerpiece of Queen Haven's crown during a royal showcase in Zephyr Heights. It goes off perfectly until Cloudpuff and Hitch derail the whole thing.
• Central Theme: The dangers of lies. Even well-meaning lies are pernicious things which can destroy a community and prevent natural cooperation with others through paranoia and false hope.
  • One of the major factors that has kept the three tribes divided from one another for so long are the various slanderous misinformation, propaganda, and silly superstitions they have regarding the other tribes. The antagonist, Deputy Sprout, uses the fear, anger and hatred for the unicorns and pegasi that came with those lies to take over Maretime Bay as a rabblerousing dictator, nearly going on the war-path against the other two tribes. This is to the horror of not just Sunny Starscout, but also Sprout's mother, who peddled those very same anti-unicorn and anti-pegasus lies out of genuine misbelief about the other two Tribes and to market and sell her rather unsafe unicorn and pegasi defence systems, all of which her son Sprout believed without question and took up to eleven in his paranoia and egomania. When she sees how far her son has gone, she's horrified.
  • The pegasus royal family has faked being able to fly with wires to their subjects for generations in order to keep their subjects' hopes up after magic disappeared and they lost the ability to fly. This ultimately backfired when their deceit was exposed, which shocked and outraged their subjects so much they overthrew them, leaving the queen arrested and the two princesses becoming fugitives from their own people.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The lamp Sunny's father made for her turns out to have the last gemstone needed to bring magic back to Equestria.
  • In the A Minor Kidroduction segment, Sunny and her father use a floating paper lantern to send out an invitation for unicorns and pegasi to come visit Maretime Bay. After the excitement in Zephyr Heights, Izzy reveals that she found the invitation and decided to act on it, explaining her presence in Sunny's hometown.
  • The heroes find out soon after reaching Bridlewood that the unicorns are superstitious enough that if they hear any of four certain words,^note Magic, feather, wing & mayonnaise (no explanation for that last one) they have to perform a ritual specific to that word in order to ward off a jinx. When they're cornered later on by the unicorns, Hitch says all four forbidden words at once. This forces every superstitious unicorn there to start going through all the rituals simultaneously, distracting them enough for the protagonists to escape.
• Chekhov's Skill: While it's never directly brought up, Izzy's cutie mark is a type of pincushion, meaning her special talent is related to fashion, and she's shown to be skilled at crafting when she creates a replacement crown for the protagonists to use when they try to steal the pegasus Crystal from Queen Haven's crown. This comes in handy again later when she disguises the group as unicorns.
• Close on Title: This is the first My Little Pony movie in the franchise to feature the movie's title at the end — the previous two are both simply titled My Little Pony: The Movie.
• Continuity Cavalcade: In an early scene, we're shown Argyle possesses many artifacts from G4 or at least replicas or illustrations — given that several are known to be destroyed — such as an illustration of Twilight mimicking da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man", one of Zecora's masks, the Harmony Box from Season 4's Myth Arc, the Dragon Lord's Bloodstone Sceptre (minus the Bloodstone), the Memory Stone from the Equestria Girls special "Forgotten Friendship", a portrait of Starswirl the Bearded, and even Grogar's Bewitching Bell.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Sunny's satchel has Twilight's cutie mark on it, and she has pins of Twilight's, Fluttershy's, and Rainbow Dash's cutie marks on its sash.
  • The ponies all have heart-shaped hooves, just like in the 2017 movie.
  • Phyllis calls Sprout "sugarcube". Applejack often uses that same term to address her friends and loved ones in Friendship is Magic.
  • During Sprout's song to scare the citizens of Maretime Bay into being paranoid that the pegasi and unicorns are preparing to attack, the word "discord" makes a noteworthy appearance, with Gen 4 having had a major supporting character by that name.
  • When Zipp takes Sunny and Izzy to see the film's Arc Symbol, we see there's a poster for the Wonderbolts, the flight team Rainbow Dash joined during the Gen 4 series.
  • Alphabittle owns a rubber chicken which resembles Boneless, Cheese Sandwich's erstwhile companion.
  • When Izzy first appears, the stampeding townsfolk knock Sunny down. She lands in the exact same pose Twilight landed in when she got her cutie mark.
  • To My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games: Sunny's alicorn form resembles Sunset Shimmer's "Daydream" form.
  • In the abandoned balloon station, the departure board lists — alongside Bridlewood, Maretime Bay, and Zephyr Heights — Neighagara and Manehattan, two locations from G4.
• Contrasting Sequel Setting: In the hundreds, if not thousands, of years since Friendship is Magic, the three kinds of ponies have gone from living in harmony to living in fear of each other, and magic is long gone.
• Contrived Coincidence: The script mercilessly abuses setup and payoff, where absolutely everything that happens turns out to be important to the narrative, but sometimes it's so convenient it beggars belief.
  • Sunny and her father write a letter calling on unicorns and pegasi to come to Maretime Bay, which is received by the one unicorn in Bridlewood who shares that opinion. That unicorn then accidentally runs into that very same earth pony the moment she wanders into Maretime Bay.
  • Sunny and Izzy stumble across the pegasus princess, Zipp, right outside Zephyr Heights. They're arrested and shepherded up to the throne room, where they immediately meet her again.
  • Izzy just happens to come to Maretime Bay and kick off the plot right after Canterlogic's annual showcase, and then she and Sunny arrive at Zephyr Heights the same day the royal celebration is being held, so they were lucky to go there and have an opportunity to easily steal the crown, though it doesn't work out.
  • As the Mane Five walk through the unicorn village, Hitch accidentally learns about the one useful trick he uses to get them out of a jam five minutes later.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Phyllis Cloverleaf, an earth pony who deliberately spreads Malicious Slander about pegasi and unicorns in order to manipulate her fellow earth ponies into buying her unsafe "self-defense" devices. Downplayed in that she genuinely believes the other two races to be dangerous and only wants to defend against them. When her son Sprout goes Drunk with Power, she's understandably put off by it.
• Cosmic Deadline: When Sunny and friends locate the unicorn crystal, the film seems to recognize that it needs that subplot where the main character struggles to defeat their opponent, gets mentored by a more experienced character, and slowly gets better until they win the high-stakes competition. But it's the third act and the plot needs to hurry up, so they just have Pipp (a pop star) spout a few platitudes about feeling the music mere seconds before the third and final round starts, and Sunny instantly wipes the floor with the pony who owns the arcade machine.
• Creator Cameo: The movie's director, Rob Cullen, plays the guy who says "My name's Rob" in "Danger, Danger".
• Cut the Juice: Hitch shuts down the runaway Canterlogic demo by pulling the power plug.
• Decade Dissonance: Maretime Bay and especially Zephyr Heights have developed technology comparable to present day-Earth, whereas Bridlewood is still stuck with Bamboo Technology.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Sunny's father is shown to believe that the three races can be friends again and instilled those values into his daughter. So of course, of the two parents we see, he isn't around in the present.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • After Sunny interrupts the Canterlogic demonstration, Hitch levies this trope at her for not providing any proof the other races are harmless.
  • For all Sunny's talk of the three races uniting, it never occurred to her that there is a third crystal for the Earth Ponies.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage:
  • During the brief clip of Queen Haven showering, she sings "Keeping the Queen clean..." to the exact same tune as the Title Theme Tune of the My Little Pony franchise.
  • While visiting Izzy's home, Sunny fiddles with a hoof-cranked musical instrument that plays the Title Theme Tune.
• Disappeared Dad: Sunny's father is heavily implied to be dead during present day. Zipp and Pipp's father is never brought up, nor is Sprout's father.
• Disastrous Demonstration: Sunny ends up butting into a demonstration of the anti-unicorn/anti-pegasus defenses being shown off by Phyllis Cloverleaf, which gets her caught in a trap and then pelted by slime balls until Hitch manages to pull the plug.
• Dismantled MacGuffin: Sunny discovers in Zephyr Heights that there are two crystals — one on the queen's crown and another in the possession of the unicorns — which she believes will bring back magic if reunited. It turns out the earth ponies also have a crystal, but The Power of Friendship is needed to power all three.
• The Dissenter Is Always Right: Sunny and her father Argyle are the only ponies in Maretime Bay that don't think unicorns and pegasi are evil monsters. Campaigning for peace between the tribes makes Sunny into a pariah, and when she sticks to her guns and helps the unicorn Izzy escape, a criminal. Despite this, she's proven completely right over the course of the story, making friends with other pony races and helping to bring magic back to Equestria as a result.
• Distant Sequel: The movie takes place long after the Mane Six are no longer around. In the film the events of Friendship is Magic are described as "Ancient Equestria" in-universe, implying that a very significant amount of time has passed since the Mane Six had any influence. The time gap is further underscored by the fact that ponies are using modern technology that didn't exist in Friendship is Magic.
• Diving Save: During the climax, Queen Haven pushes Alphabittle out of the way of Sprout's war machine when it backs up, saving both him and the critters he was trying to shield from the splatapult.
• Door Focus: When Sunny first leaves her house for her demonstration, her closing the door knocks a nearby picture of her and her dad askew. The camera lingers on the door for a moment, after which it cracks open and Sunny's hoof pops back through to right the picture.
• Double-Meaning Title: "New Generation" refers to how Sunny, Izzy, Hitch, Zipp, and Pipp are a new generation of ponies akin to the Mane Six that will spread the Magic of Friendship around Equestria, and also how this is a new generation in the My Little Pony franchise.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: It takes a lot of effort and hardship, but by the end Sunny manages to bring back magic with the help of her new friends and even becomes an alicorn, allowing her to use the magic she brought back.
• Eats Babies: During her "Fit Right In" song, Izzy mentions that Pegasi are thought to eat their young.
• Ear Worm: "Glowin' Up" is considered catchy. When Hitch first hears the song, he immediately starts swaying his flanks to the song.
• The Eeyore: The entire unicorn race has become this since the loss of their magic, with the unicorns of Bridlewood being shown listlessly going about their lives with no enthusiasm or joy. Izzy and Alphabittle seem to be the only exceptions until the end of the movie when The Magic Comes Back.
• Establishing Character Moment: The opening has Sunny, Hitch, and Sprout as foals playing with Mane Six figurines. Sunny wants to portray them accurately as friends, showing her ardent belief in unity. Sprout wants to portray the unicorns and pegasi as villains, showing he's a bully who embraces his mother's prejudices. Hitch tries to make peace without taking a side, showing he's less about fearing other ponies than just preventing unrest.
• Epic Fail:
  • Sunny's attempt to hijack the CanterLogic Annual Presentation into an activist demonstration goes about as wrongly as possible. It starts with Sunny replacing a test dummy with herself and being subjected to various indignities, including having her sign and costume stolen, briefly being trapped in a "unicorn containment device", and finally being flung around the room from a wire as a splat-a-pult pelts her with green goop. Depressingly, after all that, when she manages to deliver her message of unity anyway, the audience fully rejects it, leaving her dejected, embarrassed, and chewed-out by Hitch.
  • The Caper the Mane Characters attempt to get the pegasus Crystal from Queen Haven goes off almost perfectly until it is derailed by Cloudpuff and Hitch. This starts a chain of pratfalls which not only nearly leads to the pegasus Crystal being lost, but also reveals the pegasus royal family can't really fly and they have been deceiving their own subjects with wires and trick lighting, leading to Queen Haven being immediately overthrown by her own subjects and her daughters Zipp and Pipp becoming fugitives from their own people.
• "Eureka!" Moment:
  • At first, the two crystals Sunny and her friends find don't seem to work. When she returns home dejected, her attempt to clean out her childhood toys and art leads her to discover a third crystal needed.
  • When her second attempt to unite the crystals fail, she comes to a realization: it was never the crystals that needed to be reunited, but the three pony species. They all needed to overcome their prejudices and come to an understanding, which turns out to be the trigger needed to activate the crystals and restore Equestria's magic.
• Evil Reactionary: Sprout fits this description to a tee, as he is shown to be extremely bigoted towards unicorns and pegasi, especially towards the end of the film.
• Exact Words: A lyric in "Glowin' Up" is 'we don't fly like we used to' — the implication being, given the rest of the song's motivational tone, that the audience have found a different way to fly.
• Fake-Out Opening: The opening sequence shows the Mane Six of My Little Pony Generation 4 in a 2D animation style, just about to set off on another adventure... when Rarity abruptly says she'll "fry brains" because she's a unicorn, revealing that the whole thing is actually Sunny, Hitch, and Sprout as foals playing with some toys of the Mane Six.
• Fake Wizardry: The royal family of Zephyr Heights uses wires and strategic lighting to make it appear as if they can still fly, to provide a small sliver of hope for the grounded pegasi.
• Fan Community Nickname: In-Universe; Pipp, who's an Idol Singer and social media influencer as well as a princess, addresses her fans as "Pippsqueaks".
• Fantastic Racism: The three pony breeds of Equestria now live separately from one another, and each sees the other two as being hostile and dangerous, to the point that seeing even one pony of a different breed is cause for panic. Earth ponies seem to be the most fearful, probably driven by CanterLogic's business model. There is plenty of racist propaganda being taught as historical fact. In particular:
  • Earth ponies are perceived as being lazy and stupid and smelling like rotten fish.
  • Pegasi are seen as violent brutes who attack and kidnap ponies from above.
  • Unicorns are thought to read minds, zap ponies' brains with their horns, and use their magic in mysterious evil ways.
    Izzy Moonbow: I thought earth ponies were the pony ladder's bottom rung. I heard the pegasi were brutes you'd hate to be among. [To Sunny and Hitch] You smell like fishes, [to Pipp and Zipp] you're vicious, I bet you eat your young! Meet any one of you, the thing to do is run away!
• Fantasy Helmet Enforcement: When she's rollerskating, Sunny wears a helmet adapted to fit an equine head.
• Faux Horrific: Adorable, friend-seeking, and cheerful Izzy Moonbow is treated by the earth ponies like an evil fiend. Justified, considering the incredible Fantastic Racism that now divides the tribes.
• Final Solution: Sprout's main plan is to eliminate all unicorns and pegasi from Equestria, which is basically ethnic cleansing.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: In "Glowin' Up", Pipp sings "we don't fly like we used to", minutes before it's revealed she also lacks flight.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Sunny wears both a cardboard unicorn horn and pegasus wings while playing with her father, wears another set when she sneaks onto the CanterLogic presentation stage, and gets metal ones (intended for a test dummy) stuck onto her during the demonstration. She eventually becomes an alicorn and manifests a Hard Light horn and wings.
  • During "Gonna Be My Day", Sunny skates right up to the edge of the sea and stares at the horizon. However, her eyes are also pointed directly at the top of her lighthouse, symbolizing that her journey will end where it began.
  • When Hitch appoints Sprout as temporary Sheriff so he can go after Sunny and Izzy, he says, "Just try not to start a war while I'm gone, okay?" That is exactly what Sprout does after going Drunk with Power.
  • Once Hitch realizes that Pipp and Zipp are princesses, Zipp jokingly remarks, "The Sheriff just became a detective." She eventually becomes one herself in the follow-up series Make Your Mark, investigating the properties of Equestria's newly returned magic.
  • In the defunct waystation in Zephyr Heights, Sunny finds a poster of her hometown, with her lighthouse home prominently featured, which she takes as proof that the three races used to live in harmony. It also hints that her home is far more important than she realizes, which is proven when it turns out to have the third crystal and a setting meant to hold all three of them.
  • The stained glass windows depicting the pegasus and unicorn crystals have a gap between them sized to fit a third one, and Sunny stands in that gap at one point. Later, it's revealed that a third crystal representing the earth ponies is needed to complete the spell. The credits fill in the gap with a third window honoring them.
  • The pegasus and unicorn in the windows are also depicted with glowing wings and a glowing horn. When Sunny becomes an alicorn, she gains wings and a horn made from magical energy.
  • Izzy uses her horn to poke open an airborne can of baked beans when Sunny first meets her. She later brings down a huge tree in exactly the same way.
  • After Sunny's protest at Canterlogic, Hitch asks her, "What did you think was gonna happen? You give a little speech, and what? Everypony just magically welcomes unicorns and pegasi into Maretime Bay?" This is exactly what happens after Sprout wrecks Sunny's house.
  • In the opening, Hitch prioritizes quelling the hysteria threatening ponies' lives over subduing Izzy. This is one of several hints showing the kind of cop he is.
  • The crystals are all valued by their owners, who similarly come to value the peace that the crystals represent.
  • "Feeling Pinkie Keen" is made a retroactive example of foreshadowing. In that episode, Twilight makes it clear that magic is the unicorns' science; it's how they explore and make sense of the world. So when the unicorns forget what magic truly is, they degrade into superstitious, willfully ignorant people.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • Sunny's house is full of FiM references. As we sweep on a shot of Argyle, we see a map of Equestria from G4, then a picture of the Chest of Friendship, what looks to be Grogar's bell next to a painting of Starswirl the Bearded before landing on a shot of what looks to be a small fossilized dragon's claw print. And that's just one shot.
  • According to her calendar, Sunny does yoga. We can only wonder how well she performs the horse pose.
  • Close examination of Sprout's desk shows that he doesn't have a name plate. Instead, he has a folded piece of paper with "deputy" misspelled as "depooty" on it. He also has a "Customer of the Month" award from the local pizzeria on the wall.
  • During Sprout's song, a pony is reading a newspaper with an article about the earth pony who floated away during the CanterLogic demonstration.
  • Inside the abandoned balloon station, the departure board lists its destinations as: "Bridlewood", "Maretime Bay", "Zephyr Heights", "Neighagara", "Manehattan", "Regional", "Regional", and "Mt. Equ" (presumably "Equus" or "Equine").
  • In Zephyr Heights, during the breaking news story about the pegasus royal family being unable to fly, the bulletin hoofed to the newspony does actually state that "Queen Haven has been arrested for being a phony pony full of baloney".
  • During "Fit Right In," Izzy eats from a box of Grinded Pony Hooves, labeled as being a source of vitamins and fiber and containing 100% whole grain as the first ingredient.
• Friendship Song: Looking Out for You is a duet sung by Sunny and Izzy affirming their newfound friendship and how on their journey they promise to keep each other safe.
• Funny Background Event: When Sunny and Hitch are doing their hoofshake, the two seagulls that are following Hitch around can be seen mimicking it after a slight delay.
• Future Imperfect: The time of Twilight Sparkle and her friends was so long ago that nopony really knows what it was like and even Argyle, a pony who spent his life researching ancient Equestria, is wrong about a few things.
• Future Slang: The language has largely stayed the same since the time of Friendship is Magic, but there is one change in the slang; Izzy once uses the word "steed" when talking about herself and "steeds" when talking about herself and other ponies.
• The Genie Knows Jack Nicholson: Sprout's war machine sports an EU licence plate (country abbreviation: PN^note which, in Real Life, used to correspond to Britain's Pitcairn Islands) complete in iconic FE-Schrift.
• Genki Girl: Izzy Moonbow is extremely cheerful, active and upbeat, and never flags in enthusiasm even in the most tense or dangerous situations.
• Gilligan Cut: Hitch admits that a unicorn forest sounds kind of magical. Cut to a gloomy forest framed by various forms of "Keep Out" signs.
  Hitch: Or not.
• Go Through Me: Phyllis plants herself in the way of "Sprouticus Maximus" in an attempt to get Sprout to stop his rampage. He just swerves around her and crashes the rig into Sunny's home, collapsing it.
• Grail in the Garbage: While the pegasus crystal is the centerpiece of Queen Haven's crown, the unicorn crystal is part of Alphabittle's collection of odds and ends in a tea shop in Bridlewood, kept only because of his fondness for crystals. The earth pony crystal is also this; Argyle built it into Sunny's lamp, seemingly just because of the light show it puts out whenever it's given a light source, with no indication that he ever understood its purpose.
• Greater-Scope Paragon: Princess Twilight Sparkle, Sunny's direct predecessor as The Hero, fits this trope perfectly, as though she's nowhere to be found and is barely mentioned, not only does her Cutie Mark form the Arc Symbol but rediscovering her teachings about the Magic of Friendship form the key to restoring magic to Equestria.
• Hamster-Wheel Power: The Just Prance game played by Sunny and Alphabittle is powered by a pair of armadillos running on a wheel behind the cabinet.
• Happy Ending Override: Downplayed. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic ends with Twilight Sparkle and her friends turning Equestria into a Utopia after uniting all equine and non-equine races and succeeding the throne from Princesses Celestia and Luna. Sadly not only did this utopia not last, but Equestria has now lost its magic due to division and conflict between the once-united races. However, it's also revealed that Friendship is Magic happened so far in the past as to be ancient history, rather than instantly being overridden, with the lessons learned back then having since been lost to time.
• Hard Truth Aesop:
  • Sometimes, you will need to stand against your own people for what is right, and do questionable things to achieve a greater good. For Sunny and her companions, their quest to bring back magic and unity to the three tribes of Ponykind forces them to stand in opposition against their own town/kingdom/forest, or steal needed artifacts from their present owners.
  • Even actions made with the best of intentions could potentially backfire and make things worse. Izzy's goodwill visit to Maretime Bay ends up causing a panic and leads to the rise of a paranoid dictatorship under Sprout. The Zephyr Heights Royal Family faked flying with wires and lighting to give their flightless pegasi subjects hope, but when they are exposed it leads to their subjects overthrowing them and losing all hope and trust. Sunny nearly loses heart in her mission later in the film partly as a result of her realizing that her attempts to bring back magic and the three tribes back together have only driven them further apart.
• Heroic BSoD: After the gemstones fail to work, Sunny gives up on believing in the return of magic and friendship and tosses her father's lamp and Mane Six memorabilia away.
• Hero Stole My Bike: Sprout takes a kid's skateboard during his attempt to pursue Sunny to the Canter Logic factory.
• Hiding Your Heritage:
  • Hitch disguises himself as a pegasus in order to get into Zephyr Heights.
  • Sunny, Hitch, Pipp and Zipp have to wear fake unicorn horns (as well as the latter two concealing their wings) to keep from freaking out the unicorns in Bridlewood.
• History Repeats: Ponies have once again become segregated into tribes of unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies, with each believing the same insulting stereotypes about the other two. Once again they go in search of MacGuffin hoping it will solve the problem ^note  the three crystals here, and the Elements of Harmony before only for them to not work until The Power of Friendship causes them to activate, and restores harmony once again.
• In Case of X, Break Glass: Mounted next to the front door of Hitch's office is a big red button with a glass cover, intended to be used for setting off an alarm if any unicorns attack the town. Hitch does exactly that when Izzy arrives in Maretime Bay.
• Inventional Wisdom: One CanterLogic product is a set of goggles with lenses angled upwards like a periscope, allowing the wearer to see any pegasi in the air. The flaw in this design is immediately made apparent when the pony modeling them falls off the stage because he can't see where he's going. Similarly, the balloon escape system doesn't have a means of descent for the unfortunate pony who gets to demo it, so he goes right out a window and has to wait for the balloons to lose pressure on their own.
• Irony:
  • In G4, the unicorns are depicted as the most high class of the three tribes; Equestria's capital city, Canterlot, has a mostly unicorn population, and these are mostly depicted as wealthy socialites. Here, the unicorn city of Bridlewood is the least advanced by a long mile; they are almost completely emotionally dead inside and have at best Bamboo Technology, while the pegasus city of Zephyr Heights is a towering metropolis with giant TV screens and social media and the earth pony city of Maretime Bay has movie theaters, factories, giant robots, etc.
  • The pegasi and unicorns are more afraid of each other than they are of earth ponies due to the stereotype of earth ponies (as stupid and lazy) not being as intimidating as the others, but it turns out to be an earth pony who poses the greatest threat.
  • While Sunny finds new friends in Izzy, Pipp, and Zipp, she discovers that her desperate attempt to reunite the three pony species have driven them all further apart when the Pony Crystals they stole don't seem to work. Luckily, her "Eureka!" Moment back home allows her to fix this.
• It Was with You All Along: It turns out that the third piece of the Dismantled MacGuffin was at Sunny's lighthouse home the entire time, built into the little model her father made years ago. Also leaning fully into the trope, bringing the crystals together proves pointless as without the Power of Friendship they are just pretty rocks, and it's not until Sunny gets everyone to become friends again that the crystals reunite and everyone gets their magic back.
• "I Want" Song: Sunny's "Gonna Be My Day", as she vows to reunite all ponykind and have them live in harmony once again.
• It's the Journey That Counts: Subverted. After the crystals fail to work twice, Sunny takes this attitude and says to the assembled crowd that unity between ponies is what really matters. But then it turns out the magical Plot Coupons actually do work, there just wasn't enough love in the air.
• Karma Houdini: The worst thing to happen to Sprout is that his mother dances around giving him approval for the job he did as sheriff. This despite the fact he knocks over a tram and destroys Sunny's house in a completely misguided attempt to incite a war against the other pony tribes.
• Lampshade Hanging: When Alphabittle calls her a little pony, Sunny replies that she is actually of average height for a pony.
• Legendary in the Sequel: The inside of Sunny Starscout's room is full of toys and memorabilia of the Mane Six from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The Mane Six (known In-Universe as the Guardians of Harmony) were heroines who once brought harmony and unity to Equestria in ancient times, played with in that they seem to be very obscure history that many pass off as fairy tales. None of the characters even recognize their ancient god-ruler's cutie mark, just that it's an important symbol of pony unity from ancient Equestria.
• Lighter and Softer: Compared to My Little Pony: The Movie (2017). The settings are friendlier, the stakes are lower, the loss of Equestria's magic keeps the Antagonist Abilities that are prevalent in FiM out of the film, and the heroes aren't constantly pursued.
• Logo Joke: A tennis ball rolls into the Boulder Media logo, in reference to the mileage the image of the tennis ball on Izzy's horn brought to the fans.
• Luxury Prison Suite: Queen Haven has Sunny and Izzy thrown into a "dungeon" that could easily pass for an upscale hotel room or spa with its opulent furnishings and massage chair.

Tropes M-Z

• The Magic Comes Back: Sunny's ultimate goal is bringing magic back to Equestria. At the end of the movie, magic is restored when Sunny convinces the three races to be friends again, The Power of Friendship giving life to the Dismantled MacGuffin.
• The Magic Goes Away: Equestria has lost its magic due to the division between earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns; in practical terms, this has removed the unicorns' spellcasting and the pegasi's ability to fly.
• Magnet Hands: Even more so than in previous generations, as for a majority of the film none of the ponies have access to magic, so objects just seem to sort of stick to their hooves. Averted in the case of the cell phones used by pegasi in Zephyr Heights; they have clips on the back that are designed to fit onto a hoof.
• The Man Behind the Curtain: During Pipp's big concert, Sunny and Izzy go behind a curtain and see the stage hand managing the lights and wires to make it seem like Pipp is really flying. He gets so scared and distracted that it completely disrupts the concert and Pipp gets exposed as a fake flyer.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": The citizens of Maretime Bay gasp, panic and run away screaming en masse when they see Izzy (who is a unicorn). Hitch even screams "UNICORN ATTACK!" when he sees her.
• Meaningful Echo: "We'll do our part, hoof to heart." Sunny and her father say this at the beginning in respect of their goal to bring friendship back to Equestria. At the end, Sunny and her friends say this to signify that they've taken up the goal as well.
• Memento MacGuffin:
  • Even after growing up, Sunny keeps the lamp Argyle built for her on a shelf in her room as a reminder of how much he meant to her. It holds the last crystal in the set of three needed to bring magic back to Equestria.
  • Argyle's journal becomes one of these as well. An ordinary leather-bound notebook stuffed with maps and loose pages — and Sunny keeps it within reach at all times unless it's taken from her. If Zipp hadn't seen Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark on its cover, she never would have joined Sunny's quest.
• Message in a Bottle: Or in the paper lantern in this case. At the start of the movie, Sunny and her father send a message of welcome to the other pony races, hoping it would reach them. It turns out that it reached a filly Izzy (a unicorn), giving her the motivation to visit Maretime Bay and touching off the events of the movie.
• Messy Hair:
  • Sunny wakes up with a serious case of bedhead before managing to rein it in with some hair ties.
  • After her ruined concert, Pipp has a heavily dishevelled mane when she catches up to the others.
• A Minor Kidroduction: The film opens on Sunny as a filly playing with colts Hitch and Sprout before cutting ahead to her grown up.
• Missing Mom: It is heavily implied that Sunny's father died at some point, but her mother is never seen or mentioned.
• Muggle with a Degree in Magic: Sunny is an earth pony, meaning she won't be able to fly or actively use magic even if it is restored. However, her greatest dream is to bring back Equestria's magic. She has also always dreamed of having a friend who can fly or cast spells (since she cannot herself). Averted at the end once she becomes an Alicorn and gains access to a horn and wings.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The Mane Six from Friendship is Magic are referred to In-Universe as the Guardians of Harmony, which is also the name for a Generation 4 My Little Pony toyline.
  • The G1 show briefly appears on a TV during Sprout's Villain Song. Izzy's explanation of what someone's spark is also one to one what it meant in G1.
• Never Say "Die": It's pretty much all but said that Sunny's father is dead after the Time Skip — he's absent from the story, and is only referenced to through some personal possessions left on a shelf and Sunny talking to a picture of him — but he's never actually identified as deceased.
• Never Trust a Trailer: Promotional materials suggested that Cloudpuff was Pipp's pet. In the movie itself, he's Queen Haven's pet.
• Nice Mean And In Between: The three major earth pony characters, respectively Sunny, Sprout and Hitch. Sunny is the Nice who advocates for friendship with the unicorns and pegasi. Sprout is the Mean who wholeheartedly buys into the propaganda and eventually tries to start a race war. Hitch is the In-Between who does believe the stereotypes, but just wants to keep the safe and civilized status quo but is open-minded enough to reconsider his prejudices upon seeing evidence that they aren't correct.
• No Escape but Down: When Izzy arrives in Maretime Bay and causes the earth ponies to panic and run, a pony screams and jumps down a ponyhole cover. When she tries talking to an ice cream vendor, he jumps off the ledge into the bay.
• No Name Given: The balloon pony is the only one of the gadget models not to be named by Phyllis during the Canterlogic Annual. The credits simply list him as "Balloon Pony".
• Noodle Incident: It's not explained why one of the unicorns' forbidden words is "mayonnaise", but judging from the expression that one makes when Hitch almost says it, it must be pretty bad.
• No OSHA Compliance:
  • The CanterLogic factory's demonstration of anti-unicorn and anti-pegasus devices is "fully automated" and cannot be shut down even when it places a pony in danger, forcing Hitch to pull the plug directly. The factory floor itself is no better, especially once Sprout takes over, with massive chunks of machinery swinging from cranes, hitting other equipment, and missing the workers by inches.
  • The lift platform in the lighthouse has no safety rails and no way to keep a pony from falling through the hole in the floor as it travels to/from the lamp room at the top. Pipp barely escapes serious injury when it drops out under her hooves.
• Not Hyperbole: When Zipp tells Sunny her mother never takes off her crown, she means it; a quick Montage shows Queen Haven wearing the crown while sleeping, showering, and swimming (even putting on a bathing cap over the crown before diving into the pool).
• Not Quite Flight: The pegasi are no longer able to truly fly without magic, though they can still glide by air currents. The royal family has faked being able to fly for generations with wires to keep the hopes of their people up, but when this is revealed, there's immediately a revolution.
• Not What I Signed on For: Played for Laughs. This is Zipp's reaction to the idea that everyone will need a unicorn makeover to get into Bridlewood.
• Odd Name Out: Hitch is the only one in the main group whose name doesn't contain consecutive double letters.
• The One Guy: Of the five ponies that make up the movie's Ensemble Cast, Hitch Trailblazer is the only male.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Hitch wears a false mustache and fake wings to get into Zephyr Heights, and all the main characters wear fake unicorn horns in Bridlewood.
• Parental Bonus: One scene shows the police station has a pin-up calendar of Hitch in different outfits, including a sailor suit and a firefighter uniform, in reference to a very real fundraising tactic first responders — who are generally very fit — engage in. Artist Lea Dabssi tweeted that she tried to keep a "serious look" while consulting a bevy of sexy firefighter calendars for reference. Sprout also lists "a paid-off mortgage" as one of Hitch's good qualities, a joke nobody under the age of 30 would relate to.
• Perfume Commercial: Parfum la Pipp, an artsy-fartsy black and white commercial of Pipp trotting along the beach and smiling at the camera before flying onto an oversized perfume bottle.
  French Narrator: Zis prin-zess smells. So could you.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Hitch's critter "squad" (comprising of two small birds and a crab) are able to topple over the Maretime Bay trolley during "Danger, Danger".
• The Pollyanna: Izzy wanders into Maretime Bay, an all earth pony town, completely oblivious to the enmity a unicorn would face. She even assumes the crowd running away from her in terror is playing hide and seek.
• The Power of Friendship: Sunny is a firm believer in this, hoping that she'll one day see an Equestria reunited. When Sunny convinces everyone to try being friends again, the Dismantled MacGuffin is restored, returning magic to Equestria while also granting her Hard Light wings and a horn by turning her into an alicorn.
• Prejudice Aesop: The pony races' prejudice and bigotry towards each other has led to all magic vanishing from Equestria. Earth ponies have become paranoid militants who scream in horror and deploy dozens of traps and weapons at the mere sight of a young unicorn, pegasi have lost the ability to fly, with the royal family being forced to fake their flight using wires (which does end up getting exposed), and unicorns have turned into a depressed, superstitious lot. The main antagonist, Sprout, is also portrayed as a huge loser in part because of his extreme hatred towards other races, going as far as trying to carry out an ethnic cleansing against them. In the end, the ponies are all shown to be much happier once The Magic Comes Back and they go back to living in harmony.
• "Psycho" Shower Murder Parody: During "Fit Right In", when Hitch mentions how he thought unicorns were violent, Izzy poses behind a shower curtain with (what looks like) a knife. Once the curtain is pulled, it turns out to be just a hair dryer.
• Pun: When Toots says that work at CanterLogic has slowed down due to them running out of rivets, Sprout retorts "Riveting story."
• Punny Name: Those Two Guys who work at CanterLogic are named Toots and Sweets, as in tout de suite.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Sprout's main body coat is red, he starts wearing a black sheriff vest in his next scene after the Angry Mob song, and turns out to be the main Big Bad of the movie after his mother realizes he's going too far.
• Red Is Violent: In the opening, Rarity's magic and eyes go from blue to red as Sprout makes her character act evil.
• Rollerblade Good: Sunny is shown to be quite good at rollerskating.
• Rotten Rock & Roll: "Danger, Danger", the Villain Song sung by Sprout Cloverleaf, has some rocking electric guitar riffs, in contrast to the pop-like songs sung by the protagonists.
• Royalty Superpower: The Royal Family are the only pegasi still capable of flight. Except they're not. They've been faking it all these years with wires and strategic lighting. Zipp reveals this to Sunny and Izzy in her secret hideout, and the whole kingdom finds out when Sunny and Izzy spook the stage hand during Pipp's "Glow Up" performance.
• Ruins of the Modern Age: After freeing them from their cells in Zephyr Heights, Zipp shows Sunny and Izzy an abandoned waystation from old Equestria which confirms to Sunny that the Pony tribes once lived with each other in harmony. It also acts as Zipp's secret hideout where she investigates/practices pegasus flight and gets away from her uncomfortable royal life.
• Running Gag:
  • The picture of Argyle and Sunny needing to be adjusted every time someone walks through the door. Sunny not doing this during her Heroic BSoD when she gets home showcases just how depressed she is that her journey appeared to be All for Nothing.
  • Sprout constantly running into doors or being hit by them.
  • Izzy claiming she's "medium sneaky".
  • The tennis ball stuck on Izzy's horn by the pegasus guards as a "shield" against her magic. It gets left in a fruit bowl in place of an orange she's swiped, thrown at Alphabittle to ward off any spells he might cast, played with by Cloudpuff and a bunch of other critters during the closing credits, and mistaken for a piece of cheese by a winged rat at the very end. It even shows up as a Logo Joke at the start of the film.
  • Sparkle Chaser, the stallion who modeled the Pega-Periscope Goggles during the Canterlogic show. He makes several appearances later on and never removes them, even after Sprout has stopped his attack.
  • The pony who demonstrates the "Earth Pony Balloon Escape Pack" and gets swept out a window. He shows up in the sky during "Looking Out for You," is the subject of a newspaper article in "Danger, Danger," and floats overhead after Izzy cuts down a giant tree so the Mane 5 can reach Bridlewood. He touches down in the last scene of the movie, having missed the whole plot, and screams at the sight of a mixed-race group of friends before the movie smashes to the credits.
• Schizo Tech: Friendship is Magic tended to rely mainly on the ponies using steampunk or non-electronic technologies. However, in this newer version of Equestria, the biggest business in Maretime Bay is CanterLogic, an electronics company similar to Apple. Meanwhile, giant plasma screens adorn the walls of buildings in Zephyr Heights and nearly every pegasus owns smartphones. However, in Bridlewood, they still rely on the steampunk hoof-cranked or even literally Hamster-Wheel Power tech, as evidenced by the arcade game Sunny and Alphabittle dance on.
• Secret Handshake: Sunny and Hitch have one, involving a complicated sequence of hoof gestures in time to a punny rhyme.
  Sunny and Hitch: Up high! Down low! Hitch it to a post! Flip it sunny side up and on a piece of toast!
• Sequel Series: Unlike previous generation shifts in the My Little Pony franchise, this series is set in the same world as Friendship is Magic, only some untold amount of time in the very distant future.
• Series Continuity Error: Despite magic disappearing, things that Friendship is Magic established as reliant on magic, such as the sun and moon moving and cutie marks, are still present without explanation. (The creators stated they didn't have an idea for what happened, so any future explanation will be after the fact.)
• Serious Business: The crime that Queen Haven is arrested and imprisoned for? Being a phony pony full of baloney.
• Shout-Out:
  • The plot is set in motion by a flying lantern.
  • After a Time Skip, our first introduction to adult Sunny is seeing her waking up with messy hair.
  • A Maretime Bay movie theatre has several parody movie posters. One of them, depicting a giant unicorn attacking a swimming earth pony from underwater, is called Horns, and the other one is called Harry Trotter. Another poster is for Dirty Prancing. The headlining film is Judgement [sic] Neigh, although the signage mimics the first film rather than the sequel.
  • Among several of Sunny's notes in the lighthouse includes a card showing one of the G4 rainbow power beams with the words "I want to believe".
  • One billboard in Zephyr Heights advertises a new show, Filly Elliot.
  • Sunny Starscout and Alphabittle are playing Just Prance, with the game machine resembling the one used for DanceDanceRevolution.
  • Sunny and Izzy have a travel montage where the landscape changes around them. The golden tones of the forest background strongly imply that this is a nod to a very similar scene in The Last Unicorn.
  • Phyllis hisses "It's your dessss-tiny" at Sprout. Later, he enters the Canterlogic factory as an imposing silhouette wearing a cape and breathing very heavily. Subverted when he steps out of the shadows and it's revealed he's just sipping a smoothie.
  • One shot during "Danger, Danger" apes the music video for "Seven Nation Army".
  • When chasing Sunny and Izzy, Hitch declares "To the Lighthouse!"
• Something We Forgot: The Balloon Pony was taken away by the wind and passed the whole movie flying in the sky and returned to Maretime Bay at the end, having lost all the events and plot twists. Not much is known about him, but is known that he used to be afraid of pegasi and unicorns, or is he still?
• Spanner in the Works: Cloudpuff and Hitch complicate the plan to take Queen Haven's crystal crown and unintentionally make things worse. After taking the crown and replacing it with a decoy, Cloudpuff notices Sunny and Izzy with the crown and takes it back to Haven, which forces Zipp to chase after him. Hitch enters the palace to arrest Sunny and Izzy and they hide in the control room where they frighten the technician into messing with Pipp's wires, which exposes the royal family's inability to fly.
• Square-Cube Law: It turns out that pegasi can't fly without magic because their wings are presumably too small compared to the rest of their bodies, though they can still glide.
• Stealth Insult: The narrator for Parfum le Pipp says of Princess Pipp, "This pony smells." Not "This pony smells nice", just "This pony smells."
• Stealth Pun:
  • When Sunny asks Izzy to demonstrate unicorn magic using a can of beans, Izzy uses her horn to puncture the can, revealing that unicorns no longer have magic. She spills the beans.
  • When Zipp wordlessly indicates to Sunny and Izzy that they shouldn't acknowledge having met her earlier, Izzy mimes zipping her mouth shut. It counts as a particularly subtle bit of Foreshadowing for Zipp's name, which isn't properly revealed until a few minutes later.
  • The jewel heist would've gone off without a Hitch, if it hadn't been for a certain sheriff.
• Stellar Name: Following in the hoofsteps of Twilight Sparkle, Sunny Starscout certainly counts, as does Izzy Moonbow to a lesser extent.
• The Stinger: Three foals, one from each race, are shown racing across a field, the earth pony is leaving a glowing trail of hoof prints. This is likely a Shout-Out to the fact that in Friendship is Magic, while earth ponies seem mundane, they do in fact have magic as well, albeit much subtler than the other races.
• String Theory: Sunny has set up her own research in the lighthouse with numerous papers, bulletin boards, and the like with various strings to connect the various elements.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • While hunting down Sunny, Hitch launches into the classic "I will not eat, I will not sleep" spiel... then admits that he'll probably have a "quick nap and a snack" if he doesn't find them in a few hours. Even the best trackers need food and rest.
  • During the climax, Hitch thinks it's a good idea to remove the cotter pin holding a spinning Splatapult arm to Sprout's giant robot. The minute the pin is removed, the momentum of the arm sends it flying forward, nearly killing Izzy as it embeds itself into the side of the lighthouse.
    Hitch: Okay, that was a bad idea.
• Symbolically Broken Object:
  • The jewels symbolizing pony unity were separated and scattered long ago as the tribes drifted apart, and bringing them back together is the main driving force of the bulk of the movie.
  • The lighthouse, beacon of clarity and enlightenment in the darkness, torn down by Sprout and his war machine.
  • The broken picture frame of Sunny and her father, which is then fixed by the three leaders of the pony tribes.
• Symbolism: The film has a Running Gag where every time Sunny opens the door to her house, it knocks the picture of her and her father askew. She always straightens it out, symbolizing her constant struggle to set the story straight about her father, and show he was on the level about pony unity. She doesn't bother fixing it when she returns home dejected about her failure, symbolizing her jaded recognition that he was the one with the askew worldview all along. But after the lighthouse is destroyed, the representatives of the three races come together and straighten the shattered picture frame, finally validating him and his teachings.
• Time Skip:
  • Being a Sequel Series, some time has passed since Friendship is Magic. Similar to the Pony Life spinoff series from Generation 4, A New Generation features various forms of technology like cell phones, electronic billboards, and video games. It is unknown exactly the time gap between the two generations, but Generation 4 being called 'Ancient Equestria' implies it is quite large.
  • In the film itself, the first scene shows Sunny's childhood, before cutting to several years later with her now being grown up.
• Title Drop: For the main title of the franchise:
  • Word for word in the prologue:
    Argyle to Sunny: Goodnight, my little pony.
  • Lampshaded on the animation part of the franchise of how it has the ponies be realistically sized by Alphabittle when Sunny challenges him.
    Alphabittle: Big talk for a little pony.
    Sunny: I think you'll find I'm average height.
• Took a Level in Badass: The ponies don't have magic anymore, but they also don't have their ancestors' fear of autonomous nature. It really is all about what you're accustomed to.
• Tragic Keepsake: Sunny keeps her deceased father's glasses and brooch on display.
• Trash the Set: Sunny's lighthouse home is completely destroyed at the end by Sprout's giant mecha.
• Unexplained Accent:
  • The narrator of Parfum le Pipp has a French accent for no other reason than that's the kind of accent you hear in real-world perfume commercials.
  • Rob from "Danger, Danger" (voiced by the film's director Rob Cullen) and the unicorn foal who says "Ooh, you said a bad word!" (voiced by his daughter) have British accents, when none of the other ponies do.
• Unknown Rival: During Sunny's "Gonna Be My Day" song, Sprout tries and hilariously fails to pursue her while Sunny goes through her number, oblivious to his misfortune.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Sunny, Izzy, and Zipp plan in great detail on how to steal Queen Haven's crown to retrieve the pegasus crystal on it. The plan works out mostly in their favor until Hitch and Cloudpuff unwittingly botch the heist and expose the royal family's phony flight.
• Vader Breath: Subverted in one scene where Sprout enters a room while mostly hidden by shadows, making a sound similar to Darth Vader's breathing... but he's actually just drinking a smoothie.
• Villain Song: "Danger Danger", in which Sprout, the main antagonist of the film, organizes an angry mob. He even says "it's all gonna work out painlessly if you follow my orders brainlessly" against the other races of ponies.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • A child Sunny asks "Why can't we be friends anymore?", bringing up the question of what caused the pony tribes to become divided, to which Argyle replies "maybe one day, we'll figure it out." This goes unanswered in the movie which instead focuses on getting the tribes to reunite.
  • Despite it being Pipp and Zipp's reason for sticking with the group, it's unknown if bringing back magic made the pegasi forgive their family for lying about still being able to fly, or if the pegasi still consider them to be royalty. Tell Your Tale shows the pegasi have accepted the family back as their rulers and forgiven them for lying about their ability to fly.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Before Pipp's performance, Zipp gives one to her mother for deceiving their subjects about their ability to fly and how she can't stand the lie anymore.
  • Pipp calls out her sister for abandoning her, which ends up exposing the royals' deception about their ability to fly.
  Pipp: You left me hanging there... in the spotlight. Now, everypony knows we can't fly.
• A Wild Rapper Appears!: Izzy performs a rap break during "Fit Right In".
• Wings Do Nothing: Without magic, pegasi can no longer fly under their own power, though they can glide as long as they have a current. This also means that they can no longer control the weather and live atop the clouds like they used to, resorting instead to living in tall mountains like Zephyr Heights. The same holds true of the winged fauna, like Cloudpuff. The royal family uses wires and special effects to pretend that they can still fly, which ends up getting exposed.
• World-Healing Wave: When the crystals combine, they release a rainbow shockwave which washes over all of Equestria, returning magic to all ponykind.
• Xenophobic Herbivore: The three pony tribes are so fearful of each other that the sight of an outsider can send a whole town into panic.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!:
  • Hitch invokes this verbatim when Sprout intentionally steps into a unicorn trap rather than help him pursue Izzy.
  • Sunny is not impressed that Alphabittle's "ultimate challenge" is a dancing game.
    "A dancing game? Seriously?"

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"Hey, guys. What did I miss?"