YMMV / My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Legend of Everfree

• Adorkable: Sunset's Wake Up Fighting after Twilight's Catapult Nightmare has to be seen to be believed.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • The scene where Sunset tells Flash he needs to get over Princess Twilight can come off as either Sunset trying to help Flash through a tough time he is having or her just being rude to him and as sabotaging any hope he has for a long-distance relationship with Twilight. It doesn't help that she doesn't take into account how Princess Twilight might feel about Flash, especially since she and the rest of the Rainbooms seemed perfectly happy for the two of them before.
    • And there's also an alternate interpretation for the above, due to Sunset Shimmer still communicating with Princess Twilight with her journal (it only didn't work in the previous movie due to time-travel shenanigans), Sunset may just known from Princess Twilight she is not, or no longer interested in a Long-Distance Relationship with Flash. It would very OOC for Sunset to sabotage Twilight's relationship, as she is canonically still incredibly grateful towards Twilight. And this would also contradict on how Sunset was especially careful to not inform human Twilight Timber might be a bad guy before she was sure, exactly to not sabotage Twilight's and Timber's relationship.
  • Is Flash really over Princess Twilight or is he trying to get back together with Sunset to help him move on?
  • Timber Spruce. A nice guy with a ironic sense of humor? A self absorbed narcissist? As bland and boring as Flash? Does he really care about the camp, or is Sunset right in thinking he still wants to escape?
  • Derpy for the second time comes to console Flash Sentry when he's rejected. Just a silly Running Gag, or something else entirely?
  • There's the possibility that the Filthy Rich we see through Gloriosa's memories could be a biased figure warped by her own perspective of the events (it helps that she's extremely high on the magic at this point, and has possibly tweaked things in her head to make herself more justified).
• Anticlimax Boss: Gloriosa as Gaea Everfree is defeated mere moments after Twilight ponies up without even putting up a fight. More so after her truly terrifying introduction and display of power against the rest of the Humane Seven.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Filthy Rich's Adaptational Villainy. Fans who support this like that he's finally being given some personality and think it will make for an interesting plot twist outside of the cartoon. Then there are fans who say his characterization is cliché and that his role makes the film predictable. Also, is it too far from his pony self's likeable portrayal in his debut? Or, in hindsight, were fans looking too much into this one-off act that could have had purely practical motives? It doesn't help that the Corrupt Corporate Executive vibe that Filthy is giving is bringing up bad memories of "Root of the Problem". It also doesn't help Filthy Rich seems to be subjected to a case of Designated Villain for some (See below for more details) and as such some fans are having a hard time believing he's an actual villain at all.
  • Timber Spruce, in yet another parallel to Flash; the movie wasn't even out and the base was broken already, with some eager to see his role and others expecting him to be another Flash Sentry. While many like that he has more personality in a few minutes than Flash has had in three movies, others argue that he is still just a Guy of the Week Temporary Love Interest who is unlikely to appear again after the movie, and then there's those who automatically bash the crap out of him for daring to look at Twilight. There is another party that is angry at Timber for basically stealing Twilight from Flash with no effort (though this invokes some unpleasant implications), taking away a chance for Flash Sentry to be happy. And yet another party sees him as a Replacement Scrappy for (again) Flash Sentry, who already qualified as one (although there's been some small efforts to get him Rescued from the Scrappy Heap), but whether Timber is any better, the same or even worse is a subject of debate, although there is more effort to make him more than a Satellite Love Interest, in comparison to his "predecessor".
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Sunset Shimmer reading Pinkie Pie's mind, leading to an over-sugary sequence in her Mental World that is wild even by Pinkie Pie's standards (and even wilder in the novelization). Indeed, it's never mentioned again (except in the Blooper Reel) — although it would be understandable if Sunset Shimmer doesn't want to ever mention it again.
• Broken Base:
  • Human Twilight gets wings when she ponies up, while Sunset does not. Some are fine with this, seeing it as Human Twilight merely emulating her counterpart in Equestria. Some fans were angry because being an alicorn is something one has to earn, and they feel that Sunset has earned it, whereas Human Twilight has not.
  • The movie's Genre Shift from a character-driven comedy/family-friendly film about Friendship to what is basically an over-the-top superhero squad movie didn't sit well with some fans of the previous films, especially Rainbow Rocks. Others simply don't mind the shift and just have fun with it.
  • The relationship between Human Twilight and Timber Spruce. A very cute and well-done attempt at an Official Couple in the series, or a pointless time-wasting romance that doesn't really add anything to the movie besides just being there? Also, is it better than Pony Twilight's relationship with Flash Sentry, just as bad, or even worse?
• Designated Villain: The movie goes out of the way to make us believe that Filthy Rich is a villain, when his only stake in the plot was that he's buying out a property that, for all rights and merits, he is loaning to Gloriosa and gave her a second chance to pay him back. Of course, this trope comes with what amounts to a kneejerk reaction when it comes to Green Aesop stories, and even that is somewhat nuanced; Gloriosa becomes even more of a villain than Filthy Rich by actively hurting people just to preserve her camp. Beyond that, keeping the forest intact (and its relaxing atmosphere) would almost certainly be a vital part of building the spa, rendering the whole Green Aesop implications redundant.
• Die for Our Ship:
  • Timber Spruce follows in Flash Sentry's footsteps, as he and Twilight spend all their time together acting romantically awkward. Some fans who support Flash especially hate him for basically taking away a chance for Flash to get with Twilight, while Sunset Shimmer/Twilight Sparkle fans do not like the competition.
  • Flash Sentry himself got this (again) due to some minor shipping he got with Sunset Shimmer (which is much more pronounced in the novelization), saying that he wants to "start over" with her, even though he said it would be as "just friends". The poor guy just can't catch a break.
• Evil Is Cool: While not as popular as past villains, Gaea Everfree still brings a cool villain to the series. Her great Villain Song, hilarious lines, and Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds backstory help give her her own flair, too.
• Fanfic Fuel: What were Fluttershy and DJ Pon-3 talking about? What does DJ Pon-3's voice sound like? If the EG series gives her a similar treatment as her Core Pony counterpart, the audience will never actually hear her speak.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The background character Valhallen, around since the first film, is a dead ringer for Danny Cooksey's character in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Now, here he is at a dysfunctional summer camp, just like Danny Cooksey's other famous role.
  • Humanoid versions of the Mane Six having powers is nothing new in the fandom. One webcomic, simply called Friendship Is Magic and created long before the first Equestria Girls, focuses on human reincarnations of the girls likewise gaining powers and essentially becoming Magical Girls.
  • The Big-Lipped Alligator Moment of Pinkie's mind when Sunset reads it? One of the covers of the comic book did something similar before the movie came out. Shout-Out to that, perhaps?
  • A fairly obscure one: back when the only information available about the film basically boiled down to the title and "Coming Fall 2016", it was naturally added to Hasbro Studios' filmography on Wikipedia... with the unsourced release date of September 24, 2016. Mind, this was way before the actual release date on Netflix was made public... And before Discovery Kids Brasil confirmed that Legend of Everfree would premiere on September 24 in the region.
• I Knew It!:
  • Many fans had correctly predicted that Human Twilight would suffer nightmares about Midnight Sparkle. And while it's only given a passing reference in the novelization, Sunset Shimmer also suffered from nightmares after what happened at the Fall Formal, which is/was commonly theorized ever since the first film's release.
  • Fans noticed that the brief glimpses of Gaea Everfree in trailers showed her wearing footwear similar to Gloriosa's. Coupled with the fact that Gloriosa is wearing a rather conspicuous necklace with five gemstones colored the signature colors of the Mane Six sans Twilight, many fans put two and two together and guessed Gloriosa was Gaea Everfree, using Equestrian magic fueled by the crystals that were somehow connected to the Humane Seven. They were right.
• Incest Yay Shipping: There is some shipping of Timber Spruce and Gloriosa Daisy, presumably helped by the presence of Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading. It's known as 'pinecest'.
• Les Yay:
  • Sunset and Twilight get a bit of this as Sunset becomes Twilight's confidant on her new and unwanted powers. Sunset is also quite affectionate and touchy around Twilight, several times putting her hand over Twilight's shoulder and pulling her closer. She constantly acts as the socially awkward Twilight's protector as well as helping her with her emotional problems which leads into the climax where Sunset is able to help Twilight accept that she is a good person.
  • There's also a little between Rarity and Applejack. During the battle with Gloriosa, Rarity protects Applejack with her barrier and, sometime after, when she is exhausted and practically fainting trying to hold up the dome shield, AJ holds her gently. In the final song both hold hands in some parts, notable as they are the only two to do so despite "Holding Hands" being a line in the song.
• Memetic Mutation: Sunset reading Pinkie Pie's mind has gotten some of this, with people replacing the canon version with various things.
• Narm:
  • Gloriosa as Gaea is terrifying, but she keeps her upbeat demeanor and catchphrase, leading to some funny moments in her villain entrance.
    Gaea Everfree: I appreciate the offer, Timber, BUT I GOT THIS! [shoots magical beams]
  • The Humane Six's rousing speech to help Twilight overcome Midnight Sparkle and Twilight's subsequent "I Am Twilight Sparkle" line left people either in awe or chuckling. The latter are at the sheer corniness of the scene. The series was known for its sappy moments before, but this one in particular pushes it over the edge of silliness.
• No Yay: Absolutely everything between Twilight and Midnight Sparkle's subtext.
• Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: Sometimes, Gloriosa and Timber seem just a little too close. If it weren't for Timber's blatant crush on Twilight, that Gloriosa clearly doesn't mind, and the fact that they're drawn to be around the same age as the teenage Humane Seven, you'd be forgiven for thinking they're actually a husband-wife team, not a sibling team.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: After two whole films of the Take That, Scrappy! treatment, Flash Sentry is allowed to be much more relatable here, with an actual character arc of learning to get over Twilight. One of the major complaints about the film was that there was ''too little'' of Flash, and some interpretations in the scene where Sunset tells Flash to give up on Twilight actually are going in favor of Flash by making Sunset's actions seem petty.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: The Twilight×Timber romance only helps Twilight's emotional problems temporarily, and has no role in Twilight overcoming her fears, yet takes a visible part of the movie's running time.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Sunset Shimmer, believe it or not, gets a bit of this from Flash×Twilight shippers and fans of Flash, for the fact that Sunset told Flash to give up on Princess Twilight, and/or Sunset not spending enough time and effort with Flash to cheer him up, mainly by making Sunset's actions seem petty, and not considerate of the feelings of both Flash and Princess Twilight. This is ridiculously ironic, seeing the previous (and still existent to a degree) Ron the Death Eater behavior of fans with Flash, as Sunset very likely knows from her communication with Princess Twilight (via magic journal), that pony Twilight is not interested in a Long-Distance Relationship with Flash, and human Twilight's many problems being more serious and in more dire need of treatment than Flash's problems at the time.
  • Other fans (particularly Flash×Twilight and Sunset×Twilight shippers) (the above irony is still applicable), portray Timber as a pedophile (even though the novelization confirmed Timber is not much older than Twilight, that Word of God has given age ranges where the age gap would be two years at worst), or as a sexual predator because of his active flirting with Twilight.
• Squick:
  • A minor case, but many people can empathize with Twilight's reaction from getting a spiderweb in the face.
  • The way Twilight's horn slowly starts growing near the climax looks... kinda gross, to put it mildly. Being coated in what looks like Technicolor Fire and Twilight's apparent pain doesn't help.
• Strangled by the Red String: Depending on who you ask, Human Twilight's romance with Timber Spruce happens just as suddenly as Princess Twilight's relationship with Flash Sentry in the first movie, which isn't helped by the constant Character Shilling Timber goes through in the novel, which was released before the movie. It could be argued that it's greatly mitigated, however, by the writers' efforts to make Timber more than just another Satellite Love Interest by trying to give him more character depth and (debatably) better chemistry with Twilight than Flash.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The first verse of Twilight's solo, "The Midnight in Me" ("But now the darkness rises / From somewhere, deep inside of me"), has almost the exact same melody as "Luna's Future"' from the FiM episode "A Hearth's Warming Tail" ("The future should be full of magic / Dreams and wishes, brought to life").
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Filthy Rich appears in only three scenes, one of which is a flashback. Despite being the Unwitting Instigator of Doom for everything that happens in the film, he's barely in it at all.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • This movie is the first where Flash Sentry acknowledges and ultimately accepts that he will, in all likelihood, not end up together with Princess Twilight (who spends most of her time away in Equestria) and Human Twilight (who is more interested in Timber Spruce). However, this plot thread is only explored for three whole scenes in the movie as a minor subplot.
  • The whole concept (which has only been explored in a book and very briefly at that) of the Twilights meeting and what ramifications that might have is entirely untouched. There could have been at least a gag flashback scene showing the interactions between Princess Twilight and Human Twilight. It is only referenced once at the start of the movie and by Sunset Shimmer as a way of explaining to Human Twilight why Flash Sentry acts strange around her.
• Unexpected Character: In the Blooper Reel, the human Maud Pie shows up without warning, once again, referencing her One-Scene Wonder from Rainbow Rocks in the process.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Filthy Rich is supposed to gain Adaptational Villainy here and be seen by the audience as the bad guy. However not only were some fans upset about this choice given the fact that in the show his character isn't that bad of a person, but many have pointed out that Filthy Rich is no doubt within his legal right to pester Gloriosa given that she has not paid him off yet. He even gives her till the end of the month when he came to collect in a flashback, showing that he can be reasonable. It also doesn't help that meanwhile Gloriosa hasn't done much to earn money and when backed into a corner tries to forcibly trap everyone in the camp and prevent anyone from leaving or getting in. When they do raise enough money to pay Filthy Rich back, he simply accepts the money and does not try and place any charges or pursue legal action against Gloriosa.
• Values Dissonance: While certain cultures wouldn't mind the romance between Human Twilight and Timber Spruce, it's safe to say that American viewers aren't as lax about a teenager and an authority figure coupling, even though the attraction is mutual and they're close in age.
• Vindicated by History: When released, it suffered Tough Act to Follow from the last two movies. But subsequent Equestria Girls media suffered It's Short, So It Sucks! and only rarely doing anything meaningful. The Big Bad similarly came up short compared to the last ones coolness, threat, and redemption. All subsequent villains being widely viewed as tacky, unthreatening and little deserving of their redemptions. This made Legend of Everfree, which as the last full-length movie was able to tell a stronger story and flesh out the villain adequately, better received in hindsight.
• The Woobie:
  • Someone upstairs must have something against Human Twilight Sparkle, as the poor girl turned into this again. The movie opens up with her terrifying nightmare of Midnight Sparkle coming back to take control and destroy everything (special mention: the image of her friends getting vaporized as they scream in terror). After these horrid moments, Spike makes a comment that implies the nightmares are recurring — which gets confirmed later in the film when she has another nightmare. Twilight's biggest enemy in this film is herself: she develops a very unhealthy helping of self-hatred, being terrified that she will turn back into Midnight Sparkle; and it only gets worse when her powers start to manifest, as she then believes that every little unusual event — including her friends' own superpowers — are somehow her fault. She also doesn't do herself any favors by not telling any of the others about this, apparently believing that her new friends (except Sunset) would reject her if she showed signs of regressing into a monster. Like in her debut, things end well for her, but she still suffers quite a bit — and this time it's more or less self-inflicted.
  • Flash Sentry, again, is a more minor example. Human Twilight doesn't show any interest in him and in fact, is a little uncomfortable around him. And worse for him, Twilight falls for another guy during camp. There's also the fact that he, apparently, looks for Princess Twilight in the Twilight of his world, no doubt a source of self-inflicted grief for him. Then Sunset basically tells him he needs to get over Twilight completely. And while he does try getting over Twilight, he also tries restarting his relationship with Sunset by saying they should be friends, which is interrupted by Sunset having more important business to attend to. The poor guy is just getting ignored a lot by girls recently, huh? Though, Human Derpy seems to care about him.
  • Gloriosa Daisy also counts: the camp is her family's business since it was founded by her great-grandparents, making her and Timber Spruce the fourth generation to hold it... And she's about to lose it, as she has fallen in serious debt with Filthy Rich, who naturally hounds her about it. In her desperation to either save the camp or, at least, make the last set of campers they'll host have "the best week of their lives ever", she starts to recklessly use magic in order to bend nature to her will, which not only ends causing more trouble and honestly could've injured somebody or worse, but she then gets Drunk on the Dark Side — turning into a fearsome Well-Intentioned Extremist monster that, again, almost kills or otherwise seriously injures the campers. She regrets this, and the camp eventually gets saved thanks to the help of the Canterlot High students and the previous generations of campers, but not unlike Twilight, her suffering is at least in part self-inflicted.

---