Now Available to Own on DVD
Jealous that the brown button she was using for her design gave Cheerilee the winning edge in the Winter Wishes Festival competition, the impatient and out-of-character Scootiloo gets revenge by interrupting Twinkle Wish Wishing Star's "cutie sleep" and disaster strikes.
No, it's not an episode of Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn's Project Runway but the latest full-length animated adventure in Hasbro, Inc.'s My Little Pony series from Shout! Factory.
Remembering the importance for holiday DVDs not to only target specific religions or be too fixated on one celebration in particular, the brightly crisp pastel palette used in the animation assists in the underlying Pony message of girl power, friendship, and teamwork as the ponies gather to find the vanished Wishing Star and save the festival for winter.
Along the way, they realize that it's necessary to put their own egos aside to help out each other when it's revealed that the Wishing Star can only grant one wish per pony. And some are selfless in ensuing that one pony who's terrified of the dark would be given a pink sparkling nightlight in order to sleep.
Similar to the great new line of Lionsgate Care Bear titles that have updated the Generation X favorites for the better, I was delighted to discover in this review screener that the newest My Little Pony Adventure didn't make any changes in the franchise to spoil it for those who like myself grew up with the ponies and/or are eager to share the characters with young girls today.
Despite this, the DVD set-up was slightly inconvenient as I wasn't sure why the film opened with a separate animated short roughly five minutes long-- as a thematic prequel--instead of just linking it all together with the nearly forty-five minute main presentation. While it may confuse viewers by repeating the opening and closing credits three times, the new cover of the theme song is catchy but should definitely come with a warning that it will stay in your head as it's there right now as I write this several days after screening the film. Yet music is a great deal of the charm as kids can explore six sing-along songs and a bonus cartoon of "Elefun and Friends."
Although obviously this aspect should be supervised by a parent or guardian, the disc additionally appeals to the young computer savvy market, by including download-ready coloring sheets. Likewise tying into the holiday theme, the downloads also offer ornament cut-outs and a quartet of additional activities on the DVD packaged in a beautiful box (with no brown buttons!) that looks as though it could be a new My Little Pony toy with gorgeous glittering, sparkling pink-centric color and two ponies on raised cardboard that appear to be looking directly at their young fans. While the multi-colored hair and pastel attire of the ponies may be a fashion "don't," the film itself is definitely a wholesome "do" for young girls to enjoy.
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