WeirdRaptor's Review of My Little Pony: Rescue at Midnight Castle

Hello, ladies and gentlecolts, WeirdRaptor here. This is my text review of My Little Pony: Rescue at Midnight Castle. In 1984 and 1985, Hasbro worked with Marvel Pruductions and Sunbow Productions to create a pair of half-hour TV special based on their toyline. At this tentative stage, they were simply testing the waters to see if anyone would be willing to sit through a televised program starring the pastel-colored equines running through fields, playing, dancing, singing, and battling the force of Apocalyptic evil. Release April 14th, 1984, it aired in Prime Time.

My Little Pony G1 Cartoons All-Encompassing Review:

Hello, ladies and gentlecolts, WeirdRaptor here. This is my new text review series for the My Little Pony G1 Cartoons. Al inspired me with his reviews, so I am. Now, this is not going to be a rip-off of his work. It will be my own. So let’s get started. This first review is going to critique what I thought of the entire 80s G1 continuity (such as the continuity was) as a whole, and then I’m going to dive into reviewing individual episodes.

Why James Cameron's Avatar Sucks

It's not just that the story is cliched. It's that Cameron didn't even bother trying to put a different spin on it. It is the exact same story of White guilt, tormented natives, and the resulting revolt that we've seen so many times before that it's become tedious. We saw it in Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and FernGully! He plays all the mechanics, tropes, and arcs of the story completely straight and by the book. No effort went into the writing at all. It's all tired cliches, stereotypes, and propaganda. It is the exact same crap that's been rammed down our throats since Captain Planet. In fact, that's exactly what this is. It's an extended Captain Planet episode.

Another thing I hated: demonization of the military, corporations, and humanity as a whole. "We killed our mother" (while disregarding all that's being done to fix it today). Then there's the ax crazy, scared Straw Racist army captain and his band of EVIL soldiers. Having family in the military, I just can't abide some jackass who used to a truck driver painting every man and woman in the armed forces as some rampantly Racist and superior jackass who just loves to shoot and kill. Then there's the sheer hypocrisy of Cameron putting the corporation in a negative light when it is corporate Hollywood who funds his movies. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Also, the story was predictable. It never surprised me or put me at the edge of my seat. I sat through the entire film knowing exactly what was going to happen next almost down to perfect detail. Now, most films follow fairly predictable patterns, but most other films have at least one thing happen I didn't fully foresee. This one...once I knew what a trite snore-fest this was going to be, I might as well have flipped channels because I wouldn't have missed anything by missing it.

Secondly, the gaping plot holes and lapses in logic that defy reason. Why were the Na'Vi never told what the "sky people" wanted? Aren't there laws against how the Na'Vi are treated by the humans? Wouldn't there be union rules, corporate regulations, inspectors, auditors, and supervisors who made sure the operation was run fairly? I mean, that's how we do it now. Why would the prerequisite laws and regulations be null and ignored in the future? Especially in a future where the "earth is dead", despite Jake having served in a jungle meaning the Earth actually wasn't dead. I mean, if we "killed our mother", there'd be laws passed dictating how all businesses would be run, how they would all have to conserve on resources and keep damage to a minimum and that would include the operation at Pandora. This movie ignores how all civilized countries are set up for the sake at taking pot shots at the human race so it can conveniently label us "evil".

On top of that, there's no subtlety. It's all crammed into our faces and nothing is left to viewer imagination. There is no mileage to vary on how each character is supposed to be interpreted. No gray area. This is a story for four year olds, but with a sex scene and brutal violence thrown in. This is a poorly written fairy tale about how the pure, innocent Na'Vi are persecuted by the BIG BAD CORPORATION along with THE BIG BAG MILITARY. The only thing the villains were missing was handlebar mustaches to twirl.

“Cameron had to wait for the technology to catch up with the story” is a joke, and a bad one at that. It’s also a complete fabrication, because this exact story has been told and retold again and again. Nothing about this looks like it would take decades to make. The writing is purely stock and the effects are standard. This could have been in 2000.

The characters were flat, the story was stock, the direction was just decent, the effects were nice but I really didn't care, and the message was condescending and dickish.

Not to mention that in the movie, Earth is in a period of a resource/energy crisis and the atmosphere isn’t even breathable anymore. Unobtanium provides insane amounts of power needs for interstellar travel so that resource extraction and colonization can be possible. And the Earth NEEDS to expand or it will die, so it need the fuel that can be dug up from Pandora. So yeah, Sully told the entire human race to fuck off and essentially condemned them to starving to death, and all for alien nookie. Sully is a dumb, nasty, 12 year old boy.

I saw say nuke Pandora from orbit. No one needs that race of Mary Sues.

Don't like my opinion? Tough shiest.