This movie was directed by Ishi Rudell. Rudell was an animation director for the TV show's first three seasons, as well as for the first Equestria Girls movie. With the second Equestria Girls film (Rainbow Rocks), he became co-director, and with the third movie (Friendship Games), he became the only director of the film. Also now he works strictly on the movies (as far as I know) and not on the show. This episode was written by the team of Kristine Songco and Joanna Lewis, who have written five episodes of the show (Castle Sweet Castle, Rarity Investigates, The Hooffeilds and McColts, Gauntlet of Fire and Top Bolt). This is their first time writing a feature film (My Little Pony or otherwise). This film was storyboarded by Jason Armstrong, Jeff Bittle, Jennifer Davreux, and Gloria Jenkins. None of them have worked on the TV show or the previous features.
The story is fairly simple, and even though there is a villain, this is far from the focus of the film. The movie rather revolves around the characters. This works so well because these are such great characters. One thing I love about these films is that the human characters are not just carbon copies of their pony counterparts. Instead they are similar, but fully fleshed out and different characters. This is most obvious with Twilight, but is true of all of them. Speaking of Twilight, this character couldn't be written better here. She is a fully relatable and far from two dimensional character here. She has what makes her pony counterpart such a great character, but still has much of her own personality separate from the TV series. Her problem in this movie is something I think many of us can relate too. Also although we have not seen Sunset on the show, she has proved a great part of these movies. She is a fascinating and very enjoyable character, something she remains here. The only big problem with this movie is the villain (who is kind of bland), but again this plays too small of a role to hurt the movie much.
The songs here are quite good as well. I have stated before that I think, Daniel Ingram can write great country music melodies and that is shown to fully effect in this film. Also Kristine Songco and Joanna Lewis' lyrics don't hurt at all.
This is a fantastic movie, and the second best of the series. If the quality can maintain like this I would not object to many more Equestria Girls films in the future.
-Michael J. Ruhland
