Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony: NR #37

As you may or may not know, I am a brony, also know as an adult fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Others might say I'm also known as a deviant or gay. While I do understand why people look at it in that way, I also wish there was a way I could convince people that it's not as weird as it sounds. I tried with an article on it, and while it has the most views out of anything I've ever written, I feel it's not my best work. Since then I've been trying to redo it to no avail. Then, just last weekend, a documentary was released to the public, a film I had been following with intense anticipation. It's a documentary made to put the brony community in a good light and introduce the fandom to the average person. It was funded by bronies, even gaining more money they could have ever dreamed, and finally released. Does it accomplish its job? Let's find out in my review of...

Rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?

PLOT
In 2010, "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" premiered on television and soon started to gain a large and unexpected fanbase of adults, specifically adult men. "Bronies:  EUAFMLP" Sets out to show the good sides of the fandom and follows seven different bronies from around the world on their quest to go to their respective My Little Pony conventions.



PROS
The film's goal is to try and explain the brony phenomenon to the general public, and in my opinion it succeeds. It tries to find the diversity in the community and shows different types of people with different backgrounds all uniting under one show. It goes very far into the fandom, at least far enough so they can keep the film family friendly.

The film doesn't try to say this is normal and addresses the weirdness of the situation, which I'm thankful for. It would have been just awkward if they just automatically accepted it and moved on, but they don't, they address the strangeness head on and never back down.

All of the people they decide to follow are all very interesting in their own right and are fun to follow around. They all are, once again, unique and come from different backgrounds, which gives the film variety.

There are a number of sections of an original animated musical made specifically for the film that are fun and do a good job at getting some of the explanations out there in a fast but understandable manor. Also we get to see a ponified John de Lancie sing, and I mean, who doesn't want to see that?

While this film may not have been made for only the bronies, it has a ton of fun and clever references to the community that thankfully don't get in the way of the message or pacing of the documentary.



CONS
The film's original title was "Bronycon: the Documentary" because it was going to focus exclusively on said convention, but once they raised almost $350,000 for a film whose goal budget was much less than that, they decided to expand it to other conventions and places around the world. Sadly, this sudden larger scale  hurts the film. It feels too big and doesn't show some people as often as it should. There's a lot of times in the middle where it becomes all about "Bronycon" and not about the bronies themselves. It also focuses on seven people, so some don't get as much screen time as the others and you forget that some were even in the film.



CONCLUSION
Now, since I am a brony, I already have a bias towards this, but I also feel this allows me to be more harsh on the film if it doesn't represent the community in a good way. I'm happy to say that this documentary does a great job at portraying its message and in my opinion accomplishes its goal. Now I have yet to show it to a non-brony, so I don't know how they'll react to it, but I still feel this is the best way to explain the fandom to those not as keen on the idea of grown men watching technicolor ponies. Overall it's a great film for not only the bronies, but for the uninitiated as well.

DISCLAIMER: This film is only available for digital download at this website here, but don't worry, it's a reliable website and it's cheap. Also the DVD and Blu-ray release is sometime in February, and the team is currently trying to get the film on services like iTunes and Netflix. So if you want to watch the film. that website is the only way, at least for now.


RATING
WALK TO

If you liked this review, why not check my out the last review I did? http://newandclassicreviews.blogspot.com/2013/01/i-saw-devil-vhs-double-review-cr-26-27.html

And if you want to check that article I mentioned, here it is (WARNING, it's not that good): http://newandclassicreviews.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magicwait.html

Wanna know what my favorite movies of last year were? Well here they are! http://newandclassicreviews.blogspot.com/2012/12/my-top-10-movies-of-2012.html