My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Spring Breakdown is a 2019 animated one-hour television special which is a part of Hasbro's My Little Pony: Equestria Girls toyline and media franchise, itself a spin-off of the 2010 relaunch of the main My Little Pony toyline. The special was animated using Adobe Animate, written and edited by Nick Confalone, and directed by Ishi Rudell and Katrina Hadley, and was produced by DHX Media's 2D animation studio in Vancouver, Canada for Allspark Animation (a Hasbro subsidiary) in the United States. Premiered on Discovery Family (a joint venture between Discovery, Inc. and Hasbro) on March 30, 2019, it is the third one-hour Equestria Girls special, following Forgotten Friendship (2018) and Rollercoaster of Friendship (2018), and preceding Sunset's Backstage Pass (2019), and Holidays Unwrapped (2019).
| My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Spring Breakdown | |
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| Written by | Nick Confalone |
| Directed by |
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| Starring | |
| Composers | William Anderson Jessica Vaughn, Jess Furman, and Ethan Roberts (song) |
| Country of origin |
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| Original language | English |
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| Producers |
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| Editor | Nick Confalone |
| Running time | 44 minutes |
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| Original release | |
| Network | Discovery Family |
| Release | March 30, 2019 |
Plot
editThe students of Canterlot High are on a cruise ship, excited for spring break. They all want to relax, except for Rainbow Dash, who fantasizes about fighting evil Equestrian magic. The others are not so keen and split up to pursue their own interests. Rainbow Dash, in her excitement to convince the others to look for danger with her, inadvertently ruins their fun. After a conversation with Trixie, Rainbow Dash gets the idea of attempting to attract danger using the girls' Equestrian magic. She suggests that during the show they were scheduled to put on, they "pony up". Despite this, the others are still not so keen, annoyed at her for ruining their fun. However, during the show, the girls "pony up" anyway. Suddenly, a storm rolls in and a power outage occurs on the whole ship. Rainbow Dash is keen to blame this on evil magic and tries to convince the others to support her search, however, they decide to split up and work rationally.
Rainbow Dash is left alone on the deck and sees a strange light in the ocean. She quickly forces the girls to join her and relays the information to them. However, as she has now ruined their fun for the second time and has been on the lookout for evil the whole time, the girls don't believe her.
The next day, Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer go to look for Rainbow Dash, only to discover that she has left the cruise on a lifeboat to try and find evil on her own. After telling the others about the situation, Twilight and Sunset decide to follow Rainbow Dash onto a remote island, where they find her stuck in quicksand. While attempting to save her, they are attacked by a plant monster. Sunset senses Equestrian magic in the sand pool and pushes Rainbow Dash under the sand, before jumping in with Twilight. The sand turns out to have been covering a portal to Equestria. Turned into ponies, Sunset and the others sneak into Ponyville to find Princess Twilight Sparkle.
At the same time, Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Rarity are still on the cruise, trying to survive the storm, until the ship runs aground on a reef near the island. Unaware of the danger their friends are in, Sunset, Twilight and Rainbow Dash are catching up with Princess Twilight, who shows them an artifact from her battle with the Storm King. Rainbow Dash recognizes his symbol as the one she saw in the sea earlier. Realizing the danger their friends are in, Princess Twilight sends them back to the parallel world with the Storm King's staff, which Twilight, Sunset and Rainbow Dash use to get rid of the storm. However, the ship is still sinking and the people on it are still in danger.
The girls reunite and together rescue the people from the cruise, bringing them to the island. Now stranded, Sunset comes up with the idea to bring them all home via the portal to Equestria. In the end, everyone from the cruise, now ponies, enter Princess Twilight's castle and ask for her help.
Cast
edit- Ashleigh Ball as Rainbow Dash and Applejack
- Rebecca Shoichet as Sunset Shimmer
- Tara Strong as Twilight Sparkle and Princess Twilight Sparkle
- Andrea Libman as Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy
- Tabitha St. Germain as Rarity
- Cathy Weseluck as Spike the Dragon
- Kathleen Barr as Trixie Lulamoon and Puffed Pastry
- Jason Michas as Ragamuffin
Production
editAccording to co-director Katrina Hadley, Spring Breakdown was split into six parts instead of the usual five from the past two specials, with each part having an approximate runtime of seven minutes and thirty seconds, and that "there will be no cut scenes as each part was timed and cut to be reassembled for broadcast on TV without losing any content."[1]
Marketing
editA teaser trailer for the special was shown at the 2018 My Little Pony San Diego Comic-Con panel.
Release
editSpring Breakdown premiered on Discovery Family (a joint venture between Discovery, Inc. and Hasbro) on March 30, 2019. On YouTube, My Little Pony's official channel has uploaded the special into six parts. Its first episode was uploaded on April 12, 2019 and its last episode on May 17.
References
edit- ^ Hadley, Katrina [@isitlunchyet_t] (March 29, 2019). "I assume it will. We split them into 6 parts this time around, all running approximately 7 minutes and 30 seconds. There will be no cut scenes as each part was timed and cut to be reassembled for broadcast on TV without losing any content" (Tweet). Retrieved March 29, 2019 – via Twitter.