"Equestria Girls" is a spinoff of the popular "My Little Pony" series that's been around since the 80s. In the movie, the lead character goes to magic multicolored high school filled with bright multicolored girls that all look exactly the same. Apparently, putting known cartoon characters in a high school setting is a great way to make money! That's Hasbro's reasoning anyway. So let's take a look at the title sequence.
From a flash/dissolve wipe, we get a kaleidoscope effect with the name of the parent company. "Hasbro Studios" is a "virtual" production company, so it isn't the place that actually does the animation or the voice recording, or any of the "creative" stuff so to speak. The animation for this feature is actually from DHX Media/Vancouver.
From there, we get a rainbow wipe that goes flying by abruptly changing the scene. Producers' names are well presented and legible. We then get a camera pan down to a stylized green hills and trees, where we get the writer credits. The letters tumbling out of the trees are a nice effect, bring movement but still allowing the text to be readable.
We get another camera pan, this time to a castle type setting that I'm sure there's an overpriced playset for somewhere. We get some simple but effective particle effects on the director's credits here. The glowing letters stand out well against the night sky.
Then, all of a sudden, everything gets sucked into a black hole, the kaleidoscope effect returns, and we find ourselves in front of magical horse highschool, being greeted by the main title. The sparkle particle effects abound off of the logo, and we get a quick zoom wipe to actor credits.
The letters on the books are readable, even if they look a little out of place. The tween of the hand taking the book is decent, and the name is well presented.
The words on the ball are at an odd angle, but they're readable. However when the ball is kicked and it turns into an apple, it just looks like a cheap effect and makes the text look cramped and harder to read. Plus, an oddly proportioned apple flying by with an rainbow trail is a bit much, even for this movie.
The letters on the balloon inflating with the balloon might seem like a neat idea, but it doesn't work here. The effect looks poorly done and the text is hard to read. We don't get enough time to focus on it without it moving too much.
This one is much more animation based. It's simple, it works, and isn't too static.
This one is also more animation based. Though the character is moving, he stays at a constant place on screen, and the movement of the surfaces the text is on moves in a cycle making it easy to read.
This last name is pretty bland compared to the others, but we get a nice transition to black with the eye.
From this, we get more particle effects and the main logo again. All in all it's fairly un-remarkable, but the fact that it's in a low budget kids' movie is a nice surprise. The obnoxious dubstep remix going on in the background is campy and lame, but somewhat fitting.
I don't encourage anyone to give this movie a look. It's fun in a "let's riff on a movie" sort of way, but there's little to gain beyond that. The opening titles are quite honestly the best part of the whole thing, so congrats! You just got to see the highlights from "My Little Pony: Equestria Girls"!
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