My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks
| My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks | |
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| Directed by | Jayson Thiessen Ishi Rudell |
| Written by | Meghan McCarthy |
| Based on | My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Series Developed for Television by Lauren Faust |
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| Starring | |
| Edited by | Rachel Kenzie |
| Music by | William Kevin Anderson |
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Running time | 70 minutes |
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| Language | English |
| Box office | $347,511 (Finland, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and Uruguay) |
My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks, known simply as Rainbow Rocks, is a 2014 animated fantasy musical film which is a part of Hasbro's Equestria Girls toy line and media franchise, which is a spin-off of the 2010 relaunch of the main My Little Pony franchise. The film was animated using Adobe Flash, directed by Jayson Thiessen and Ishi Rudell, written by Meghan McCarthy, and was produced by DHX Media's 2D animation studio in Vancouver, Canada for Hasbro Studios in the United States, as a sequel to the 2013's Equestria Girls film. The film premiered in select theaters across the United States and Canada on September 27, 2014, which was followed by broadcast on Discovery Family, a joint venture between Discovery, Inc. and Hasbro, on October 17, 2014, and then a home media release on October 28, 2014, by Shout! Factory.
Like the first film, Rainbow Rocks re-envisions the main characters of the parent franchise, normally ponies, as teenage humanoid characters in a high school setting. Set between the fourth and fifth seasons of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, the film's plot involves Twilight Sparkle returning to Canterlot High School in the parallel world to compete in a Battle of the Bands alongside the counterparts of her friends – including former school bully and former student of Princess Celestia, Sunset Shimmer – to save the school from a trio of sirens from Equestria.
The film received generally positive reviews from critics, who described it as "far superior" to the first installment. It was followed by two sequels, Friendship Games and Legend of Everfree.