Well, this one was a long time coming, especially now with Equestria Girls 3 coming out this september. Everyone knew that Equestria Girls was created by Hasbro to compete with Mattel's Monster High. To better judge the 2 different series, I have taken the time to do some research and watch all the Monster High shorts and movies within my semester break (Yup, great way to spend a holiday......). Anyways, today I will compare them to one another, to be fair, I will only use the movies and not the TV specials for comparison. There is a lot to cover for Monster High so let's start.
Characters
First of all, a little introduction to Monster High so you don't have to do what I did and still be able to keep up. In a nutshell, Monster High is what it is, a high school for the new generation of classic monsters, there are a ton of characters in this series so I will just mention the main characters or the show calls them, "the ghoulfriends" (yes, I know it is ridiculously puny, I can't really stand it either) and you can wiki up the rest if you want to.
Frankie Stein is the daughter of Frankenstein and his bride, created the same way he was. Since she was newly born as a teenager, she was introduced as the new ghoul in school and is often the main focus of the series. She was insanely weird at first because she was the only one who was literally judging the world and how high school works through teen magazines, to give her credit, she was only 15 days old so I won't fault her for that. She later grew into a quirky, yet cheerful and kind character throughout the show, staying optimistic and standing up for people if she needs to. Also, being Frankenstein's daughter, she can take off her stitching and control her hand even when it is detached from her and she has electrical currents in her since that's what keeps her alive.
Clawdeen Wolf is a werewolf from a large family of werewolves, 3 of her siblings have been shown in the shorts and movies. She is confident, outgoing, very loyal to her friends and family and she is surprisingly a fashionista. Being a werewolf, she has the ability to enhance her skills and strengths during a full moon.
Draculaura is the daughter of Count Dracula. She is a vegan vampire and she has typical vampire powers, being able to turn people into vampires, not able to step into sunlight (without a parasol) and being able to turn into a bat. She is obsessed with pink and black and lola style outfits. She has a kind heart but she is also very naive. Also, she is dating Clawd, Clawdeen's big brother which Clawdeen was not happy with at first but so warmed up to it
Cleo De Nile is your stereotypical mean girl but she softens up later on, she is a mummy so she has a ton of ancient artifacts and potions at her disposal but they all have side effects.
Ghoulia Yelps is a zombie so she doesn't really talk, but surprising she is the stereotypical nerd, being insanely smart and a geek. She sometimes also serves as Cleo's servant.
Lagoona Blue is a sea monster from down under, she even comes with a fake Australian accent. She is one of the best swimmers and apparently manages to stay in land through a ton of moisturizers. She is considerate and patient but she is very blunt and puts her foot down when she needs to.
Abbey Bominable is the stereotypical foreign transfer student. She came from the Himalayas and although she was not sure how to act at such a different place, she is slowly adapting.
For all the other characters in the franchise, click here
Story
There are currently 5 Monster High movies out and like in any movie, each one has a different story so I will be summarizing them and listing them in order.In Ghouls Rule, the story focuses on the conflict between the monsters and the humans, which is the first one to show a town full of people. Humans are scared that the monster will attack them while the monsters are afraid that the humans will come after them so the monster are warned to stay inside but Frankie Stein and her friends decide that this Halloween they're going to celebrate their individuality and gain back control of Halloween.
In 13 wishes, Howleen, Clawdeen's little sister, who got tired of being outshined by her older sister finds a lamp and of course, frees and befriends the genie in the lamp called Gigi. Howleen has been granted 13 wishes for her use. But Gigi wasn't the only one released from the lamp as her dark counterpart is also free to try and influence Howleen to wreak havoc throughout the school.
In Fright, Camera, Action, Draculaura, who has been feeling down for not having her full vampire power yet, is told that she is the new queen of the vampires with evidence by the artifact to prove the queen's identity, the Vampire Heart. After going back to Transylvania with some of her friends, she finds out that it was a lie and she is chosen as a puppet to try to separate vampires and other monsters. they then sets out to find the real vampire queen. This one has the most world building as it shows the viewer different parts of their world, Londoom, New Gorerleans, and even Hauntlywood.
In Freaky Fusion, while attempting to help Frankie Stein learn more about her freaky cool scaritage, Draculaura, Robecca Steam, Cleo de Nile, Toralei Stripe, Clawdeen Wolf, Venus McFlytrap, Lagoona Blue, and Jinafire Long travel back in time to the first day ever of Monster High! There, they meet Sparky, a skullastic teen with an obsession for creating life. But when Sparky follows the ghouls through a killer time portal to modern-day Monster High, the event results in eight of them fusing together into four creeperiffic hybrid Monsters. Now, they'll really have to work together to control their bodies in the big Bitecentennial Play with the help of the hybrid students Bonita Femur, Neighthan Rot, Sirena Von Boo, and Avea Trotter (I didn't know how to write for this one so I copied this one from wikipedia).
In Haunted, Draculaura has been haunted (Big shocker there.) and asks her ghost friend, Spectra Vondergeist, who tells her that there hasn't been a haunting in this world for centuries. She seems concerned and she sneaks back to her old school, Haunted High to find out why but her friends manage to follow her. She and the crew soon find out that everyone in school there has been tied to some kind of chain that forbids them from leaving. The crew have to uncover the mysteries and free the students of this school.
The movies themselves are ok but nothing too memorable, if anything, the TV specials are better than the movies, but the funny thing is that none of this affects the later movies or changes anything other than adding a new character so you can watch them on their own without worrying too much about a timeline. However, after watching them I found that the only one I really like was Ghouls Rule for 2 reasons, the first being that it was the one with the greater scale in terms of characters, story and suspense. The second being it was the only one that stood by the original message of the franchise, feel free to be yourself, freaky flaws and all, nobody should judge you just because you're a little different.
Technicals
There is nothing too special about the songs, the animation is very fluent but the choice was kinda weird, the webisodes are in 2D while the TV specials and the movies are in 3D. I couldn't find the reason why so if you can tell me why, I would appreciate that very much. Even so, the character models don't look weird and I think the animators did a great job at it.Morals
With every movie they have something they want to show us, the viewer, Something new to learn or to take out from with this piece of media they have created so let's see how Mattel did with them,
In Ghouls Rule, like I said, it was to accept others, even if they're kinda weird and different. Just because the past says that you are enemies, doesn't mean you can't let bygones be bygones.
In 13 wishes, it was to say that popularity isn't everything if it means pushing the people who care about you away and sometimes compromise with a little understanding and a change of view can go a long way.
In Fright, Camera, Action, it was to show that your destiny and purpose will come eventually and even if you can't solve all your problems at once, time will slowly reveal your answer then you can shine like the stars.
In Freaky Fusion, it was to show that people are different than what meets the eye and how powerful love truly is.
In Haunted, rumors can hurt a lot of people without you even knowing the damage and you can't change what's wrong with you if you never acknowledge your mistakes, and until you do, something inside of you will stop you from doing wrong again.
This is the basics of the Monster High movies, it took a while but I hope it could save you guys a lot more time than I did to make this. I realised that this is way too long to make into 1 whole blog post so I'm going to split this into 3 parts. Anyways, feel free to voice your opinions and thoughts on this, tell me if there is anything I missed.
See you next time.
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