A Brony Tale (2014) Online

The title of this film should have been, Ashleigh Ball: Attention Whore and other losers. It seems like the only people that they interviewed for the Bronies were socially inept, in other words, losers. They interviewed a "tough" mechanic and a man from the army in order to show how tough the fans are, however, both men seemed to ill-fit in a 'normal' crowd and both confessed, through their criticisms of what society expects from a boy, that they envy women and even wish they were women. Most of this I found mildly compelling. The interest ended there.

Most of the scenes in this film are of Ashleigh Ball, a voice actress who voices two of the Ponies in the My little Pony Cartoon. She bursts onto the scene, parading herself in various outfits and plugging her band. She talks about herself extensively and pretends that she thinks the Bronies are weirdos and that she thinks the interest in the show is bizarre, however, due to her poor acting ability, it is overwhelmingly obvious that this is her dream come true. She sees herself as the star of the show even tho all she does is provide the voice of two characters. She is not involved in the writing, or anything else to do with the production of the show, but she seems to feel like the most important person in the room whenever Bronies are mentioned and she reads about her characters and watches video and looks at fan made pictures for hours to feed her inner narcissism. If anything, this was a documentary about how entitled, connected and privileged Ashleigh Ball is.

I was interested to hear what the psychologists had to say until I realized that they were far from objective. Their own son is a Brony. Terrible work, No focus, hard to watch.

There is so much to explore about the artistic, creative, politically engaged and friendly, real nature of the MLP fan community, and artistic collective.

This documentary is not reflective of the brony community, nor the fandoms affiliated with interests of the world of my little pony. It does not matter if you're from Anonymous or a member of the furry fandom, friendship and harmony is a philosophy that united us.

But this fake documentary destroys this aspect. This documentary focuses on a few, selected, fragile people nobody heard about in the community, and they are used to represent this community. I do not label myself as a brony but remain a true fan of the work of Lauren Faust, still I know them well, and I can affirm with no ambiguity that the "bronies" from this documentary are mostly actors, or briefed for this shooting, and I accuse Madness Films rightfully to have made all this up in order to depict bronies as socially inept people falling in the autism spectrum.

This is not a good documentary, you can not make a documentary about the pony fandom or the bronies. You have probably never watched a single episode of the series, nor even understand the philosophy of the fandom, nor its pre-FiM history. You know nothing about the internet culture, speaking of 4chan, bringing in psychologists...

In what kind of world you live in, to make such an abhorrent documentary?

You could have worked with artists and animators to animate a movie of this length with that budget!

I am disappointed by Ashleigh Balls's and a few bronies for participating into this slanderous and destructive video, funded essentially by fans who expected something true, what you failed to accomplish.

Facts to know: I love this cartoon, I love the art community and fanworks around it, being a part of it is really and always a great experience. but then there's bigmouthes with an ego the size of the moon who want to make the fandom a part of their lives, and take everything about it seriously.

That's not the state of mind of MLPFIM's philosophy to begin with, and from what I watched, it's like the brony doc : awkward teenagers dancing and bragging about their "redefining masculinity" bullshit.

This is so awkward, one must have courage to still look at a little pony after watching this.

I'm sorry Ashleigh.

The film doesn't try to ride on the shock factor of 18-30 year olds liking My Little Pony and it doesn't push these bronies away as if they are a zoo exhibit to be looked and laughed at. You see these bronies and you see people who just happen to like a cartoon that is well made.

From the opening credits to the end credits the film is upbeat and it doesn't let up. We meet voice artist Ashleigh Ball, voice of Rainbow Dash and Applejack, who is just as shocked as the audience is to find out that there are dudes that like her show about intrepid, magical cartoon ponies. Ashleigh is invited to BronyCon, a yearly convention for bronies, and decides to go.

Along the way we meet bronies from different walks of life, while occasionally coming back to Ashleigh. Ashleigh is just fun to watch. We meet her band, Hey Ocean, who just knows how to make great music... there music is great.

The directing from Brent Hodge is fantastic, the soundtrack is amazing and the conclusion is satisfying. Definitely recommend checking this one out.

Despite not being a Brony myself, I found this documentary to be extremely uplifting. In keeping with the good vibes of the fandom, it tries to accentuate the positives without mentioning the more sinister connotations that detractors have associated with supporters of the show. And while that means this isn't a balanced cultural analysis, it does make for ninety minutes of feel good entertainment that made me smile, if only for the reason that the show brings together people who might otherwise feel lonely and marginalized. Don't underestimate the importance of that.

As a documentary it was very well made. The will she/won't she go to the conference storyline with Ashleigh Ball was a bit contrived but gave the film some forward motion and structure. The cinematography was surprisingly good and they captured a lot of interesting, varied footage from around the country on what must have been a fairly meager budget. The way they weaved in news clips, interviews with creators and fans, scenery shots, the analysis of the psychologists...it gave the film variety and it never felt stagnant or boring. The scenes with the ex-military brony added a sense of deepness and soul and were definitely the emotional centerpiece, especially the interview in the car on the way to the convention which was actually quite inspiring and didn't feel forced or scripted.

The art direction was cool and stayed true to the show, with bright block colors adding to the positivity. All in all it was a very natural, enjoyable documentary and at the very least will serve as a fitting historical reference point for this bizarre yet strangely inspirational fandom.

Saw this surrounded by cheering, cool, nice (maybe a bit too talkative) people who describe themselves as Bronies. They were cool. Nice and true to themselves without a heir of pretension.

Wish the same could be said about the focus of "A Brony Tale."

She's a voice actress (and friend of the director), blonde and bland. Her band sucks.

A more interesting character appears, tells us of his boredom. Never feeling part of something. A loner. A true soul. A depressive state took over after serving in Iraq, with which he found relief in drawing ponies. Little Ponies.

Friendship Is Magic!

Being as I'm a brony myself, I went ahead and had a look at this documentary. Managed to endorse the whole thing and best off, it was never boring. I even saw some familiar faces in there! Would be good for the whole family to watch; just has some thematic material so it would've most likely gotten a PG-rating by the MPAA (as the movie's not been given such a rating).

Like the one Ashleigh Ball said: "As long as My Little Pony exists, there will be Bronies."

This is a great documentary that fully explores the Brony phenomena in a hilarious way. Brent Hodge really knew what he was doing when he directed this film and being able to see the community through the eyes of unknown individuals and watching Ashleigh Ball explore this community was great to watch. I really hope they make another one with some of the rest of the cast of My Little Pony and visit some of the more prominent names in the brony community. I can easily see how it's won the best documentary award at various prominent film festivals. The scientific studies in the film were very well done and really showed how large the fandom is. They really were able to show how the fandom is really a collection of many different kinds of people who are in all walks of life. The music in the film was very well composed and very well done. The composition was amazing and flowed with the film like it was an organic part of the movie. I would highly recommend this film to anyone who would like to see how great these subcultures are before judging them.