[FFML] [www][fanfic][xover][Star Wars][My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic] MARE WARS Equisode V @ MythrilMoth.net

[Dot Warner]

Includes comments on Episode 4.  All of this is my opinion, usual disclaimers apply.

1) The Big Bad Opening Sequence - You really dropped the ball on this.  The text doesn't capture the moment of sheer awe that audiences feel when the Blockade Runner appears on screen, and then the EVEN BIGGER Star Destroyer engulfs it.
2) "I liked this better when it was called [fill in the blank]!" - The bane of every writer, of course, is that there are no new ideas under the sun (and even THAT sentiment isn't original to the Book of Ecclesiastes), and readers expect them to Do Something Different with the old material.  So what are you Doing Different with this premise that hasn't already been done? "But with PONIES! And pony puns!" is not really different enough for me to want to read it, especially not when _Spaceballs_ pulled off a Star Wars parody that I found to be excellent except for a few weak scenes.  Hell, even the _Family Guy_ take on Episodes 4-6 had funnier jokes.
3) Descriptions That Read Like Police Blotters - In Episode 4, C3PO is introduced to the audience thusly: "One, a squat, shiny gold-colored droid in the shape of a cute baby dragon with luminous pale green optics featuring slitted pupils, yelped in an electronically synthesized voice." And this process is repeated every time a new character is introduced.  This is lazy writing.  The writer isn't the camera, they're the director--they should be giving a scene focus so that the reader knows what is important information.  The information drop about what Spike-Threepio looks like could probably wait until the cleaning scene, and then you can go full purple prose on describing every widget as Twilight cleans him.
4) Going Through the Motions - Star Wars is itself built on the Hero's Journey, but it uses the Hero Journey as the archetype.  Your story takes Star Wars as the "script" and the ponies as "actors", and they follow this "script" to a tee except to break the fourth wall and joke about it.  And ironically, in skipping over some of this "script", you missed the one joke about Star Wars Episode 4 I was actually looking forward to seeing your take on it.  (Rain Bolo shot first! /shakes fist)
5) YOU WENT THROUGH THE TROUBLE OF FANCY FORMATTING AND YOU GAVE NIGHTMARE MOON ALL CAPS? - I understand that it was done on purpose, but you succeeded far too well in annoying me.  (At least it wasn't rainbow text, or had sparkles, or blinked.)  It would have sufficed to have Nightmare Moon's first speech be regular all caps; the rest should have used some <small> tags or some other sort of fancy HTML stuff in it to make it more readable.

Final Comment: I couldn't shake the feeling that this story would've been better served either as a shorter spamfic (where the "script" joke wouldn't wear out its welcome) or a longer, fully fleshed out epic (where the reader gets an emotional investment in the story besides "so what joke is the author going to make about Star Wars or My Little Pony this time?").  Maybe on a re-reading I'll be inclined to be more generous to it, but right now I'm disappointed that it's not good or even so bad it's good, it's just mediocre.

-"Dot"
http://dotchan.com/

I'm my own mind-altering substance. 8)