378: Jedi – Chapter One

Title: Jedi
Author: Colorado Kid
Media: Movies/Cartoon
Topic:  Star Wars/My Little Pony
Genre: Fantasy/Sci-Fi
URL: Jedi: Chapter 1
Critiqued by Herr Wozzeck

Oh hello again, ladies and gentlemen, and Happy New Year to all of you! It’s actually kinda hilarious, here, ’cause for me, we’re actually going to be snarking at a new fic today. This time, we’ll have a short fic to tackle that will be done in two parts.

What is this fic? Why, it’s a crossover between MLP and Star Wars. Now, this is actually G1 My Little Pony rather than the better known Friendship is Magic, but I doubt it really matters much. The first two chapters spend a lot of time in the Star Wars canon and MLP is only tagged on as an afterthought, so I don’t think it’ll make that much difference (though it will be a shame, what with not being able to rage at FIM getting violated).

And I think there will be one question that you will be asking when this is all over:

Why?

Well… let’s get started with this, shall we? This fic isn’t gonna snark itself, you know!

We open with this:

**My Little Pony is owned by Hasbro, not me. Star Wars is owned by Lucas, not me. I’m in it for fun not money

**Any attempts to plagiarize and I throw you the TBirds.

Now, I’m going to break from what most MSTers say, and say that I’m actually okay with disclaimers on the whole. In fact, I once criticized a story for putting a disclaimer a chapter or two too late when I was still part of a different MST group. So for my money, I actually don’t mind disclaimers at all.

And attempts to plagiarize? I don’t know why someone would want to plagiarize this story, but you never can be too prepared, I guess.

Jedi

A Long Time Ago, In A Galaxy Far, Far Away…..

Hm… No distinction between the title and the thing that precedes the opening crawl in any Star Wars movie. I mean, at least with the disclaimer this author used those asterisks, but… you know how it is.

Well… apart from all that, I guess this isn’t all that bad. I mean, there’s the disclaimer, there’s the thing, and there’s the fact that the author at least tried to distinguish her author’s notes from her story. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.

The velvet black of space carried the ship through its glory…….the slim yet bulky leviathan, majestic and white as an eggshell, glided through the material studded with diamonds like a hot knife through butter.

Aaaaaah! My eyes! My eyes! They burn!

*covers eyes*

Oh my God, ow…

Did I really just read that?

*opens eyes*

Aaaaah! They still burn!

*covers eyes again *

Jesus, this is some of the most insanely purple prose I have ever read in my life! I mean… what the hell is that?

This prose outdoes the thesaurus abuse of Jedi472, Raifa, and Jackass the 3^rd combined. I am already saying that, and I haven’t even finished the first paragraph of this piece of crap!

Pray for me, people. Pray for me.

Inside were a vast number of creatures…..creatures escaping darkness, creatures with a mission of virtue……

“Waaaaaaaaaaar!”

Wait, what? I was under the impression that ‘war’ was a horrible thing waged by countries that send their young men to die, not a virtue!

“I don’t know how they did it, but they’re right behind us, Chewie!”

…

The “waaaaaaaaaaaar” is this author’s approximation of Shyriiwook, isn’t it?

*headdesk*

“Han, do you think you can get us past the nebula?”

“With those troops right on our butts, I wouldn’t be surprised if we bounced into a supernova!”

“Uncle Luke, I think I’m going to be sick!”

“Jedi? Where’s Jedi?”

“Leia, we need Jedi! The force is strong with her! Maybe she can get us through this mess!”

“I’ll find her, Mara, I promise.”

Okay, uh… Colorado Kid? Is it okay if I call you that? Okay.

Colorado Kid, I’m sure you loved creating all this dialogue that’s all frantic and shit. You know, because it’s insanity incarnate. And I think that’s great that you’re showing knowledge of the expanded universe and all, but…

…and I may be exaggerating when I say this, but…

*deep breath*

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!?

I mean, seriously! Who’s on this ship? What the fuck are they being chased by? Who’s Jedi? Why the hell would you name someone “Jedi”? Why are you being chased? Who’s saying which line? What ship are they on? When is this taking place?

We haven’t even gotten to the halfway point of this chapter and already I’m confused as hell.

Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan hurried through the mass, intricate interior of the ship, searching for Jedi, a lovely lady who the force was very strong with, the only one who could save the mighty ship from certain destruction……

My God, the prose… What is up with this prose?

And what the hell is up with that run-on? I could’ve broken that up into four sentences! And then there’s the use of the wrong word. “Hurried through the mass”? What, did someone spill eighteen truckloads of sugar into the corridors of the ship this is taking place in? What kind of mass would she have to hurry through? And what’s the ship that this is taking place on, anyhow?

Well, these questions and more don’t get answered, because this fic immediately cuts to a different scene without any form of line break.

Jedi was busy in a state of meditation. She sat with both her front legs and back legs folded, her exquisite cobalt blue eyes in a state of serenity…..

Wait, hold on. Front legs? Back legs?

Oh! Oh! I think I get it! This a Kushiban we’re talking about here! Right? Because having a talking pony exist in the Star Wars galaxy would just be silly!

she was a novice, one step above Padawan as a Jedi Knight,

When I checked Wookiepedia to verify this, I found that there is no ranking between Padawan and Jedi Knight. Therefore, there is no way this could be possible.

nevertheless impeccably strong in the force.

Hold on. This character…

This character is a special species, she has an unusual [and highly unimaginative] name, the Force is strong with her, she inhabits a position that was tailor made for her, she is apparently supposed to be beautiful…

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we’ve just met this fic’s Mary Sue.

The force was what gave a Jedi his or her power.

Thank you, Colorado Kid, I think anyone with even a passing familiarity with Star Wars would be able to tell someone—

A celestial energy field that surrounds and binds everything in the universe together….or so the beings in the ship always believed ….A Jedi always uses the force at his or her own will, and Jedi always use the force for light and virtue…..

*headdesk*

Why do I continually pick fics by authors who think their audience is a group of idiots? I mean, Jesus, this is information that anyone could tell you about Star Wars! I know I’ve harped on authors for assuming that their audience will know what is being portrayed, but come on, this is fucking Star Wars! Everyone who is even marginally familiar with just the movies will tell you ‘the Force is a supernatural force that is used by all Jedi and Sith’. Did you really need to spend a paragraph telling us that?

And for that matter, why the hell are you concentrating on telling us what the force is but not telling us anything about the scenario you have plunked us in!? Jeez, we get a paragraph about the Force that we don’t actually need, but nothing in the way of setting up the situation behind any of this!

And my issue with this opening is not even that the opening is frantic and action-packed! It’s possible to do an action-packed, slightly more frantic opening in fiction if you do it well. Hell, A New Hope gave us a great action-packed opening! But you know what good action-packed openings do? They don’t wait an entire fucking chapter to tell us what the stakes are!

So just tell us what’s going on and what the stakes are!

…..Well, almost always…… She was interrupted by her teacher, who was in a mysterious land far distant, using the force to speak to her on the ship…..

*SIREN*

God damn it, I knew the DRD would come in eventually. Ah, well, it’s a good thing I installed that wormhole to Never Land just outside the door. Watching adults try to run around in Never Land would be a lot more interesting than what is [not] happening in this fic.

He spoke in a whisper……….

*headdesk*

Okay, I’ve tried to hold off on commenting on this, but after seeing ten periods in a row, I have to ask this now:

How many periods does this guy think it takes for something to be considered an ellipsis? Why would someone use that many periods in an ellipsis!? And on top of that, why are there so many of them!? For crying out loud, badly-written JRPGs don’t normally have this many periods in them!

*groan*

We’re going to need a new spare punctuation box when we’re done here. Who knows? Maybe we can finally add the correct punctuation to every part of untold zombie chronicels with all the periods we’ve got here. It won’t solve all of that fic’s punctuation problems, but it’s a start.

**Jedi…**

**Master?**

**I do not mean to interrupt you, my dear apprentice, but the rest of the troupe is in desperate need of your services….**

Okay, what bizzarro world have I entered where a troupe suddenly needs to be rescued by a fucking Jedi? Seriously, who the hell gives a crap about stage shows in the Star Wars movies?

And ‘rest of the troupe’? I wasn’t aware Jedi Knights were allowed to join the circus! What, is the New Jedi Order so low on members that they need to recruit people by performing circus tricks?

Jedi also used the force to see the future, the past, the location of friends far distant, and to watch over beloved family and friends….

So this Sue has also developed farsight, which is in fact a canon Force Power that is used by various people in the movies (notably, it’s the Force power that Yoda taught Luke that allowed Luke to see “oh shit, my friends are in danger” in Episode V). So she is such a powerful Force user that she can do that.

Hm… Yep, she’s definitely looking like a Mary Sue to me.

**Black Troupes!**

Oh my god, the Jedi Troupe is being attacked by a bunch of actors from a minstrel show! Quick, grab the NAACP! We need to re-establish political correctness here, stat!

**Sith Nuva sent them….**

Sith Nuva? Does this mean we finally know what our villain faction is?

Yes! It only took us half the fucking chapter to explain what the hell is going on here. Now where the hell is this Sith Nuva?

**Black Troupes……right behind us…..***

Wait, chasing ‘us’? Who’s ‘us’? I’m sure I would know exactly what you’re talking about if you only attributed these thought bubbles to someone here!

**You must go, Jedi! Hurry! The force is strong with you, indeed, at this very moment…..**

**I’m there, master!**

Wait, so they’re chasing Jedi?

How the hell does this Jedi lady not notice that the ship she’s in is being chased by these Sith Nuva guys? How long has she been meditating, and wouldn’t she be jolted out of that by the fact that her ship is being chased by a bunch of Sith guys?

Sith Nuva swarmed behind the massive spacecraft….

Again, what is this spacecraft our heroes are on!? If it’s the Millenium Falcon like I suspect (I mean, come on, it’s implied that Han Solo and Chewbacca were in this ship earlier), then it’s not “massive”. If it’s massive in that it’s the size of one of those destroyers from the movies, shouldn’t they have started firing their canons on the Sith Nuva guys?

I’m not asking for an infodump here, Colorado Kid! I just want some freaking context!

Jedi galloped with fervor to the main bridge….

*headdesk*

Damn it, and here I was giving this fic too much goddamn credit when I thought that the author went with a four-legged species from the Star Wars universe…

Well, ladies and gentlemen, brace yourselves, ‘cause we’ve got mountains of thesaurus abuse incoming!

*runs to the bomb shelter*

Roll the fic excerpt!

Her exquisite mane and tail flowed like an onyx liquid touched with pure liquid starlight behind her…..Her cloak, sable brown, followed along with impeccable grace. Her every hoof was covered with magnetic shoes designed to help her hold her lightsaber whenever absolutely obligatory to use it, her lightsaber matching that of her marking on her flank, a lovely cobalt blue.Her hide, a sumptuous satin black, exquisite as space itself, graced with illuminous white spots, lovely as stars, enveloped in cold sweat.

*exits the bomb shelter*

Phew. I got to watch a painting fall off the wall, but that’s about it. Let’s see…

Black fur, white spots, a blue-painted lightsaber that she has that also acts as her Cutie Mark (says the guy who doesn’t know if they were called Cutie Marks in G1 My Little Pony), and hooves that have magnetic shoes on them.

…

No, if it were Nightmare Moon, she’d have a blue mane and a “Cutie Mark” in the shape of the moon. But it might as well be, given the description involved.

And she’s wearing magnetic shoes on her hooves to use that lightsaber? Uh… why? Wouldn’t magnetic shoes be counterproductive in a canon where approximately seventy percent of all floors are made of potentially magnetic material? She’d basically be unable to move if she wore magnetic shoes! Why didn’t Colorado Kid just make Jedi a unicorn or something? At least then you could handwave their potential lightsaber abilities with magic! Or, hell, why not just have Jedi use the Force to manipulate that lightsaber? That’s also possible!

She stumbled over three frantic, clumsy cleaning droids.

I’m guessing the magnetic shoes had something to do with that.

“Jedi! Just in time! Hurry! Sith Nuva is coming fast!”

Princess Leia reached out for Jedi and climbed on her back. “Hyah!” she said!

Wait… Princess Leia went to the back of the ship to find Jedi to tell her about the fact that these Sith Nuva guys are coming, but it ended up not doing anything since Jedi found out about the Sith Nuva guys following them on her own. Either way, one of the above two scenes has just been rendered entirely pointless by this. As I’m not sure which one was rendered entirely pointless, I’ll leave that up to audience participation to figure out which scene was rendered pointless.

They careened into the cockpit together……

Hm… On the other hand, Jedi’s magnetic shoes may have just saved their lives. You know, because if they had careened into the cockpit there was the chance that they could’ve gone flying right out the window and into the cold vacuum of space.

I guess that’s one perk of having magnetic shoes.

“Holy smoke! Watch out for the cleaning droids!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, princess, I’ve got happy feet…..”

Wait, hang on. Didn’t Jedi already stumble over the cleaning droids?

“Yipe! Watch out for R2!”

A bleep of fright was heard….

“Oh! Sorry R2!”

The droid hurried past, bleeping frustratedly.

Hm… You know, it feels odd to me that we’ve gotten all this talk of how this takes place in the Star Wars canon. It’s weird how we’ve gotten Leia as a character here. It’s weird how we’ve gotten all this time devoted to talking about the Force. And yet, I have no idea what anything has to do with anything else in this fic. I mean, at least with every other fic I’ve dealt with here there was a sense of something happening. But here, I somehow feel like nothing is really going on despite the fact that there’s supposed to be a chase scene in here somewhere. Really, all we’ve gotten is the highest concentration of purple prose I have ever seen in a fanfic, and almost none of it really means anything.

This fic, my friends, is what poor old Macbeth was preemptively referring to when he said “it is a tale/told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/signifying nothing”.

They hurried into the cockpit at last…….

And by now, I’m convinced that this story doesn’t know what’s going on either. I thought Jedi and Leia had already entered the cockpit! Now they’re crashing into it again? How the fuck does that work?

*groan*

Thank God this fic is short. Stay tuned for next week, patrons, when we finish this thing.

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