A story from the Movie Night Writing Series
It's movie night at the Castle of Friendship, and James has brought along one of his favorite comedy movies along. Featuring copious amounts of wordplay, visual gags, suicidal passengers, and drinking problems, Airplane! is hailed as one of the greatest comedy films of all time on Earth, but will that standard of comedy carry over onto Equus? James certainly hopes so.
Unfortunately, while Spike is easily entertained, James discovers that Twilight is a bit of a comedy snob. What follows is overanalysis, overthinking, and the cardinal sin of talking during a movie. How will they all make it through the night? Will Twilight find legitimate entertainment at even one joke? Will Ted Stryker land the plane safely? Will Leslie Nielsen's career ever resurge? Surely Twilight will at least come to understand that Jive isn't an actual language, right?
Probably not.
This story is a submission to the writing group Movie Night which is a collaborative effort that looks to engage as many people, be they writers or not, to try their hand at writing about their favorite ponies and movies! Go give it a look and add your story to the club!
Pre-read by Clopficsinthecomments
Cover art by 123TurtleShell.
This was a lovely read and a fun chuckle for a Sunday night! Thank you Rytex!
9935576
Many thanks for looking it over for me.
Huh. Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit reading pony fanfiction.
Ooo, this one was fun. Now they have to watch Night Patrol for the next comedy! That will get some good laughs! And horrified shocks, but still!
My dad saw this in the theater. he says he laughed at the credits. He was old enough to remember when Barbara Billingsly played quintessential, straight-laced 50's mom, June Cleaver on "Leave it to Beaver". Having watched a few episodes of "Leave it to Beaver" myself, I now laugh at the Jive Lady scene.
*Mentally prepares for the onslaught*
What's wrong with the sequel?
9935582
ohh since its almost Christmas how about all three home alone movies for the next fic? maybe have the mane 6 and the princesses and shining armor
9936246
Join the group and write them yourself. It's a giant semi-collaborative project. I don't think I'll write them; if anything, if I gave it another go, it'd be Monty Python, The Princess Bride, or The Naked Gun.
9936113
It was a huge letdown compared to the original. Very little original humor, it seemed to just recycle all the same jokes without adding anything except a brilliant Star Trek reference.
9936271
Oh, I know, but I'd still take it over the comedies made in these recent years. I'd like to think Spike would get a kick out of the door jokes.
Airplane is one of my favorite movies, so this was a real treat
kudos
Meanwhile in an airport departure zone:
“Well I’ll give him another 20 minutes, but thats it!”
I really enjoyed this fic a lot as I've seen Airplane! and Airplane II The Sequel when it was shown on which I believe it was Comedy Central back in the early 2000's.
Anyways great story, I got a lot of good chuckles and laughs from the jokes written in the story such as the White Zone and Red Zone, The Saturday Night Fever scene etc. After reading this it makes me wanna write out my own take of the ponies watching Space Balls, Police Academy movies and the Naked Gun movie.
9970489
Join the group and write it. Doesn't have to be long or anything.
I take it you don't like the second one? Personally, I was fond of it and found it to be a faithful sequel that was enjoyable. That, and how they absolutely destroyed so many goddamn serious scifi tropes.
Even though the whole story was Twi, Spike, and Mr. Hairless Ape sitting around watching a movie and even explaining jokes this was cute and funny. The reactions were very in character and the human felt like a pal of Twi's organically. Details like the covering of Spike's eyes during naughty scenes felt tastefully and smartly done. You have a good sense for inter-character dialogue that makes up for a lack of action. Your formatting of the movie felt reasonable and left minimal exposition needed for someone to understand what was happening. Nice stuff!
Also, you're so obviously a man of culture with your choice of movies and references here. Twilight would like Monty Python and choose to die on the hill that it's superior to Airplane! as a more pretentious aspect of her not realizing they're the same kind of comedy - and that both would have taken a lot of tweaking and very deliberate writing. They really own their medium in a way that not many other comedy movies do.
What I would suggest is adding an "OC" tag for your human character. So far it's just Spike and Twi. For readers wanting a humanized or misreading it as being pony only, they might feel cheated by the mistagging.
I am soo glad I came across your fanfic because it got me to watch Airplane. I said I would never watch it, until I heard the incredibly funny scenes that you mentioned, so I had to put it on. Leslie Neilson was great, even with Police Squad and Naked Gun. Once again I give you my thanks for getting me into Airplane.