Nightmare Rarity arc: Would this be considered a downgrade for them?

The first villain introduced in the current generation of My Little Pony was a enemy called Nightmare Moon, a "hero turned villain because of having to live in the shadows of [insert character connection here]", in this case, it was Luna living in the (not so subtle) shadows of her sister, Celestia. I'm not going to retell the plot of the pilot, if you're curious, look it up for yourself. The reason I mention this is because this arc asks "What if "Nightmare Moon" survived?", let's see how this way to tie in a animation change to the plot works, Nightmare Rarity, and remember, you voted for this: http://strawpoll.me/5105730/r

So what's the plot? The main six (I still refuse to use that pun), are being tortured with nightmares and cannot sleep. Pinkie organizes a slumber party with the group's goal to try and figure out what's causing the nightmares, all of which have a connection to smoke, with that same smoke kidnapping Rarity and sending her to the moon in a literal puff of smoke. Luna, grudgingly, tells the remaining cast, Celestia and Spike, that this was the work of an entity called the Nightmare Forces, which is what turned Luna into Nightmare Moon. In order to rescue their friend, they mount a rescue mission to the moon, by, and I'm not making this part up, lassoing the moon and dragging it closer to the planet.

"I'm allergic to blue gases"

Now if you'll grant me this slight detour, allow me to explain how that is a bad thing using real world physics. For you see, the Moon is tied to the flowing of the tides. As the Moon moves in orbit, waves in the ocean form, the closer the Moon is, the larger the wave, its why low tide and high tide exists, with the reason being the Moon's gravitational pull. In comparison, Tidal waves are normally formed by a drastic shift in the ocean, such as an earthquake. If the Moon was to change its orbit, such as moving closer to the planet, the gravitational pull of the Moon would also cause events like that to happen. Events like mass flooding, dramatic weather changes due to Earth's orbit around the sun changing, more natural disasters, gravity itself changing. To put it in perspective, Majora's Moon from Majora's Mask would have those affects, this would be even worse. To conclude, congratulations Princess Celestia, you've just killed every single living thing on the planet to save one horse, assuming that it would work the same way and by this...

The only things missing is the face and something to represent Clock Town.

It doesn't. To put that in perspective, IDW's Transformers series took at least 39 issues to get to earth after the death of their planet, Cybertron, and they go back to it often, so even more. By my counts (aka, what I've read so far) its taken more then 50 issues for two armies to do what Celestia took 6 to do, and did the equivalent of overkill, because at least the war left lots of survivors. Who's the monster again? Now back to plot.

"FIRE THE PILLOW CANNON'S, WE MUST WIN THIS WAR!"

After tight-roping to the Moon, all the main characters (except for the now proven insane Celestia who has stayed behind to evacuate the town) discover what has happened to the inhabitants of the Moon, who should also all be dead now. But instead, they are also all now corrupted by the power of Nightmares, with the boss smoke corrupting Rarity and turning her into Nightmare Rarity. Insert gloating, Luna fleeing from a loosing battle, leaving Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy to be kidnapped and Spike to be thrown hundreds of kilometers away. Ponies get locked up, Spike manages to... oh wait, I'm mixing up tropes. Spike goes to save them, but it turns out Pinkie had the key to the cells the whole time, which makes me ask how they were locked in the first place. As they return to the planet, Celestia and Luna are leading an army of the town's folk to stop the invasion, leading to Luna getting her, now permanent (for now) animation design, and the main heroines free Rarity by using the power of Deus Ex Machina, and the world is saved from Not Makuta Teridax, which I shall now call the non bound head of the Nightmares as its never given a proper, independent name, or its not in my notes for some reason. If this puff of gas does have a proper name, I'm happy to hear it and I'll add it to this (but I'll still call it Not Makuta Teridax).

"One of us, one of us"

If the story didn't have to have a Deus Ex moment, I'd have no problems with this plot. Yes it's stupid, however considering the source material, I'm not surprised. The characters are all in character, the villain is an actual threat and the fact that it does one thing that only two other stories involving a villain have done, and that's getting the side characters involved in the fight. The first being Starlight Glimmer, the pilot for season 5, and something I came across in research for this arc, an episode called "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?", which is very similar to this arc in terms of concepts and theme for Luna (but minus the main villain, the moon as a location, messing up the gravitational pull of the planet and other things). Am I ever going to talk about it in more detail? Probably not because I don't review individual episodes of any show.

Pinkie, we talked about this. No steeling from others.

Art style wise, its very basic in terms of detail, however I think that works to its advantage for the most part. The show's art style is just as basic in terms of detail, but what needs to stand out does, same with here. While I do think the Not Makuta needed just that bit more detail, as they are mostly gas, its something I can let slide as, ironically enough, gas that's supposed to have limbs is actually a little difficult to texture, because if you don't do enough, its an odd pattern, do too much, and its a solid object, not a gas.

"And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin' to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!"

I can only recommend this to the people who have probably already read it, as it works better if you're a fan of the show. The reason for that is because, to me, it looks like the entire comic series is meant to work along side the show, not be its own individual entity. If you're familiar with the show and have not yet read this, then check it out, you'll probably enjoy it, if not and you have no plans to watch the show, then I'd skip this if I were you (which you probably have anyway).

Bit of an animation double hitter coming up. Later this week I'm going to put up Star Wars: Clone Wars, to make up for nothing last week, then afterwards, a requested post, the opening impressions (as there aren't a lot of dubbed episodes) of Akame Ga Kill. In the meantime, the newest strawpoll is up. Check out the link here: http://strawpoll.me/5360018 and select which arc you want to see next. The options are:

Megatron's Origins and Autocracy, the current representative for IDW
Worlds Collide by Archie comics
New Avengers x The Transformers by Marvel
Knightfall Part 1: Broken Bat by DC
Ignika Saga by DC (the last poll had Inika as a typo, my mistake)

Poll closes 30th of September, and seeing as Nightmare Rarity only won by one vote, every vote counts. See you all next time.