Planet Family Guy

Spoiler Alert!: A review of Family Guy: Something, Something, Something Dark Side…

By now, if you are a Family Guy or Star Wars fan, you’ve probably seen “Family Guy: Something, Something, Something Dark Side”. If you haven’t, proceed reading this review with caution as it contains spoilers. Consider yourself ‘warned’…

I must admit that I was nervously anticipating the release of the sequel to “Family Guy: Blue Harvest”, “Something, Something, Something Dark Side”, and I was wondering if it would even come close to the quality of “Blue Harvest”. Sequels are rarely better than its predecessor. One that comes to mind is “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”, and many of you may argue that “The Empire Strikes Back” is better than “Star Wars: A New Hope” (though I would respectfully disagree).

My fears proved to be unfounded: “Something, Something, Something Dark Side” was entirely worth the wait. The love and reverence of the Star Wars saga by the Family Guy writers and staff is evident. Care was taken to remain true to the basic plotline of “The Empire Strikes Back”, while adding and integrating carefully chosen Family Guy characters to the mix – Ernie The Giant Chicken as Boba Fett, Mort Goldman as Lando, Carter Pewterschmidt as The Emperor, and Carl as Yoda (H. Jon Benjamin, who provided the voice for Yoda also voices the lead character of the new mature-rated, spy-themed cartoon, “Archer”, on the FX channel.)
George Lucas, in granting carte blanche to the Family Guy crew to parody his Star Wars Empire, has proven his Yoda-like wisdom once again. By doing this, Lucas potentially introduces “Star Wars” to a whole new generation of ‘padawans’, and The Force lives on. The elements of the iconic Star Wars franchise are all there in “Dark Side”: parts of John Williams’ original score (with segments added by Walter Murphy), visuals that are rich in detail and color (especially in the Planet Hoth and space sequences), and even the “wipes” between scenes are used in Lucas-type style.

But it wouldn’t be a Family Guy episode without a lot of craziness thrown in. Some of my favorite “Dark Side” moments and characters are:

• Dondon the Tauntaun
• Peter as Han: “I thought they smelled bad…………….……………..on the outside.”
• Darth Stewie’s treatment of Nimoy’s mailbox in space
• Big giant robot-camel (AT-AT) reacts to a hurt knee like Peter does
  Darth Stewie lets loose some Darth farts once the “hot chick (Lois)” is gone
  How Darth Stewie says “sshhhhhhhhit” after Consuela refuses to use store brand Windex
• Darth Stewie to Emperor: “I can’t hear you –I’m gonna call you from the knee pad.”
  Darth Stewie loves Richard Marx
• “Join The Empire” recruiting video (Honeymoon on Alderaan: “Good thing we took pictures.”)
• “Rocky IV” training footage
• Chris as Luke sings with decapitated head in helmet, “My Little Buttercup” (written by Randy Newman, song from “Three Amigos”)
• “You have cake? Where did you get cake?” “It was Jim’s birthday, but I think it’s all gone.”
• Prom night dumpster baby
• Darth Stewie: “Wonder woman!”
• Han/Peter’s carbonite “pose”
• “Put Captain Solo in the cargo hold.”… “Duh.”
• Luke/Chris: “I would give my right hand for this day to just end.”
• “Hey —a hand!”
• Luke/Chris in Cloud City: “Ben, Ben… Leia, Leia….Tom Selleck” Tom Selleck appearance (clip from “Her Alibi”)
• Leia/Lois: “Luke, if that’s you, wave your right hand – No, your right hand.” Luke/Chris: “It’s me, you f*******!”
• Chewie/Brian says to Lando/Mort: “Why are you wearing Han’s clothes?”
• “Back To The Future” references
• “Robot Chicken”/”Without A Paddle” digs on Seth Green

Regarding the technical aspect of the movie, my only gripe was that it’s presented in full frame only and not in widescreen.

You can share your opinion and give our mods something to moderate on the Planet Family Guy-related message boards, damnyouall.net.

Be sure to check out the Special Features of the “Something, Something, Something Dark Side” DVD, which are freakin’ sweet as well:

• Audio Commentary by Seth MacFarlane, Mark Hentemann, David A. Goodman, Seth Green, Kirker Butler, and Dominic Polcino
• Some interesting tidbits that were brought up while a bottle of tequila was supposedly being passed around the room:
  • Gave ‘props’ to Fox for approval of opening crawl comments
  • “Awesome Superballs” was the name originally scripted for “Carlos Spicy Weiner”
    Seth Green’s Adult Swim/Cartoon Network series “Titan Maximum” was mentioned
  • Regarding The Family Guy-Jedi movie: It’s still in animatics. Goodman (who co-wrote it): “Like the third movie, it’ll be the least good of the three, but it’ll be watched dozens of times by the fans.”
  • Originally, Homer Simpson’s face was in Vader’s helmet after decapitation
  • Seth Green hates singing and especially in Chris’ voice
  • Comment by MacFarlane: Dominic Polcino is directing the hour-long Agatha Christie-like Family Guy “Clue” episode which takes place in a mansion in the middle of nowhere and features every regular character, all together.
  • Seth MacFarlane is seen as character pushing Han in carbonite into storage
    David A. Goodman is seen as a character repairing something in Cloud City

Family Guy Fact-ups –This special feature allows you to watch the entire episode and includes facts and comments just like “Pop-up Videos”.
Examples:

• How many different character’s voices Seth MacFarlane performs (25!)
• Background information about Don Knotts (Dondon), most famous for his role on “The Andy Griffith Show”
• Destroying someone’s mailbox is a Federal offense
• What the acronym “NERF” stands for

The Dark Side of Poster Art – By means of a humorous video diary, Joe Vaux (Artist/Painter) and Mick Cassidy (Character Designer) explain how the poster art for “Dark Side” was created. An interview with the original designer of the poster from “The Empire Strikes Back”, Roger Kastel, is also included in this special feature.

Animatics -Director Dom Polcino explains the creative processes as animatics (pencil-drawn scenes in a rough reel) are shown alongside the final color reel.

“Something, Something, Something Dark Side” Table Read (Acts 1 and 2) – The primary cast reads aloud the first two acts of the movie in a very crowded conference room. Listen carefully and you can hear different lines from the episode that weren’t used in the final cut of the film. For example, the following jokes are part of the table read but are not included in “Dark Side”: NBC (television network) is mentioned in the opening crawl; a comparison is made between “The Office” and “The Wookie Office” shows; a gag involving Steve Martin as Navin Johnson from “The Jerk”; and a Darth Stewie “Millennium Falcon/Fulcan” pronunciation joke.

Sneak Peek: Family Guy -Episode VI: “We Have A Bad Feeling About This” – A really brief look at the table read for the next installment of the series.

Digital Copy –available on Blu-ray version. A separate disc is provided for transferring the movie to a portable device, such as a video-capable iPod.

Special thanks to Click Communications and 20th Century Fox for providing the Blu-ray version for review.