Family Guy - Star Wars
Find a place on-line to pirate it. It’s worth seeing, in case you missed it on Sunday night. Besides a sound clip from AIRPLANE and a cameo appearance by Rush Limbaugh (decrying Lando Calrissian as an affirmative action hire), there’s a ton of great humor to be mined from this. It even gets meta as Daddy Griffin and son have an argument at the end over ROBOT CHICKEN. (Dad voiced by Family Guy’s creator, and son by Robot Chicken’s.)
Just when I thought there was no new humor to be mined from a STAR WARS parody, the folks at FAMILY GUY did it last night. If you’ve seen the original movie, (odd are good that you have) you’ll recognize all of the homages, the fades, the wipes, the bits of odd pacing, etc. that they lavishly threw into this episode. No wonder they wanted George Lucas’ approval. The show would have been close to copyright infringement without it. Poking fun at John Williams and then moving into a Danny Elfman reference? Beautiful!
Highly recommended, unless you’re predisposed to hate the show already.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Heck, I’m not a FAMILY GUY fan, but I watched this.
Absolutely hilarious. I loved how there were so many shots recreated that it looked like they animated over the movie itself.
There were many times when I just burst out laughing, something I’ve rarely done when watching FAMILY GUY. I think my favorite sequence was the Red squad sign-ins, followed by the John Williams/Danny Elfman bit. I also loved how they got a lot of cameo voices (especially a certain family in a station wagon…)
Too bad I missed the ROBOT CHICKEN parody; I think it’s online somewhere (the official Star Wars site, perhaps), but I still haven’t watched it.
September 25th, 2007 at 6:39 am
I must say that this was one of the best Family Guy episodes ever. I was in stitches the whole time. Good stuf. I especially loved the Robot Chicken stuff. Definitely want to see this one again.
September 25th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
You know, I gotta say I loved the first twenty minutes, enjoyed parts of the second twenty minutes, and was bored by the final twenty minutes. I liked the John Williams/Danny Elfman thing, the opening was drop dead funny, I laughed (or the 14 year old inside me laughed) at Darth Doodie, I liked the cameos from famous people and animated characters, but by the end, I was really bored. I’m glad I watched it, but I wouldn’t say it was great.
September 25th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
My only really laugh-out-loud moments were the Danny Elfman and Magic Johnson bits. The rest, meh, it’s amusing, but kind of a one-note thing. I wish the thing was less of a retread. I got a little tired of almost word-for-word exchanges from the movie (not to mention all the film clips that were simply cel-shaded). I did love Adam West as Tarkin. The only cameo I didn’t get (maybe someone can help me here) is the guy who wished Han & Luke luck right before they started blasting the Thai fighters. Sounded like an audio clip from a movie, but I didn’t recognize it.
All in all, I think I enjoyed the Robot Chicken episode more. With its random nature it was able to hit more high points. I’ve never been a fan of Family Guy (or Robot Chicken, for that matter) so perhaps I might laugh more if I was more acquainted with the characters from the show.
September 26th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Paul - that audio clip is Leslie Nielsen from AIRPLANE!. As I recall, he says the line to Striker in the cockpit just before Striker is tasked with landing the plane alone.
September 30th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Thanks for the clarification. From your post I thought that’s probably what it was, but since I’ve never seen Airplane, I thought I should make sure.