Blu-ray Review - Family Guy: Something, Something, Something, Dark Side

The Empire Strikes Back. You know the story, Luke heads to the Degobah system after the events in Star Wars to undergo Jedi training. I won’t go into the details. If you haven’t seen this film yet you should. The Empire Strikes Back is argued by many, including myself, to be the best of the original George Lucas Star Wars films. The movie also has one of the most memorable film reveals of all time. But, you knew that already, right? What you probably don’t know is The Empire Strikes Back as seen through the eyes of Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy.

Family Guy: Something, Something, Something Dark Side is a witty addition to the long list of Star Wars movie parodies. If you’re a fan of Star Wars and Family Guy, you’ll definitely find yourself laughing from start to finish when you watch this film. However, if you’re not a fan of Family Guy humor, then you probably won’t appreciate the humor in this film. The jokes stay within the vein of raunchy, over the top and often offensive animated humor MacFarlane popularized. By the same token, if you’re not a fan of Star Wars, many of the jokes and references will fly over your head.

The film starts out with a power outage at the Griffin home. When this happens, Peter decides to tell the family the story of Something, Something, Something Dark Side. All of the characters in Family Guy make an appearance in this spoof, with a majority of characters voiced by Seth Macfarlane. He voices Peter Griffin as Han Solo, Stewie Griffin as Darth Vader, Brian Griffin as Chewbacca, Glenn Quagmire as C-3PO, Carter Pewter Schmidt as Emperor Palpatine and Dr. Hartman as General Rieekan. Lois Griffin (Alex Borstein) plays Princess Leia, Chris Griffin (Seth Green) is Luke Skywalker, Meg Griffin (Mila Kunis) is Giant Space Slug and Carl (H. Jon Benjamin) is Yoda.

Most of the humor you’ll find on Family Guy creeps into the subtext of the characters in Something, Something, Something Dark Side. Meg only appears as the Giant Space Slug; she breaks the fourth wall to call out her marginalized role. Stewie’s conflicted sexuality issues come up in his dealings with the rebels and the Empire. Mike Henry voices Herbert John as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Even though Obi-Wan is Luke’s spiritual guide; Herbert John continues his sexually infused comments towards Chris. Henry also plays Cleveland Brown as R2-D2. In the real Star Wars, we never had a chance to hear what R2-D2 actually says or figure out what he really does when he plugs into a computer terminal. MacFarlane quickly turns this into a slew of sexual puns. The Family Guy inspired humor doesn’t take too much away from the plot and the actual story development remains in tact. So you will still get a relatively true to form tale in this release.

No great Animation feature is complete without some behind-the-scenes footage of the actors voicing the characters. Family Guy releases usually include table reads and comic con panel footage. This Blu-ray release continues the tradition with a table read teaser of Episode VI: We Have a Bad Feeling About This. Since it’s a huge ensemble cast, you get a very wide view of the table. Seth obviously takes focus because he voices so many characters in the film. It would have been nice to see more footage of the actors in the booth. The Blu-ray also has a “Facts-up” interface that allows you to see scene facts about the movie as you watch. This also serves as somewhat of a behind-the-scenes view on the movie as it shows several production anecdotes.

Family Guy: Something, Something, Something Dark Side is a fun addition to the litany of Star Wars branded spoofs. The humor is designed for people who are fans of both Star Wars and Family Guy.

Special Features:
- Audio commentary by Seth MacFarlane with Mark Hentemann, David A. Goodman, Kirker Butler, Dominic Polcino and Seth Green
Family Guy Fact-Ups
The Dark Side of Poster Art
- An animatic version of the episode
- Something, Something, Something, Dark Side Table Read
- Family Guy - Episode VI: “We Have a Bad Feeling About This” Table Read (sneak peek)