Anyone that has followed the Family Guy series knows well about their original Star Wars spoof, "Blue Harvest". Seth MacFarlane and company have followed up on their zany version of the George Lucas classic with "Something Something Something Dark Side", which looks at "The Empire Strikes Back" as only the Griffin family can tell it.
"Dark Side" is featured both on DVD and BluRay formats. The version reviewed here is the DVD format. Audio is presented in Dolby 5.1 Digital, with french, spanish and english subtitles available. You can also choose to hear commentary by various members of the crew, including MacFarlane, actor Seth Green, director Dominic Polcino and others. For extras, you can view a 'factup', which plays the feature with pop-up factoids. You can also delve into the creation of poster art, scene-to-scene animatics narrated by Polcino and table reads for the first two acts of the feature. Finally, all can rejoice as there is also a table read for the upcoming "Return of the Jedi" spoof, "We Have A Bad Feeling About This".
As for the show itself, it's classic Family Guy humor putting it's spin on "The Empire Strikes Back". MacFarlane and company take no prisoners, poking jabs at various celebrities and even Fox themselves. You'll also find retro 80s TV ads and plenty of puns to go around. More of the Family Guy cast is integrated into Dark Side, such as Ernie the Giant Chicken featured as Boba Fett and Mort Goldman portraying Lando Calrissian. One small warning. This feature is uncensored, so there are a couple of "F" bombs and an "S" bomb dropped. Therefore, parental discretion is advised.
I had a good laugh watching Blue Harvest, and Dark Side has definitely stepped up to a higher level. Every Family Guy fan needs to add this to their collection, whether or not they ever patronized Star Wars.
Family Guy: Something Something Something Dark Side
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