Family Guy: Something, Something, Something, Darkside
Ahh, today it feels like Christmases of my youth. It’s freezing cold out site and threating to snow. The tree is up. And I’ve just finished watching Star Wars on TV. Or rather Family Guy‘s take on The Empire Strikes Back – “Family Guy: Something, Something, Something, Darkside” available exclusively on Blu-ray (BD) and DVD on 28 December from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.
As with the Family Guy take on ‘A New Hope’ (Blue Harvest), we follow the adventures of Luke (Chris), Leia (Lois), Han Solo (Peter) and Chewbacca (Brian) as they are pursued across the galaxy by the evil Sith Lord, Darth Vader (Stewie). Like the original, the rebels are hiding out on the remote ice world of Hoth (cue AT-ATs with worms, Tauntauns with heads of old comedians, and the Wampa being replaced by Cookie Monster). Luke then takes the advice of Obi-Wan Kenobi (Herbert) and learn the ways of the ‘farce’ (by watching Val Wilder DVDs) under Jedi Master Yoda (Carl), and Han, Leia and Chewy head to Cloud City, only to be faced by Vader, and a giant chicken Boba Fett. Oh and Fox, you HAVE to produce some Peter/Han frozen in carbonite figures!
The thing I loved about Blue Harvest, which also comes across in Something, Something, Something, Darkside is that despite the fact they are obviously playing for laughs, theres still a lot of respect for the original source material, and they hit all the favourite lines and plot points of the film they’re spoofing. The use of the rotoscoped original film footage and sound effects and really makes this feel part of the Star Wars family. As with Blue Harvest I also loved they end on Peter (Seth Macfarlane) and Chris (Seth Green) arguing over whether the Robot Chicken Star Wars stuff was better (Robot Chicken being Seth’s own project, although Seth does voice the Emperor.)
“Family Guy” Something, Something, Something, Darkside” Blu-ray and DVD features bonus materials including digital copy, animatics and Family Guy trivia. There’s also a clip of the read through for the upcoming Return of the Jedi homage – “We Have a Bad Feeling About This”, which is sounding fantastic too, and I can’t wait!
