Inexplicable Movie Review: Family Guy Presents Something Something Something Dark Side and everything else Star Wars

I am seemingly one of the 10 people on the planet who still catch everything Family Guy-related out there. As a result, I looked forward to the release of Something Something Something Dark Side, their remake of The Empire Strikes Back. This follows on the heels of 2007's Family Guy - Blue Harvest, a remake of the original Star Wars, which was pretty nifty. (The long name of the Empire remake comes from the "secret to Star Wars dialogue, from an earlier Family Guy skit, and which is presented above.)

Right now, the reviews on Amazon for the movie are mostly lukewarm, and the film is averaging 3.5 out of 5 stars. This surprises me a bit, as I considered this edition a bit better than the first, which has a 4-star rating. Something Something Something Dark Side follows The Empire Strikes Back almost scene for scene, so if you're not familiar with the source material, you probably won't enjoy this one.

But if you are an Empire fan, and a Family Guy fan, then this is required watching. The character roles from the original - Peter as Han, Lois as Leia, Chris as Luke, creepy perv Herbert as Obi-Wan and Brian as Chewbecca - are retained, even though Cleveland / C3P0 left for his own show. (Also, this time, Meg actually gets a line!) My only warning is that, although the DVD extras like the audio commentary are neat, the actual "movie" is only about 50 minutes - two regular episodes. There is some swearing, but otherwise, you might not think there is enough to justify $15 for two episodes.

Which brings me to the more important issue, one which I debated the other night with Baseball Prospectus author, Blast video games editor and all-around swell guy Marc Normandin - How do you rank the entire saga?


First off, I think it's easy to pick the bottom two - The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. I personally dislike Clones more. At least at the time it was released, Phantom Menace seemed technologically impressive, and there was a "buzz" about it, the first new piece of the saga in 20-something years. Clones felt like nothing more than a bridge movie to Revenge of the Sith, which is something you can't say about the original trilogy. Each of those movies serves a purpose, but stands as a dramatic piece on its own merits.

This might be controversial, but I consider the original, A New Hope, to be somewhat dated. It is absolute stunning the first time you watch it, just how epic the worlds are, and how involved everything with the Force is and what not. However, after that first time, you notice that a lot of the non-Obi Wan and Han Solo scenes can drag. It doesn't have as many signature action and drama aspects of the other movies on this list.

Okay, so we have three movies left to rank. As much as I like Sith, because it was the last movie released, I found it the least compelling of the "action"y three remaining. If Lucas could do it all over again as a six-movie deal, from start to finish, then Sith could be one of the better movies with some small changes. Basically, just end it with Anakin getting hauled out of the lava, and make it seem like he dies. Then, Padme dies, and we still assume that Vader is a separate Sith lord, and not Anakin, until the big reveal at the end of Empire. But, as is, I have to rank Sith as the third best.

Which leaves us with Return of the Jedi vs. The Empire Strikes Back. I realize I'm in the minority with this opinion, but I find Jedi to be most satisfying to watch. Yes, the Ewoks are gimmicky, and they span all of the most awful Jar Jar Binksian parts of the next two movies, but I still think they serve as a nice balance to all the grimness as the end of Empire and throughout the rest of Jedi.

In fact, this sheer darkness at the end of Empire is why I favor Jedi. At the end of Empire, you find out that Luke's real dad is one of the most evil mother effers in the galaxy, Luke loses in direct combat to Vader, Han Solo is encased in carbonite and under the control of an evil gangster and the Rebellion's base on Hoth is destroyed. That's a whole big bucket of depression right there.

The photo original Family Guy inspiration for the title of its Empire spoof (whew, that's a mouthful) is from this blog. The duel photo is from this site, somewhere on it.