Review: FAMILY GUY – SOMETHING SOMETHING DARKSIDE

SOMETHING SOMETHING DARKSIDE (SSDS) is the sequel to last years BLUE HARVEST, in which the FAMILY GUY cast is placed into the most popular film franchise of all time, STAR WARS. What’s amazing about these parody’s is that they’re completely licensed by Lucasfilm and include everything from the original sound effects, to the original score, and retell the stories almost exactly as the happened in the film, but of course with a Family Guy twist. Even more amazing is that it actually works because of the obvious care and love that has gone into both of these one hour specials. Of course SSDS is a retelling of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, my favorite Star Wars film, and in my top 3 favorite movies of all time.

Like BLUE HARVEST, SSDS starts out with a power outage forcing Peter to tell his family the second part of the Star Wars saga. The cast puts Lois as Leia, Peter as Han Solo, Stewie as Darth Vader and Chris as Luke. Much of the rest of the Family Guy cast rounds out the rest of the characters. You get the usual opening crawl full of some really good jokes and then the retelling truly begins. I really can’t dive into the story because if you’ve seen Empire Strikes Back then you know EXACTLY what’s going to happen, without it most of these jokes would simply go over your head and be a waste. So I’m saying this right now… If you haven’t seen the original Star Wars trilogy then go see it right away before watching this special. What makes SSDS so great is the attention to detail to all of the classic moments in Empire. Some shots are as close to frame by frame recreations as you can get with this kind of animation. It’s this level of detail that makes the jokes pop that much more. There are moments where the score, the sounds and the action will just make you think you’re watching some parallel universe version of the film and you’ll fall back into the classic nature of the series and then you’ll get thrown right into a fit of laughter from some really deranged look at the Star Wars universe.

The jokes here are pitch perfect, in fact they surpass the jokes in BLUE HARVEST several times over. SSDS is a better special in every single way. There are some great moments in here that I won’t be able to get out of my head when I go back and watch the original EMPIRE. It’s just that good. My only complaint with the entire thing is one that would actually sound pretty strange if you know me… I didn’t like the harsh Language. Family Guy has definitely taken this special into R-rated territory and that’s a shame. It’s unnecessary and really cuts down on their audience. Sure it brought a chuckle out of me when I heard Luke dropping an F-Bomb, but there were four of them. With how many kids love cartoons, and how many kids love Star Wars it’s just a bit of a disappointment. Maybe if there were a censored version it’d be ok, but with that many F-bombs, I can’t really even watch this with my mom. The other issue I had was that it’s in the 4:3 aspect ratio, meaning that it’s the wrong size for modern TVs. With most TV shows already adopting the 16:9 (Wide screen) nature of modern TVs, it’s amazing that Family Guy is still in 4:3. Even their spin-off The Cleveland show is in 16:9. I don’t know if it’s some way to try and keep continuity between every season, but it’s nearly 2010, 4:3 is the way of the past. But other than that this thing is perfect. It’s the best Star Wars parody to date because it genuinely shows that there’s a love for the series.

Family Guy’s Something Something Darkside gets a 4 1/2 out of 5 stars.