stitch-99 After falling in love with Blue Harvest and then hearing about this entry, I was ecstatic...until I saw it. Nowhere is the decline of Seth MacFarlane's comedic abilities more visible than watching the two SW Family Guy specials back-to-back.Allow me to give a small sampling of the poor attempts at humor employed by this special: Darth Vader farting as soon as Leia's out of the room, blatant re-packagings of jokes from other FG episodes that have already lost their funniness, Luke singing a duet with his own severed head for no apparent reason (which, admittedly, sounds funny, but the execution is terrible), R2 dragging Luke to his niece's violin recital, R2 listening to an ipod which somehow interferes with Luke's X-wing, a medical droid wanting to be thanked by Luke for his new hand (oddly enough, the joke used in the commercials in this spot was actually funnier and more adult), Luke calling out for Tom Sellick only to be ignored, various jokes that would've been funny if the set-up wasn't so long, Darth Vader second-guessing his own lines, Darth Vader calling Luke because he dialled the wrong number, arguing cab-drivers, and Luke showing up on the set of American Idol.That being said, there were a few literal laugh-out-loud moments. This is where the spoilers kick in until the end of this paragraph for those who still wish to see it for themselves. Taun-tauns being replaced with Don-dons (essentially thesame, but with Don Knotts' head), Cookie Monster being the snow monster, R2 commenting on the safety conditions of the Rebel Base, Rebel troops pointing out Leia's military incapability, "Luke, if that's you, wave your right hand! No, your other right hand!", Darth Vader confusing the Dark Side of the Force with being gay, a recently born baby in with the garbage for about two seconds, racist Chewbacca, Yoda saying one thing and then instantly contradicting himself (it works in context), Meg's cameo, and the opening scroll commenting on Fox's poor foresight. While I realize that I made it sound as if it was about even between funny and unfunny, trust me, there were so many more unfunny things that simply slipped my memory.Having said all of that, I can, in no way recommend this special to anyone except die-hard Family Guy fans, i.e. the ones who insist that the show is still funny. If clips of the funny bits can be found, I would recommend those to either Family Guy or Star Wars fans, but not the whole thing. It's simply not worth it, and if I can spare anyone else the sheer boredom of most of this special, it will have been worth it.

Cheese Hoven This is the second of Family Guy's double length episodes, and like the first, Blue Harvest, is based on the Star Wars franchise. It should be a barrel of laughs but it is more like scraping the barrel.The one thing which made Family Guy stand out from the crowd were its cutaways. These are entirely absent here. So too is that other mainstay of FG, the interplay between Brian and Stewie. Deprived of these sources of comedy, the writers fall back on the same old recycled gags and in-jokes which have worn so thin.This was somewhat true of Blue Harvest too but that least managed to raise a few laughs. This present episode relies too much on audience recognition of its overly familiar characters and thinks that someone is going to think "oh look that's the evil monkey" and find that amusing in its self. Its not, its pure laziness.

bob the moo Another power cut hits the Griffin household leaving them devoid of any form of media to distract them from one another. Faced with the horror of family conversation, Peter tells a story that follows on from his previous tale, following the young Jedi Luke and the Rebellion as they fight the forces of the Empire in a galaxy far, far away.As with Blue Harvest before it, this "film" was promoted on DVD in the UK despite being less than an hour long. With my experience from Blue Harvest (where it screened for free on the BBC a few days after DVD release) I didn't buy it but did watch it for free when I got the chance because I did find that the previous Star Wars episode was very funny indeed. Ironically (considering they contrast with it), "Dark Side" echoes the second Robot Chicken Star Wars episode by managing to be both very funny but at the same time not quite as good as their first attempt.The Family Guy special has the additional assistance of having the structure provided by Empire Strikes Back itself, rather than being all gags like RC was, and this does sustain it. Part of this is the value of Fox's FG being able to utilise the film and music as much as it does, so even if a specific moment isn't particularly funny, there is still the novelty value of it having the look and feel of the film itself. Of course this is not enough and it does help that, while not as rapid fire as Robot Chicken, this special is still very funny thanks to the usual Family Guy sense of humour and lots of clever gags at the gentle expense of Empire. Given that Family Guy does pop culture reference jokes, this is quite the partnership and does work well. I noticed more misses than in Blue Harvest, moments where I wasn't laughing, but the hits still outnumber these by quite some degree. The characters are well used as before and I was quite pleased that Herbert/Obi-wan had significantly less time here, since I thought he was overused in the first special.Generally the film (extended episode) works well because the target audience will love the film and also get the sense of humour with which Family Guy affectionately spoofs it. This does have more misses in it than Blue Harvest but it is still very funny and worth seeing (although not worth the full cost of a DVD). Biggest laugh is saved for the end, with a repeat of the ribbing of Seth Green (Chris) really hitting the mark.

Jon Slamko I have seen virtually every episode of family guy including blue harvest, all which are very funny and cause you to laugh. However in this movie, I had only found 3 lines that caused me to laugh, the rest was just filler that made no sense. If you have not seen the original star wars movie you will be completely lost and most likely cause you to never watch family guy again as the person that I watched "Something, Something, Something Dark Side" with had stated after she had wasted just over 54 min of her life that she will never get back.If you have nothing else to watch give it a go, hopefully you will enjoy it more than myself.