The sixth season of FOX's hit television show Family Guy started off with a pretty interesting premise, using the characters from the show to pull off a spoof of the original Star Wars film. Those who know the show well, are surely aware of how many of the writers and people that voice the characters have loved Star Wars. The episode was elongated to fill an hour of network television, and did so in an attempt to make an event out of the season premiere, rather than just a typical 30 minute show that Family Guy would be. The episode runs the course of the entire original Star Wars film, of course taking liberties, but intending to pay homage to the 30th anniversary of the theatrical release.

The episode opens with Lois (the mother in the show) in the role of Princess Leia, attempting to have a message sent off using her droids (played by Quagmire as C3PO and Cleveland as R2D2). Chris is in the role of Luke Skywalker, in a much more bumbling interpretation of the role, but it fits pretty well in the story that they are trying to present. Peter takes on the role of Han Solo with his faithful dog Brian serving as Chewbacca. The combination works pretty well, and adds some needed humor to the story very early on in the episode. Filling out the other casting spots are Stewie as Darth Vadar, Meg as the creature from the garbage collector, and creepy neighbor Herbert as Obi-Wan. All of the roles start to make sense as the episode progresses, but some were obviously filler to get some people involved.

There are some moments within this "story" that really stick out to viewers of the show, and quite a few one-liners that will really have fans of the show laughing out loud. I even found myself laughing during (and after) the show in regards to one joke where they poke fun at one composer in order to show how highly regarded John Williams is by fans of Star Wars. Williams is of course the man behind the scores for each of the films, and quite a great musician in my humbler opinion. There are several cameo appearances of notable actors like Judd Nelson and Chevy Chase, as is normal for one of their episodes, because star power in a supporting character can up the level of humor involved in one of their jokes. The story also does a good job of sticking to the original story of Star Wars with plenty of that Family Guy humor thrown in to not only push some jokes over the top, but really push the envelope when it comes to other things.

Now I am the first to say that this was a very funny episode that really set a new bar for the Family Guy writers. In fact, I would say it is probably one of their best if I had to rank them, and the epic feel of the episode made it a really enjoyable show. That being said though, it is really only an extended episode of the show, which in itself is only 48 minutes long on the DVD as well. For die-hard fans of the show, who simply cannot get enough of Family Guy, this may be worth the purchase, but I don't really think that the DVD is anything special by itself. This is an episode that is better served on the Season 6 DVD rather than as a solo episode, and really isn't worth the price if you ask me. It gets a high recommendation from me in regards to the quality of this episode compared to past works on the show, but it will not get my recommendation for purchase, because it simply was not worth the almost $20.00 purchase price for one episode.




*Just a note that if you are not a fan of this show, that you will probably not end up enjoying this singular episode either.








Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD