Family Guy: Something, Something, Something Dark Side - DVD and Blu-ray Review
By Cyril Pearl -- Video Business, 12/7/2009
FOX
Street: Dec. 22
Prebook: now
> Seth MacFarlane and company’s latest Star Wars send-up offers fewer laughs but slicker animation.
Family Guy’s Peter, Lois, Brian, Stewie, Chris, Quagmire and Meg (once again in a tiny role) return for Seth MacFarlane and company’s second parody of the Star Wars series. This one takes on 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, and though it’s not as fresh and rollicking as Family Guy’s original Star Wars send-up, 2008’s Blue Harvest, Something is still quite funny, as well as stunningly animated. (Some of the outer space shots are so rich that for a moment you might think they were lifted from the original source material.) Fans will be delighted to see the inclusion of subsidiary Family Guy characters in the mix, including Peter’s nemesis, Ernie the Giant Chicken, in the role of bounty hunter Boba Fett and a black-skinned Mort Goldman as Lando Calrissian.
Shelf Talk: Available as a download on iTunes day-and-date with the DVD and Blu-ray Disc (making it the first Family Guy program to be available on Blu-ray) and tentatively scheduled to be broadcast on Fox late in January, Something is sure to make some noise with diehard followers of Family Guy. By that same token, fans also are known to jump all over the show in its downloadable form, so they may stop by iTunes before committing to a physical copy. Be sure to remind fans that the Blu-ray edition is the only place to find the program’s copious collection of extras.
Comedy, color, NR (language), 44 min., DVD $22.98, UPC: 024543626954; BD $29.99, UPC: 024543626992
Extras: BD includes commentary, deleted scenes, featurette, animatics, pop-up video, digital copy
Director: Dominic Polcino
First Run: DVD premiere
