Family Guy Presents: Something, Something, Something, Dark Side (2009)

Thanks for the memories!

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Some fans are really dissing this one, which to me is really distressing. A lot say the comedy is this one is rather unfunny and un-satirical. I'll admit a joke or two fell flat with a small chuckle, basically that bag of ice one I really despised. However, it holds together quite nicely in my opinion. To say "Blue Harvest" was better is saying something about you, because the majority of that one's humor was basically pointing out the plot holes of the original Star Wars. Funny, yes, but a bit insulting somewhat. So in turn here we have a lot less of that and more of the original storyline just interpreted through what the characters of "Family Guy" would normally do in those situations. And, other than that ice joke, the episode is incredibly funny and I don't know what's better, Chris' boss as Yoda or Stewie as Darth Vader. Either way, this one definitely deserves respect, especially as an avid Star Wars fan.

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.

This is a show worthy of a 4 out of 10 for a major reason, the jokes are either unimaginative or blown out of proportion.The animation is extremely well done and the use of music and references is very good. This elevated it above a 1 or 2 star rating. The problem is that whenever a joke is told by the characters they stand around laughing about it or explain it to the audience. For instance, Boba Fett is the chicken man. And Peter laughs and points him out and says "Look, Boba Fett is the Chicken Man." Why? Why would you assume that your audience is too stupid to realize that? Other jokes require specific wording to get off correctly and this requires the characters to wait and say the joke several times in order to make sure the viewer has time to process. The final problem with the spoken jokes is that they completely lack the necessary timing to be funny. They either take far to long or come out of left field. Such as Han shooting the inside of the giant worm some dozen or so times and having the exact same reaction each time. That's funny...if you're high.I don't have a problem with the jokes that come from the series itself because I liked those jokes the first time. The name of the movie, after all, is a reference to the series. Next up is the physical comedy. There are many great options for physical comedy as the majority of the movie uses the broad space battles from the film. How many things can happen in space? Asteroids can be shaped in funny ways, constellations can be in the background, the giant wedges can do something funny for goodness sake! Yet they do nothing with any of the space battles other than add a Wildest Police Chases voice-over for about twenty seconds. Where is the funny stuff from the first Star Wars parody where the Jawas are exchanging Grey Poupon? Even the actual Star Wars movie had the ships make warning sirens when the Falcon flew them too close to each other. Do something with that!Yoda, not funny.Jokes I found funny. The League of Doom. The dog thing if they cut it about half the length. The Wiley E Coyote moment. The Hand down the pants (don't ask me why but I laughed). Joe's Legs. The reference to Seth Green's failed movie. Trying to think of more, got nothing.The movie as a whole is not atrocious, but the lack of timing and the holy-cow-I'm-about-to-tell-a-joke-are-you-ready-here-it-is-and-heres- why-it-was-funny-did-you-laugh? aspect made it insufferable to sit through. The Family Guy team used to be better than that. Feels like they stopped trying.Thanks, Tom

First of all, i'll admit I was going into this movie with a lot of expectations, considering how excellent Blue Harvest, and Family Guy in general is. If you also have these ridiculously high expectations, prepare for some degree of disappointment (Unless you like profanity and violence without context). There is just something wrong here, and longtime Family Guy fans are sure to see it (Oh dear God I hope). It's like they wanted to recreate the movie with their characters, rather than make a parody of it. Blue Harvest poked a lot of fun at some of the plot elements of A New Hope, yet Something x 3 Darkside seems to lack the same irreverent "haha wtf George Lucas" humour. There are of course, exceptions, like the "giant boob nipple gun" of Hoth, and the Bespin speeders. Peter/Solo's response to Lois/Leia before the freezing in carbonite just seemed unnecessary. Also, normally I don't mind the random violence on FG, but something about Peter's sudden punching out of Lois seemed off and unfunny as well. On the plus side, the Rocky training montage is awesome, the shot at Meg is spot on, plus the ending is a neat twist too. Overall, Something x 3 Darkside just doesn't take enough shots at the original, like Blue Harvest, to make it a good enough parody. Fingers crossed for the third.