When a power cut hits the Griffin family home the usual focal point of the television is lost and Peter turns to a more traditional source of entertainment original story telling. To entertain his family Peter tells a story of a young farm boy on a distant planet, drawn into the fight against the strength of the evil Empire.
Understandably this episode was heavily pushed on DVD for sale and, thinking it was a full film I did add it to my LoveFilm list. Fortunately before that site could work out to get it to the top of my list I noticed that BBC were showing it as part of the new season of Family Guy. So, pleased that I saved myself a bit of cash, I watched it on BBC3 the other recently. From the very start the novelty value of seeing the familiar Star Wars footage and hearing the music the novelty value had me hooked. For a show built heavily on popular culture reference and p*ss-taking jokes, Family Guy offers lots of potential for affectionately spoofing the show with its own style leaning away from the easy gags but also able to carry them as well.
Mostly the approach is very funny, with plenty of good laughs. There are one or two misfires in there that don't work but for every one of those there are about ten good hits. It is all a bit silly of course and those that do not "get" Family Guy humour will find the same problem here, however for the majority I think it will work as it did for me. The "casting" of the regular characters is well done. Meg is wisely left to a apt and funny brief appearance while Peter and Brian are good as Han and Chewie. Lois as Leah is not overused while Chris is a good Luke. Cleveland and Quagmire are imaginatively cast as the droids. Both Stewie and old perv Herbert are well put in the roles of Vader and Kenobi but the former is not used often enough while the latter is perhaps overused to a certain degree and is responsible for a miss or two.
Blue Harvest is not perfect, nor is it worth buying a forty minute special for the price of a full-length DVD but otherwise it is an enjoyable and very funny Star Wars spoof that is not so much mocking as it is affectionately joshing.
Understandably this episode was heavily pushed on DVD for sale and, thinking it was a full film I did add it to my LoveFilm list. Fortunately before that site could work out to get it to the top of my list I noticed that BBC were showing it as part of the new season of Family Guy. So, pleased that I saved myself a bit of cash, I watched it on BBC3 the other recently. From the very start the novelty value of seeing the familiar Star Wars footage and hearing the music the novelty value had me hooked. For a show built heavily on popular culture reference and p*ss-taking jokes, Family Guy offers lots of potential for affectionately spoofing the show with its own style leaning away from the easy gags but also able to carry them as well.
Mostly the approach is very funny, with plenty of good laughs. There are one or two misfires in there that don't work but for every one of those there are about ten good hits. It is all a bit silly of course and those that do not "get" Family Guy humour will find the same problem here, however for the majority I think it will work as it did for me. The "casting" of the regular characters is well done. Meg is wisely left to a apt and funny brief appearance while Peter and Brian are good as Han and Chewie. Lois as Leah is not overused while Chris is a good Luke. Cleveland and Quagmire are imaginatively cast as the droids. Both Stewie and old perv Herbert are well put in the roles of Vader and Kenobi but the former is not used often enough while the latter is perhaps overused to a certain degree and is responsible for a miss or two.
Blue Harvest is not perfect, nor is it worth buying a forty minute special for the price of a full-length DVD but otherwise it is an enjoyable and very funny Star Wars spoof that is not so much mocking as it is affectionately joshing.