Review: Family Guy S6 Ep1 - "Blue Harvest"
It's Star Wars, right, with the characters replaced by the cast of Family Guy. Sounds alright (or: a bit rubbish), yeah?
Let me first say this: If you're not either 1) a HUGE Star Wars fan, or 2) a HUGE Family Guy fan, or preferably both, you won't like this at all. Please leave now.
Still here? Okay. This episode of Family Guy... really is... Star Wars.
No, really.
It really, really is. A lot of the lines are exactly as they were in Star Wars. The music is the music from Star Wars, and I don't mean it's the same basic music played by different people, it's the actual music. It's spot-on, John Williams, London Symphony Orchestra-tastic. If you're #1 above, you'll be saying the lines as Peter/Stewie/Chris/Lois say them, whilst humming along with the music that's playing in your head, and coming from your TV, the same way as you be would if you had Empire in your video player on a Sunday afternoon when you were 12. It even has the actual special effects plates for some of the scenes (and all of the effects it has are from the ORIGINAL version of Episode IV, hooray!) that were in the movie. The real ones, not an imitation.
So it's Star Wars. Pretty much completely, and perfectly.
But it's also Family Guy, which means it goes off on insane tangents that you didn't see coming (because it's written by manatees, of course), but this time, they're Star Wars tangents. If I haven't stressed it enough, you must know Episode IV inside out, back to front and upside down to appreciate most of the gags for what they are: Perfect, perfect pastiches or something you know intimately (fnaar), and love dearly.
I found myself actually Laughing Out Loud at the majority of the gags, which is something normally reserved for some of the grosser, more hardcore episodes of South Park, or for when I see someone's pants split open when they bend over or something. It really is properly, hilariously funny.
So, if you like Family Guy (a LOT) and you've watched Star Wars (Episode IV, "A New Hope") as many times as I have (a LOT) and know it every which way you can, this episode will be your new Best Thing Ever™. Seriously, it's that good.
10 pieces of toast out of 10 (if you fall into both categories described in paragraph 2, above. If you don't, probably 1 or 2 out of 10, you ignorant nerf-herder).
4.21-en
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Comments
Maybe I need to watch this again.
Didn't make it through the whole thing first time around. Maybe I'm just not a big enough Family Guy fan (though I do like the show) but this just seemed like Star Wars with a few cheap jokes thrown in... at no point did I find it 'hilariously funny'.
Far too close to the source material for my liking. It felt like Star Wars done badly... a bit like Gus Van Sant's 'Psycho'.
But ten pieces of toast out of ten makes me think I might be missing something.. I'll try watching the it through, now that I know what to expect (i.e. zero originality... just star wars + jokes).
Posted by: Michael Flanagan | October 18, 2007 3:34 PM
My point is this: If you love Family Guy and you LOVE Star Wars, you will like this.
If you don't, you won't. Easy as cake.
Posted by: Matt | November 2, 2007 9:00 PM