The Movie
Oddly enough, all of the jokes that the creators of Family Guy: It's a Trap! make about how much their animated parody of Return of the Jedi sucks don't really make it any funnier. We're back to their sins from the original Star Wars spoof, the largely uninspired Blue Harvest, with its long, dull stretches of verbatim movie dialogue interspersed with scripted gags that are pretty slight, or drawn out, or just plain tired. (And some are just plain groan-out-loud bad.) Even the liberal use of the F-word in this unaired, unrated version seems, well, Forced.
We could argue that, Jedi being the weakest movie in the Classic Trilogy, we shouldn't have expected all that much. But if Robot Chicken can wring yuks out of the Prequel Trilogy fer cryin' out loud, Family Guy could have (and should have) made a more impressive showing.
The Picture
As before, much of this latest Family Guy special is built from movie footage that has been rotoscoped (animation applied over live action), only this time it is all framed at an HDTV-friendly 16:9 aspect ratio. Some of the fine details in this process can be a little twitchy, and there is a weird quality to some motion in panning shots. The original animation is simple (not South Park simple, but still) and it looks pretty slick, clean and precise with rich, vibrant colors, although I noted occasional faint ringing in soft glows.
The Sound
The DTS-HD Master Audio track is quite solid actually, with the lion's share of its music and effects lifted directly from the film. Familiar sonic moments from the Jedi are reproduced here as well, as when the sail barge flies over the camera and phases from front to rear, along with a couple of new 5.1 surprises. There's a perceptible difference in the resonance when Han and Lando are talking in the Rebel hangar, and a booming surround effect to Jabba's (Patrick Warburton) voice. Explosions are enjoyably sharp.
The Extras
An audio commentary is provided by multi-hyphenate creator/star Seth McFarlane, executive producer David A. Goodman, producers Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Shannon Smith, plus director Peter Shin. "Star Wars Trivial Pursuit: The Ultimate Championship" (31 minutes) puts us in the room as four show writers battle it out.
"Drawing with Peter Shin" (19 minutes) shows the artist in action, with explanation, while "Making the Scene" combines Shin's comments with a side-by-side reel illustrating the evolution of two scenes (six minutes total). This is in addition to almost 40 minutes of Animatics, rough moving storyboards for several key sequences.
"A Very Special Message from Darth Stewie" and the Sock Puppet Outtakes, each a minute-and-a-half, are a partial and complete waste of time, respectively. The disc is BD-Live-enabled, with Fox's Live Extras that include exclusive content. Disc Two is a hybrid DVD-ROM with the movie in standard definition for DVD players as well as a Digital Copy for iTunes and Windows Media, and now for pocket BLU (directly to a portable device) as well.
Final Thoughts
Did the plodding, Ewok-infested Return of the Jedi deserve a better send-up than Family Guy: It's a Trap!? Maybe it didn't. Did the fans deserve better? Yeah, I think we did.
Where to Buy:
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