Family Guy: Something, Something, Something Dark Side (2009)
Review written by Steven M Duarte
Seth McFarlane and co. returns to the Star Wars universe with their second entry Something, Something, Something Dark Side. While their first Star Wars spoof Blue Harvest centered on A New Hope, this film centers on The Empire Strikes Back. We get more of the classic family guy jokes and banter along with the inclusion of more characters from the family guy universe transformed into Star Wars characters.
The setup for Dark Side is very similar to the Blue Harvest film. The Griffin family is at home watching television when the power goes out. The family then decides they should hear a story from Peter regarding the Empire Strikes back. The original characters that appeared in Blue Harvest are all back in the same roles. Stewie is Darth Vader, Peter Han Solo and so forth. The inclusion of additional characters from both the Star Wars and Family Guy was a welcome addition. Peters neighbor Joe Swanson plays a probe droid, Ernie the Chicken is Boba Fett and Mort plays cool talking Lando Calrissian.
Dark side also contains some of the funnier non regular characters into the mix. The cookie addicted Cookie Monster from prior episodes returns as a Wampa on Hoth. Cleveland is also back in the mix as R2-D2 which is a welcome addition considering that he no longer appears in the regular Family Guy show. Meg does appear in the film although as the space slug that the Millennium Falcon fly’s into. This has been a running joke of the series and works well in Dark Side.
This time around Dark Side was created for a direct to video release which did allow for bit more raunchier jokes than Blue Harvest. Some jokes involve the characters spurting out obscenities which are not bleeped. I’m not too sure if the obscenities are funnier when bleeped or when they are not but the use of them in Dark Side caused for some of the funnier moments of the film.
Final Thoughts:
Overall a much funnier film that Blue Harvest, Dark Side takes the prior formula used with Blue Harvest and takes it to the next level. Fans of both Star Wars and Family Guy will appreciate the inclusion of more characters from each series into the mix.
4 OUT OF 5 STARS
--Steven M Duarte
