Blu-ray review: Family Guy: Something, Something, Something Dark Side

I’ve always admired Family Guy for its humor, sure its dirty and sure its crude at times but everyone gets a good laugh at the series. As of late Seth MacFarlane has been making a series of Family Guy films based of the Star Wars trilogy, the first one was based off of  A New Hope now he brings us the second installment Something Something, Something Dark Side which follows the line of Empire Strikes Back. Obviously most of you know the story of Empire Strikes Back, if you don’t well you should have watched it already. In short its basically the story of the second Star Wars with a nice touch of Family Guy, I just don’t want to spoil all the really funny bits they take from the film.

There are a few things that could of been better though, one would be that they could have gone further with the cookie monster wampa, I have always loved it when they introduced the cookie monster to the series. Its a great fresh idea, but that whole bit felt way to short and I know there could of been more funnies with that whole bit. The Rocky IV montage was amusing, we saw some of that before in an episode where Stewie and Brian were training but I felt this was forcefully put in like they ran out of ideas, maybe the could of had a bit from The Karate Kid. At the same time, they should have toned down the whole gay Stewie bit, sure it was pretty funny in the show but this felt also that it was forced in when they could have come up with other Stewie bits, it just didn’t fit all that well with the Star Wars parody.

Sure a lot of the jokes on the film could be considered rehashed jokes from the TV show but they’re still funny, but worry not there’s some really good jokes that I actually didn’t see coming. One in particular during the Battle of Hoth when Luke crash lands and has to Rambo his way up onto a AT-AT.

Video Quality/Audio

The movie has a AVC MPEG-4 1080p encode in the 1.33:1, and does nice work of keeping the bad features out of the main focus. Colors are amazingly bright and crisp, while thin character outlines remain consistent, never disappearing or changing in thickness. Black levels are perfectly deep, while detail is really clean. There are a few flaws however. There is a show Color banding shows up from time to time, though not at all in the main characters and their clothing. It’s always usually in backgrounds and odd shots to the side that get that strange appearance. There’s a bit of aliasing, especially in moving shots of ships, and a few jagged lines in some spots.

The pictures rocks a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, whenever the classic John Williams score was brought in, I would flash back to the old Classic Star Wars films. The light saber battles sound clean, AT-AT stomping hits the bass hard and the ship sounds all sound work amazing with the fly over.

Special Features

Audio Commentary: Our guides in this commentary are Seth MacFarlane, Mark Hentemann, David A. Goodman, Kirker Butler, Dominic Polcino, and Seth Green. They all pull together a great comedic track, talking about all the bits they thought were funny. Including some interesting bits where they thought could have had some nice gag moments that might of been included in the feature.

Family Guy Fact-Ups: A very interesting bit added. Its full of Family Guy facts and goodies about the film that will give you a good laugh here and there.

The Dark Side of Poster Art (HD): A odd feature but curious, this showed how all the conception of the cover art of Family Guy Something, Something, Something Dark Side came to be. With some words from the artists on studying the art work from Empire Strikes Back. Defiantly worth checking out.

Animatic Scene to Scene (HD): A commentary by Dominic Polcino. The director discusses about the “animatic” versus the finished product, he adds in this being the last time Family Guy storyboards were hand drawn. There’s a few shots that get this treatment, hearing Polcino talk about the work put in is worth watching for any aspiring artist.

Table Read (HD): Phew this one is kind of long but any Family Guy fan will appreciate this, I love to see acting in the works. Here we see the cast doing a table read of the first few pages of the Film and its interesting to see the characters come to life from the Actors. There are some humorous bits between the actors which is worth the watch.

Sneak Peek (HD): A glimpse at Family Guy – Episode VI: We Have a Bad Feeling About This Table Read. Which will be the “Return of the Jedi” segment of the series, lets say its short and sweet. Don’t worry no spoilers here.

Pre-Menu Trailers (SD, HD): Trailers for Cavalcade of Comedy, Family Guy: Volume Seven, ‘The Marine II, Jennifer’s Body and Gentlemen Broncos appear before the main menu. It is what it is but I don’t find it useful, just hit the skip button on your remote and “Move Along”.

Closing Comments: The film comes in just under 55 mins, its a funny journey through the original Star Wars series we all know and love. I wished there were more behind the scenes bits with the film, such as interviews with the actors and even maybe a glimpse of how the voice overs went down in the studio. Its always funny to see the actors laughing at their own jokes. If you love Family Guy jokes and Star Wars then this is definitely worth checking out when you get the chance, Ill be seeing the third one for sure when the next one is out.

Thanks for reading!

May the force be with you… Always..