The Star Wars films will probably be parodied for centuries to come, having such a grand cultural impact. So it’s no surprise that the outrageous, decency-pushing television show Family Guy would continue it’s nearly scene-by-scene paraphrasing spoof of the original trilogy, started by “Blue Harvest.” Some of the freshness and zest of the first film is lost, but the hilarity hasn’t diminished. It’s definitely crafted for those who are huge fans of both series.

A long time ago when the gays weren’t so in your face about it… Thus starts a comprehensive rip on The Empire Strikes Back, fearlessly trampling on pop culture, civility and political correctness. The illogicality of several key starship sequences, the causes of war (an Imperial dog was kidnapped), and the silliness of particular Star Wars characters are instantly the target of mockery. Like the TV show itself, the film makes jokes of countless other franchises, commercials, movies, programs and more, most of which are well known, while others are so obscure they might only be found in some specialized version of Trivial Pursuit.

Sesame Street, The Jetsons, Don Knotts, Rodney Dangerfield, Juicy Fruit, Cops, The Beatles, Allstate Insurance, Jon Favreau, Rocky IV, Looney Tunes, Tom Selleck, and many, many more entities are ruthlessly joked about. The range of spoofs is intelligently wide. The actual plot of the film is nearly irrelevant, since it serves simply to tie together gags; even more so as it’s the middle piece of the trilogy. Nonetheless, the Rebel Alliance has fled to the ice planet of Hoth, where Darth Vader (Stewie) has tracked them and prepared for a ground assault. Luke Skywalker (Chris) leads the group of heroes, consisting of Princess Leia (Lois), Han Solo (Peter Griffin, code name Carlos Spicyweiner), Chewbacca (Brian), C-3PO (Quagmire) and R2-D2 (Cleveland). After narrowly escaping the frozen planet, Luke departs for the Dagobah system to find Jedi Master Yoda (Carl), and the remaining main characters travel to Cloud City to meet Han’s old buddy Lando (Mort Goldman).

Joe Swanson, Meg, the Giant Chicken, Carter Pewterschmidt, and many other Family Guy regulars round out the characters and enhance the familiar storyline. This feature-length cartoon also never lets up on paying homage to itself, reinventing many of the long-running buffooneries that made the show famous, including totally random asides, intercut footage, cell-shaded computer animation and ridiculously repetitious shticks. And while so much of Something, Something, Something Dark Side is incredibly humorous, perhaps the best part is that all of the original Star Wars music was used.

- Mike Massie

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