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Family Guy returns to true form and roasts the hell out of the Force.

I’m one of those people that believe that Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy television show hasn’t really been all that funny since its revival on Fox. While the original three seasons were genius at times, the follow-up just hasn’t been the same. There’s only one episode that even begins to evoke the spirit of the original run, and it has been released on DVD now all by its lonesome, because it’s just that epic. Epic, you say? Yes, epic – because it’s Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest - a nearly hour-long parody of the original Star Wars.

Maybe it’s because this is the most focused storyline MacFarlane and crew have attempted since the revival, but Blue Harvest (a name taken from the fake title of Return of the Jedi during production) is damned funny at times. The episode starts off with the dysfunctional Griffin family watching television when the power goes out. To kill time, father Peter tells the story of Meg’s birth (“Yeah, yeah, we got halfway home with the afterbirth before we had to turn around and exchange it for Meg. The end.”) before turning the clan’s attention to his unique retelling of Star Wars. Here, son Chris is Luke Skywalker, mom Lois is Leia, baby Stewie is Darth Vader, talking dog Brian is Chewbacca and Peter himself is Han Solo. Meg only shows up in a cameo, but that would be giving away a funny joke. Filled with typical Family Guy humor, every plot hole of George Lucas’ sci-fi epic is prodded (Darth Stewie demanding estimates on fixing the tiny flaw on the Death Star), every key scene is reenacted (you’ll never watch Greedo’s death the same way again), and Han Solo steals the Empire’s couch.

Some of the humor is typical and lame (a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker on the back end of an Imperial Destroyer is just too easy) but there are a lot of real gems to be found here. Leia trying to program a message into R2-D2 (laid-back neighbor Cleveland) and not figuring out how to save it as an Mpeg file, for instance, or Luke boasting about his shooting womprats, to which C3-PO (Quagmire) replies “My God, you shoot small animals for fun? That’s the first indicator of a serial killer, you freak!”

Like I said, one of the reasons the humor is better here than in many recent outings is because it isn’t just random sight gags and flashback scenes; there’s an actual story to focus on. The only real downside is the use of the recurring elderly pervert in the role of Obi-Wan; I can handle a quick cameo by the disturbing character here and there, but almost an hour filled with pedophile jokes makes me a bit uncomfortable.

As the whole project and episode were approved by George Lucas beforehand, this Fox DVD includes a neat segment where MacFarlane gets to interview Lucas. Other extras include a making-of featurette, a running commentary by MacFarlane and others, and an animatic version of the show. A second disc is included and it is a digital copy of the film, to be used in computer systems.

Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest is the show at some of its best in a long time. Due to its success, they plan on following it up with sequels based on Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Hopefully they can retain the level of fun and humor found here.

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