Seth MacFarlane as Palpatine always cracks me up. He has that Stewie voice going for him. And Abe Benrubi does a smashing job as Vader. I was glad to hear Billy Dee Williams reprising Lando. And it was good seeing more of Gary. He was quite the f*ckup.
Did anyone else notice what looked to be Jon Stewart under the stormtrooper’s helmet in the scene with Boba Fett? Don’t have it queued up now, or I’d give the time.
Yeah, i almost mentioned that to my brother who was watching it with me but it was so fast i wasn’t sure i was right.
I really enjoyed it. I can’t remember if I’ve seen both of the other two, but I’ve seen at least one. This wasn’t as good, but I was giggling to myself for the entire hour.
I think what makes the show in general work so well is usually when a particular bit falls flat, it’s over so quick and on to the next one that it doesn’t bring down the whole mood and kill the momentum.
I never understood the Boba Fett love, so I liked that they actually called that out, how little he really was in the actual original 3 movies.
Off the top of my head, one of my favorites last night was Veru turning down fire insurance. Billy Dee was awesome, as always, too.
But as much as I enjoyed it, none of the bits came close to my favorite: Palpatine in his office, getting a call from Vader telling him about the Death Star… “Panda Bear or Padme or whatever her name was… he’s CRYING!… Cole slaw, but I’m not going to eat it anyway… love you too.” Something about the sound of his phone just makes it even funnier for me.
I got more of a “Casino” vibe from the intro than “American Beauty.”
I thought the Wampa at the Service Station was really moving. It also felt somehow familiar, though I’m not sure why.
Is this going run again?
I don’t know why, but the bit with Han Solo meeting Chewie’s family had me laughing for a good 3 minutes. I wish they had wrapped up the storyline with the Jewish Jedi council member though.
The use of “Baba O’Reilly” was a specific reference to American Beauty.
Baba O’Reilly was never used in American Beauty
I liked the one in the last special that had Palpatine visiting the second Death Star from Return of the Jedi. He loses his luggage, buys a T-shirt from the gift shop, then sits under the air conditioning vent. He then says, “Can this day get any worse? I said that ironically, you know.”
Then about an hour later, Vader throws him down the shaft.
Well, this debate continues :p.
I remembered where I recalled this narration bracketing backstory “trope” from, and it turned out to be the 1979 movie “Angles Revenge”, which I only have seen via MST3K (its a Charlie’s Angles knock-off, the scene I was remembering was the all-female squad attacking a drug gang hide-out, when in mid-attack the action stops and a teacher-turned-avenger starts the narration of the back story - after which (half the movie) the action resumes after the bracketing narrative again - much like the Emperor Palpatine bracketing narration in RCSW III. No Baba O’Riley in Angles Revenge, though.
And I agree with those who think this episode was not quite as good as the first two - perhaps they have gone to the SW well a few too many times.
Were the avenging angles acute?
There is a strong association based on the trailer, though - I agree that it was intended to evoke American Beauty.
Prune Face!
Also I wish we could get a consensus on the movie reference because I am also sure the freeze frame, narration, song (that specific song) was from a movie.
I saw a bit of this at NYC Comic Con so I knew going in it was an attempt at a long form story with skits orbiting around, I suppose if you didn’t, it could be disconcerting since that is not Robot Chicken’s style.
Other message boards are ponding the same thing. One post on that board claims ‘someone in the know’ said “it’s just a trope they used and made their own. No specific reference, but, as said above, influenced by the million movies that have done it before”. I could buy that…
Yeah, I realized I posted ‘Angles’ instead of ‘Angels’ in a previous post, but only after the edit time-limit had passed. Oops.
And don’t say Star Wars !!! 
I saw this on DVR yesterday and its been bugging me all day. The show is in the form of flashback from the POV of Emperor Palpatine (as he falls to his death). Its clearly a parody of a gangster movie. The closest I can think of is Casino, but I’m not sure that is it.
Any ideas ?
Didn’t watch Robot Chicken, but the first ‘flashback’ gangster movie that comes to my mind is Carlito’s Way.
Consensus seems to be American Beauty.. A lot of details are wrong, but the bookend narration with a dead slash about-to-be-dead guy, the music. It’s pretty close.
I thought of Goodfellas myself.