Yes. Lucas is very lenient when it comes to Star Wars parodies (he’s a big fan of them, apparently), and this episode was done with Lucasfilm’s approval.
If they needed filler, I would have liked to have seen them re-use the mission briefing scene where Luke talks about womp rats and they end it with the Curb Your Enthusiasm music. But replaced with Chris as Luke. A parody of a parody.
A possibly overlooked joke:
Before the reminiscing started, they said something about telling the story of Meg’s birth.
Peter goes, “we got halfway home with the afterbirth before we realized it wasn’t Meg.”
I so thought they were going there. That is one of the funniest bits ever.
“You really sandbagged me back there!”
Speaking of womp rats. . .they mentioned that the holes were two meters wide and someone (was it Darth Stewie) goes, “well, that’s not much bigger than a womp rat.”
Then, later, Luke goes, “if you need me, I’ll be targeting womp rats with my T-16.”
I watched it around 1:30 in the morning and fell asleep halfway through, but I’ll finish watching it. However, I didn’t love it. I guess I’m tired of Star Wars parodies, but it was pretty much like they went through the plot and dialog of Star Wars and threw some jokes in every so often. Ok, that’s sort of the definition of parody, but it just fell flat with me for some reason, maybe FG and Star Wars are just too far removed.
But, I thought the art was pretty damn good, especially the space shots of the starships. That makes me want to see some new animated Star Wars movies/shows.
One of my favorites:
Flunky: The hole is only about two meters wide.
Adam West/Tarkin: Why, that’s no bigger than a womprat!
-FrL-
The stormtroopers seemed to have the same distinct build as Joe (I’m Joe, my legs don’t work but I make up for it by having a strong upper body), but I don’t think they used Patrick Warburten for their voices. I was expecting a joke where they all took off their helmets and they were all clones of Joe, but that never happened. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had something like that, but cut it from the final version.
Heck, I wanted to see Brian get all miffed because he doesn’t get a medal at the end. “It’s because I’m a second-class citizen!”
And after the opening text that went how creepy it was to find out Luke and Leia were siblings, why not include the Tarzan-swing across the shaft with Lois kissing Chris?
This episode didn’t need filler - they just missed more opportunities to spoof the source material.
As an afterthought, I think Billy Dee Williams did okay after Star Wars, or at least I can’t imagine the role hurt him.
I think the joke there was that they were the original theatrical explosions, not the ones altered for the Special Edition(s).
I’ve never seen Star Wars (the originals anyway, I have seen 2 of the new ones) but I was still amused by this episode. I am sure I missed a lot of material, but I’ve heard enough about Star Wars that I know the basic story and could follow along.
Not being a SW fan I won’t hold this up as a favorite episode, but I still thought it was worth watching. Things like moving the couch and Stewie as Darth Vader were still funny.
I didn’t even know it was this weekend. I’ll have to track it down somehow. I’m a sucker for Family Guy, bad as it can be sometimes.
In a semi-related note, it sounds like they’re prepping for a Star Trek parody show too, according to Wil Wheaton. Probably won’t be a full hour, but it’s all good.
I see a causal relationship here.
Wow, I can’t wait! Should be a lot of fun.
Yeah good luck with your assault…jerk.
ummm…yeah…I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask about the 0.01%
A Star Trek episode will have a very high standard to live up to in the form of Where No Fan Has Gone Before from Futurama.
Remove the “Time of my life” number, the Magic Johnson thing, and the stupid “jazz creep” when they crept past the stormtroopers after hiding in the Falcon, and the rest was brilliant, IMO. Oh yeah, the commercial about the robot-alien promoitional wavy arms" could have lasted about on esecond and been much funnier.
Loved the list of rewards. “Ooh - a light saber cheese grater…blech.” (Dig at Cracker Barrel)
And the very sly reference to History of the World. “Think it’ll fall? The Empire?”
There were Special Editions?
Actually I liked the Cab Calloway reference for being “cool, real cool.” If I am not mistaken that was “Minnie the Moocher” that was his signature song and that he performed in The Blues Brothers.
Anyway, I thought it was funny at least.
Jim