STAR WARS AFICIONADO WEBSITE: AFICIONADO REVIEW: ROBOT CHICKEN STAR WARS III

Tuesday 5 July 2011

AFICIONADO REVIEW: ROBOT CHICKEN STAR WARS III

Time to Par-ty! Vader and Palpatine go Disco crazy in ROBOT CHICKEN: STAR WARS III. Images: REVOLVER ENTERTAINMENT/ADULT SWIM

ROBOT CHICKEN: STAR WARS III

Available on UK DVD from REVOLVER ENTERTAINMENT

Reviewed by Scott Weller

“Y’know, looking back, it all make sense. Dream big. Live big. Love big. Fall to your death down a fucking giant hole!”

Emperor Palpatine

It may be their last venture into the realms of STAR WARS comedy via the ADULT SWIM universe, but Seth Green and Breckin Meyer’s third and final ROBOT CHICKEN dedicated to the iconic characters, environments and classic scenes from all six STAR WARS movies goes out with an hilariously extravagant and overwhelmingly funny bang, well worth the wait in seeing, and may rank amongst their finest work a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

In fact, it was pretty wizard! And had more belly laughs than last year’s FAMILY GUY JEDI parody-so its one up there for Mister Green. I think!

ROBOT CHICKEN STAR WARS III brilliantly highlights the rise and fall of Emperor Palpatine!

Once again, there’s lots of brilliantly observed new spins on classic scenes, mostly around RETURN OF THE JEDI and the life and career path of old hemorrhoid head Emperor Palpatine (once more brilliantly voiced with neurotic, paranoid, quirky and greedy observation by FAMILY GUY’s Seth MacFarlane) – additionally, the Prequels seem even more ripe than ever for mining comedy gold and brilliant what if? moments for humour that we’ve all been longing to see. Rib-tickling highlights include a whole new look at EPISODE II’s courtly love relationship between Padme and Anakin, as the former shows off her pole dancing skills to the latter, all the while declaring her reasons why they shouldn’t become an item! Anthony Daniels back in Threepio voice mode testing his communication skills in Spanish class, Prune Face finally getting the mega star action hero quality time he deserves, Yarel Poof questioning the prophecy and skills of his fellow Jedi Council members, and his ultimate fate during ORDER 66, what really happened to Owen and Beru Lars at their Tatooine homestead, the JEDI Finale celebration gets a whole new spin, the one armed Wampa trying to get some gas for his car at an intergalactic stopover, just as Luke shows up!, and, capping it off, there’s an alternate version of the skiff battle the way Boba Fett would have liked it to have ended, linked to a reason why Tauntauns have long memories…

Threepio gets a Spanish lesson!

Toilet trouble for Darth Vader on Death Star II!

Plus, running alongside the Emperor’s story-arc, there’s the obligatory classic Vader scenes (notably a laugh out loud moment when the Dark Lord gets used to his suit against the musical backdrop of the classic MEGO Records Disco funk version of the STAR WARS theme!), old fish-face himself, Admiral Ackbar, and the final adventures of Gary the Stormtrooper (where things get a bit too gruesome regarding an Ewok!).

Oh, and though the original programme already had unintentional comedy unwittingly built into it, the 1978 HOLIDAY SPECIAL gets a short but superb look-in, too…

Boba Fett gets his revenge on Han Solo!

As well as the aforementioned Daniels, other WARS veterans returning include CLONE WARS Tom Kane who always gives good Yoda and FAMILY GUY/AMERICAN DAD’s Dee Bradley Baker. Plus Billy Dee Williams and Ahmed Best, all clearly having a blast with their respective roles…

Life's a bitch when you're a disabled Wampa!

Outside of the main production which is funny enough, there’s a whole host of other enjoyable bonus material on the DVD including several fun audio commentaries, multiple behind the scenes animatics, informatic Chicken Nuggets, deleted scenes, trailers, a truncated look at the 2010 CELEBRATION V convention panel for the episode, Skywalker Ranch premiere footage, and, the icing of the cake, a sequence showing a playful George Lucas with the ROBOT CHICKEN writers in conference, in which, in a great scene, he throws one of the team out for bringing up the name of his non-created Mara Jade from the Expanded Universe! Classic stuff!

Prune Face almost steals the show!

IG-88's brother brings down the house party-literally!

Even without the expansive extras, ROBOT CHICKEN STAR WARS III is a tremendous achievement, one you can watch and re-watch and never get bored with. A special note of thanks must also be said not just to the writers and artists but to the incredible work undertaken, I’m sure in rapid time and limited budgets, by the set designers, puppet and costume makers, whose devoted recreations of the STAR WARS movie universe have been nothing short of superb, and surely helped the programmes in their attention to detail and realism to make it even more gag-tastic.

Now, about that STAR WARS: DETOURS...

AFICIONADO RATING: First rate laughs that continue to be both a wonderful homage and celebration to the STAR WARS saga, by a group of enthusiastic celebrity fans that clearly love and enjoy the source material as much as we do. A well deserved 5 out of 5.