August 08 2008
Out On DVD: Robot Chicken Star Wars
posted by Steven Shaw at 4:24 pm
For the uninitiated, the Robot Chicken Star Wars special is a collection of animated Star Wars parody sketches from the Adult Swim show Robot Chicken, created by Seth Green.
At 22 minutes, it might seem a tad short, but there’s a good amount of silly gags thrown in and some (not all) qualify as classics. Long time readers and YouTube viewers may remember the “Emperor Takes a Call” clip (since removed), where Palpatine gets a call from a distraught Vader, who’s phoning in to report that the Death Star has been destroyed — “That thing wasn’t even fully paid off yet!” snaps the Emperor.
Other memorable clips include a lightsaber battle between George W. Bush and Abe Lincoln, a dissing match between Luke Skywalker and the Emperor… and a sketch with Imperial officers saying Darth Vader “thinks he has the power to strangle us”. Rather than let on and risk him using his lightsaber, they conspire to fake their deaths when Vader uses his strangle hold — later donning disguises to keep him oblivious to the ruse.
The sketches aren’t all fantastic, but they’re thrown at you quick fire and most of them do work really well. The DVD has heaps of extras, including Seth Green taking you through the original storyboards. An excellent companion to the Family Guy Blue Harvest episode.