Family Guy Presents Blue Harvest (DVD)

...this involves putting the Griffin family - consisting of 2 parents, 2 teenage children, one baby and a dog - into "Star Wars" along with some of their friends and neighbours.

In the "Blue Harvest" episode, a show that was originally planned as the opening episode to the sixth series of the show, the Griffins are watching TV when the power goes out. To fill what would otherwise be empty space, Peter tells the family ...
...the 6 minute "Introduction to Family Guy" section was to introduce non-fans to the show. The fact that there is an option to watch this as an additional section to the "Blue Harvest" episode itself as well as separately as a DVD extra does seem to back this up slightly. Whilst it does give the uninitiated a run through of the characters, it's just a series of clips and doesn't really give a great feel of how the show itself works, ... more

The two are such a natural fit; it's hard to comprehend why we haven't seen something like this before. "Family Guy"; an animated show that takes the mickey out of everything and anything and sells more DVDs than even "The Simpsons" and "Star Wars"; one of the most iconic of films, constantly spoofed and referenced simply because the franchise has become part of public awareness since the first film was released more than three decades ago. Even if the more recent trilogy wasn't nearly as good as the original one.

For those who don't know the series, the show works in true "Family Guy" fashion, being relatively faithful to the source material at the most basic of levels and dropping in jokes and other references where they might be funniest. Part of this involves putting the Griffin family - consisting of 2 parents, 2 teenage children, one baby and a dog - into "Star Wars" along with some of their friends and neighbours.

In the "Blue Harvest" episode, a show that was originally planned as the opening episode to the sixth series of the show, the Griffins are watching TV when the power goes out. To fill what would otherwise be empty space, Peter tells the family the story of "Star Wars".

Princess Leia has been captured by Imperial Forces who are intent on crushing a rebellion against them by blowing up their base. Princess Leia, however, is in possession of the plans to the Empire's Death Star, which tells the rebels how to destroy it. She sends these plans off to Obi-Wan Kenobe, but they are intercepted by Luke Skywalker. Determined to help the princess they set off with Han Solo to rescue her and assist the rebels.

To be fair, if you're not immediately familiar with the story of "Star Wars", much of the enjoyment of "Family Guy Presents Blue Harvest" is going to be lost to you, although if you don't find "Family Guy" funny in the first place, this isn't really likely to change your mind in that regard, either. Whilst I wouldn't count myself as a huge lover of "Star Wars", I love "Family Guy" and I suspect that puts me in the target audience for this DVD. Fans of "Family Guy" but not "Star Wars" will probably enjoy it more than those who like "Star Wars" but not "Family Guy", as I suspect many of the liberties taken with the story and characters may offend the most dedicated of fans, even though the show itself appears to be written by the most dedicated of "Star Wars" fans.

For me, however, I thoroughly enjoyed the "Blue Harvest" experience. It was surprising how little seemed to be missed out of the "Star Wars" story, despite it being radically shortened to fit the "Family Guy" running time. Admittedly, I have not seen the film for a while so I can't remember it exactly, but there didn't seem to be any gaping holes in the story. All the characters I remembered from both the film and the series were present, although if you blink you risk missing Meg.

There were a few jokes that went over my head as they were based on American adverts or the like, but for the most part, it was very funny and given that they briefly spoofed the "Blues Brothers" gained it extra marks from me. It was the couple of "Airplane" moments and the "Doctor Who" reference that I laughed at the most, though, as they were completely unexpected, which is pretty much the "Family Guy" way of doing things and part of the reason I love it so much. There were a couple of other really unexpected moments which had me laughing and all the way through, the least obvious of jokes were the ones that had me laughing the hardest, but there wasn't a single one that seemed out of place.

The writing in general was superb on the episode and the character selection was ideal, although some of them were fairly obvious. Most fans of the show would have predicted seeing Stewie as Darth Vader and Brian the dog as Chewbacca, but some of the other characters were less obvious, but no less amusing. Cleveland's version of R2-D2 was particularly inspired, I felt, and gave rise to a couple of very funny moments, although Quagmire didn't seem to be able to give his libido as free a rein as he would have liked as C3-PO, but that's not to say he went entirely without.

The animation was very good and there were a couple of parts where it was nothing short of excellent. Whenever something blows up, the quality of the animated explosion was so good; it looked almost as if they'd dropped in a special effects explosion. It may be that these parts were actually computer generated, as they look so much realer than the rest of the animation, but I guess some cheating is allowed for explosions that big and effective.

The one down side I thought to the whole story was the large part played by Herbert as Obi-Wan Kenobe. His character is that of an old paedophile with a more than passing interest in Chris. Whilst I accept that "Family Guy" pushes the boundaries of taste and that he is quite a pathetic figure so it's not exactly glorifying such habits, I've never really liked the character and so didn't enjoy his character's enhanced position in the storyline this time around. In particular, the "Dirty Dancing" spoof he was part of seemed to go on for far too long and was more cringe inducing than funny, especially as the voice of the character really isn't made for singing. Again, this may well enhance the amusement for some, but I personally didn't enjoy that whole section. Generally speaking, though, fans of "Family Guy" will love this.

To get the most love out of the DVD, though, you do need to be able to sit down and watch and enjoy the additional features. If all you're going to watch is the 45 minute long episode, it isn't really great value for money and the addition of the 6 minute "Family Guy Introduction", of which more later, doesn't make it any more so, especially if you're already a fan of the show. To get proper value for money out of "Family Guy Presents Blue Harvest", the extras have to be considered.

The first of these is the almost standard commentary, which features almost the entire back room team; it seems, with Seth MacFarlane, who created "Family Guy", alongside many of the writers, directors and producers for this episode. Given that some of the people present were the ones who came up with the content of the DVD, I was expecting them to be funnier, but I suppose it's important to remember that they are writers and not comedians. They all seem to get on well together and there's a jovial atmosphere to the commentary and they manage to avoid talking over each other, which can be a danger in group commentaries like this.

It does contain some interesting information, though, particularly about parts that were cut for TV and jokes that were added in at different stages and went down especially well during test screenings and about some of the voices included. One of the bits that caught my attention was about one very minor joke which apparently got added in late and went down especially well at test screenings, even though it wasn't one I found especially amusing. At a couple of points, they did draw attention to visual gags around the edge of the picture that I'd missed during regular watching, so it was worth it for me from that position, but isn't really worth watching more than once or twice.

Next up is a 12 minute "Conversation with George Lucas", in which "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane essentially interviews "Star Wars" creator George Lucas. It does seem a little stilted at parts, but it's mostly a pretty decent question and answer session and there does seem to be a bit of mutual respect, despite the fact that Seth MacFarlane is clearly more of a "Star Wars" geek than George Lucas is! Given that they don't just cover their own work in the interview and because George Lucas turns out to have quite a dry sense of humour, which I wasn't really expecting from him, this turned out to be worth watching, but as with the commentary, it wouldn't be worth watching more than a couple of times.

The "Once in a Lifetime" making of featurette is a little longer at nearly 20 minutes, but again not really worth multiple viewings. It's interesting to see how many members of the "Family Guy" team are huge "Star Wars" fans and how enthusiastic they are to be working on the "Star Wars" episode. Having seen the same reaction with a friend of mine and his colleagues when their company won the special effects contract for the new "Doctor Who" series several years ago, I could relate completely to their feelings. There was some interesting background information about how things were made and the relationship between the "Family Guy" team and the people from Lucasfilm. It's mostly technical stuff which is really only as interesting as it could be if you're also a "Star Wars" geek like the staff, or if you're interested in the minutiae of making a show like this. On the down side, there are also a couple of bits that look as if they were filmed after the fact and so don't seem at all natural. The best part of this featurette for me was the news that they seem to be planning on doing the next two episodes as well.

The next on the list is the animatic version, which is essentially a first draft of the cartoon version, being line drawings of the entire episode, without colour and lacking some of the sound and the detail. Again, this has only limited appeal, such as the amusement factor of seeing Darth Vader as an outline instead of in his usual black outfit and a couple of parts where the voices and the music hadn't been added in, which made a few of the jokes unintentionally more hilarious than they were with the sound. It was also vaguely interesting to see how things were changed between versions, as some of the script was clearly altered later on. For the most part, I thought the final version was better, but there was one joke that I actually thought was better in the animatic than in the final version. As with the other extras, this is really one more for the person who is keen to see how an animation takes shape rather than for the average viewer and for the reasons given above, I wouldn't watch it more than once or twice as a more casual fan.

Something of far more interest to the "Family Guy" fan is the "Star Wars Clip Show", which is a collection of clips from earlier series of "Family Guy" where they have referenced "Star Wars". In most of the previous features, members of the "Family Guy" team have commented on how often they have used "Star Wars" as a basis for jokes and the near 10 minute running time of what is essentially just a series of short clips shows the truth in that statement. Even though I had seen all of the clips before, albeit in a different context, this is the extra feature I enjoyed the most and possibly the only one I would watch over and over again. It's certainly the most likely one to appeal to all "Star Wars" and "Family Guy" fans, although more the latter than the former, I suspect.

If most of the extras features were of limited appeal, the "Something Something Something Darkside Teaser" is pretty much completely pointless. Whilst it may be a trailer to one of the later episodes that are planned, it's just 20 seconds of nothing much, especially as the voiceover is from a "Family Guy" clip that appears elsewhere on this DVD and in a funnier context. On the plus side, at least it is only 20 seconds.

I suspect that the intended benefit of the 6 minute "Introduction to Family Guy" section was to introduce non-fans to the show. The fact that there is an option to watch this as an additional section to the "Blue Harvest" episode itself as well as separately as a DVD extra does seem to back this up slightly. Whilst it does give the uninitiated a run through of the characters, it's just a series of clips and doesn't really give a great feel of how the show itself works, which kind of ruins the point of having it here anyway, unless the real aim was to try and sell more of the DVDs of the earlier series.

Whatever the aim, I suspect it is better met by the bonus episode, "North by North Quahog". Quite why this episode was chosen to be included here, given that it's the opening to the fourth season and this DVD was the opening to the sixth season is never made clear, but I suspect it's simply because this particular episode got the highest ever ratings for "Family Guy" on American TV. It's perhaps not the best introduction for non fans as it does start and end with a couple of "Family Guy" in jokes, but for the most part it acts as a better introduction to the show than the actual introduction because it gives you a much better idea of the kind of humour you get from the show.

I did love the "Family Guy Presents Blue Harvest" episode itself and I have watched it over and over again since buying it. But having spent nearly £20 on the season 6 DVD set when that was first released, I do resent having to spend another £10 for this episode, especially as the extra features that were added to bulk this up to be a separate DVD release really weren't all that special at all.

As a fan of the show, I'm glad I've seen this episode, but I wouldn't recommend that anyone other than the most dedicated fan rushes out to buy it just yet, unless you can get it at a price closer to the 99 pence I've seen them for on eBay rather than Amazon's £9.98. You'll be missing a great 45 minutes for now, but you'll be able to catch up with it later on and there's plenty of other "Family Guy" around to take your mind off that for now. It appears that they intend to make all three parts of the trilogy and that complete set may be a DVD worth having for £10 or £15 when they get around to it, but for now, this simply isn't great value for money at the price it's available for. It's fun, it just isn't long enough and the content considered as a whole isn't consistently good enough to be worth spending much on by itself. 

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