Family Guy: Something, Something, Something Dark Side

Want a version of Something, Something, Something Dark Side that you can download to your iPod or similar? Well, in keeping with other recent Family Guy releases, this disc includes a digital version of the film for the viewer on the move.

The full audio commentary comes from executive producers Seth MacFarlane, Mark Hentemann and David A Goodman, writer Kirker Butler, director Dominic Polcino and voice-actor Seth Green, and with such personnel it ought to be great. The usually garrulous Green, however, admits openly that he will have little to contribute given that this is the first time he will be seeing the show for himself - and thereafter, much of the discussion involves references from one and all about how little they have to say.

Perhaps the cleverest – and certainly the bravest – joke in the film comes in the signature Star Wars 'scroll' at the beginning, where Twentieth Century Fox (the corporation behind Family Guy and this special itself) is lambasted for having little faith initially in Lucas' Star Wars project, and for cancelling Family Guy – twice! In other words, here those rebels from Family Guy are daring to take on the might of their own Evil Empire. In the commentary, Butler reveals that they had to go very high up the Fox chain of command to get the green light for this open assault on Fox ("to their credit, they approved it"), while, somewhat disconcertingly, Goodman suggests of the forthcoming Family Guy parody of Return Of The Jedi: "Like the third movie, it'll be the least good of the three." As its scriptwriter, Goodman is in a privileged position to know, too.

The text commentary offered by Family Guy Fact-Ups compensates considerably for the failings of the audio commentary. Fact-Ups is a series of captions that accompany the film, ranging from blandly factual glosses ("this is a star destroyer") to the bizarrely trivial ("this is the third Family Guy reference to Tauntaun intestines") to the perversely speculative ("I wonder if Luke Skywalker ever masturbated using the Force"). All at once desultory, informative and funny, these Fact-Ups, when viewed with the show itself, actually make it much more entertaining.

Other extras include: a nine-minute featurette on the poster art for both The Empire Strikes Back and its parody (with interviewers from all the artists); a six-minute split-screen comparison (with director's commentary) of the pencil-drawn animatics and the final colour reel; and a two-minute sneak peek at MacFarlane doing a table read of the coming Return of the Jedi parody.