BUY IT AT AMAZON: CLICK HERE
STUDIO: Turner Home Entertainment
MSRP: $13.99
RATED: Not rated
RUNNING TIME: 60 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
– Chicken Nuggets
– The Making of RCSW II
– Animation meeting
– Skywalker Ranch premiere
– 501st Visit
– Behind the Scenes: Sneak Peek
– Accepted / Rejected
– Time Lapse
– Production Design
– Alternate Audio
– Video Blogs
– Deleted animatics
– On-air Bumps
– Trailers
The Pitch
It’s Harryhausen on crack.
The Humans
• Seth Green as Obi Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Nerd, Ponda Baba, Bob Goldstein, various voices
• Seth MacFarlane as The Emperor, Dr. Ball, Cantina Band Member
• Breckin Meyer as Boba Fett, Admiral Ackbar
• Abraham Benrubi as Darth Vader
• Bob Bergen as Luke Skywalker
• Ahmed Best as Jar Jar Binks
• Hugh Davidson as Stormtrooper, Rebel Trooper
• Keith Ferguson as Han Solo, General Veers
• Conan O’Brien as Zuckuss, Star Wars nerd
• Adrianne Palicki as Padmé Amidala, Jessica
• Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia, Krayt Dragon
• Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian, Ackbar’s Manager
• Donald Faison as Stormtrooper, Darth Maul
• Andy Richter as Krayt Dragon
• Zeb Wells as Dengar
The Nutshell
Seth Green’s show that mocks pop culture via sketch comedy using stop motion animation, toys and claymation, takes its second aim at skewering the Star Wars universe…with the approval of George Lucas even.
The Lowdown
If you can remember all of the outlandish, wonderful and imaginative adventures you had with your toys as a kid, and then take those memories and dip them in a boiling pot of adulthood maliciousness, drudgery, insecurity and failure…that’s pretty much Robot Chicken. And I love it. The show is all about taking popular culture and showing it its own ass. And it’s done in an inventive way, by using toys, stop motion animation, claymation and any other kind of-ation they can get their hands on. With Episode II, they turn all of their guns, which are usually aimed at different targets and train them all on the Lucasverse. And it’s a natural fit, considering that The Beard paved the way himself with the Prequel Trilogy.
This is the unrated version of the special episode that aired on Adult Swim, and it includes about 15 minutes of extra footage. What it does is essentially take disparate Earthly maladies and situations and superimpose them on the more recognizable scenes from the six Star Wars films in no particular order. This isn’t about doing a spoof version of each of the films like Family Guy did with Blue Harvest; this is about taking any and every Star Wars character and turning them into assholes, morons and miscreants in rapid fire succession.
There are almost thirty sketches in this version. A quick sampling includes Boba Fett killing Ewoks using blasters, lightsabers, and a backpack rocket before getting slave girl Leia. A monster truck event parody of the Geonosian arena from Clones. A stormtrooper suffers through Bring Your Daughter To Work Day during the opening battle from A New Hope and later when Obi-Wan gives him the Jedi mind trick. Another sketch finds a stormtrooper morning the loss of a comrade when Leia kills him when he told the others to just set their weapons for stun.
Yet another finds a Krayt Dragon who got a little too ambitious. And a Geico commercial with Jar Jar Binks is a condensation of his annoyance from Phantom Menace into roughly thirty seconds. And we see how awkward Vader’s tea party would have been from Empire. A sketch where Luke wondering about the road not taken with his father leads to a breakdance competition with another father-son duo. And Lando finds out just how bad his deal with Vader really could have been in a sketch from Empire. There’s also a series of running gags about the bounty hunters being called in to look for the Millennium Falcon in Empire.
Some of the sketches don’t delight as much as others, while some are almost laugh-out-loud funny. I personally love Star Wars parodies and kudos to Lucas for being able to laugh at himself. Also nice to see Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee and even Ahmed Best back to make fun of themselves as well.
The Package
The look of this project is very good as the production value and transfer are high quality. Sound is also fine. There’s a surprising shload of extras on this disc, with a running time nearly threefold of the actual show. Chicken Nuggets is a branching video commentary that runs the length of the presentation. There are several behind-the-scenes stuff, including Making of RCSW II (six minutes), Animation Meeting (six minutes), Sneak Peek (two minutes), Accepted / Rejected centers on successful and not so successful writing ideas (four minutes), Time Lapse runs seven minutes and is the speeded up footage of the animators moving the models frame by frame, and Production Design runs about nine minutes.
There are three video blogs that run about 11 minutes and feature writing, voice recording and puppet making. Deleted Animatics focuses on rejected pre-production visuals (although not really). Alternate Audio is alternate takes of the actors doing voice work (audio only) and runs about ten minutes. On-air Bumps are the TV spots for the show on Adult Swim and trailers are, well, trailers. Finally there are two video logs of the cast and crew’s visit to Skywalker Ranch, which the The Beard himself attended, and a much more disturbing visit to the 501st, a local chapter of Star Wars enthusiasts by Seth Green and other producers. Plenty of good stuff here.