Seth MacFarlane probably had the idea for “Blue Harvest” kicking around in his head for a while, and when it became an actual episode of “Family Guy” in 2007, he probably thought, “Wow, we really did a ‘Family Guy’ ‘Star Wars’ parody.” Some of the giddy excitement was still intact for the “Empire Strikes Back”-themed sequel, “Something, Something, Something Dark Side” (2009), but all the fun is gone for the “Return of the Jedi” parody, “It’s a Trap!”
In the opening crawl, MacFarlane apologizes up front for this episode being bad, saying he was contractually obligated by Fox to make it. That’s no excuse for shoddy work: For one, why would he ever consider leaving the trilogy unfinished? For another, lots of “Star Wars” fans would’ve loved the opportunity to make “It’s a Trap!” OK, so he couldn’t get excited about the opportunity. Fair enough. But don’t expect any sympathy from fans who bought the DVD this week.
To his credit, MacFarlane hands off the writing duties for “It’s a Trap!” Not to his credit, he chose the wrong writers. “Family Guy” staff scribes Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and David A. Goodman wrote this installment, and it’s clear from the DVD extra where they play “Star Wars” Trivial Pursuit that they are casual fans at best (especially Chevapravatdumrong, who doesn’t seem to know anything about “Star Wars”), and I suspect that’s why “It’s a Trap!” isn’t particularly funny.
The brilliance of “Blue Harvest” (and to a lesser extent, “Dark Side”) is that it pokes fun at the details of “Star Wars.” This made it different from previous parodies like “Spaceballs,” “Hardware Wars” and “George Lucas in Love” that employed broad strokes. A prime example of a gag that digs into the details is the four-times repeated shot of the TIE Fighter attacking the Falcon (in “Star Wars,” the same shot is re-used once, which is clear to people who have watched it a lot).
For a mainstream show like “Family Guy,” only the “Star Wars” trilogy would allow such detail-oriented humor, because there are millions of fans who love the movies’ details. Even the “Star Wars” prequels don’t have the level of obsessive love that the original trilogy has, and that’s why MacFarlane has no plans to parody the prequels (nor is there any clamor for him to do so; fans know there aren’t many laughs to be had there. And besides, “Robot Chicken” hit on all the good stuff already).
The animation on “It’s a Trap!” is just as beautiful as the first two episodes in the way it recreates scenes exactly, only with the “Family Guy” characters (and now “Cleveland Show” and “American Dad!” characters as well) as stand-ins for the “Star Wars” heroes. But it misses out on so many opportunities for humor.
There are a few examples where it does connect, though:
- It finds laughs is when it keeps going with scenes that were cut short in “Jedi.” For example, in “It’s a Trap!” when the two Ewoks are shot by an AT-ST and one of them finds that his friend is dead, he proceeds to eat his friend. And later, when Chewie pops up from the AT-ST cockpit, he gets carried away with showing Han all the things he can shoot, and ultimately pays for it when he blows away a hornets’ nest.
- 3PO is suddenly wearing a suit in the Falcon’s cockpit, explaining huffily that some people still think of flying as an occasion. That’s a solid off-the-wall joke, and this episode needed more of those; the trilogy’s best remains Han taking the couch from the trash compactor in “Blue Harvest.”
- There’s a nice bit of unspoken film criticism when a scene of Ewoks finishing off wounded stormtroopers pans up to a celebration shot in the treetops. “Jedi” wanted to be both violent and cuddly; the contrast didn’t always work, and this exaggeration is a clever way to comment on that.
- And I’ll give half-credit for this one: Recycling a gag from the first two episodes, the writers take to ridiculous lengths the repeated horn blast that accompanies cuts to various characters’ faces before Luke springs off the plank and R2 fires him his lightsaber. The problem is that we see what they are doing pretty early in the game (like the repeated TIE Fighter attack in “Blue Harvest” and the “Dark Side” scene where Han sighs for a really long time between “And I thought they smelled bad” and “on the outside”), and at some point the joke has to limp to its end.
Maybe it’s the case that a lot of insider-y “Star Wars” humor has already been done on YouTube and “Robot Chicken.” In fact, the Emperor splats on the Falcon’s windshield here just as he does in “Robot Chicken Episode III,” and there’s really no excuse for that since the same group of friends made both shows.
Speaking of the friendly rivalry between MacFarlane and Seth Green (“Robot Chicken” creator and voice of Chris Griffin/Luke Skywalker), the running gag of them making fun of each other as they voice their respective characters gets a bit old here. I used to think postmodern (or, if you prefer, “meta”) humor was clever, but now it’s a lazy crutch.
I remember an “It’s a Trap!” table-read clip from the “Dark Side” DVD extras with a joke about Han not being able to find the keys to the Falcon as they prepare to depart Tatooine. That’s the start of a good idea — certainly it’s better than Han saying he’s “Sum 41” after 3PO says the Ewoks think he’s “some kind of god” — but it didn’t make the final cut of “It’s a Trap!”
I had high hopes for this episode, but those pretty much went away when the opening crawl literally told me to lower my expectations — not so much because of the words, but because the opening crawl didn’t even try to be funny. It came off as lazy. Maybe that put me in the wrong mood for watching this episode, but I’d be surprised if even the most open-minded viewer thinks it’s on par with “Blue Harvest” or “Dark Side.”
It’s a trap indeed, but you can escape it by saving your money.