To suggest that Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy has left its mark on America’s pop culture just might be the understatement of the century.  Both widely popular and wickedly smart in its use of satire, Family Guy makes for a wonderful half hour of insanity on the tube.  Yet, sometimes shows fall a little flat.  It’s to be expected with a series that’s been going strong for so many years, but not with a special release like It’s a Trap!, the third and presumably final send-off of the Star Wars galaxy.

Inspired by MacFarlane’s success with Blue Harvest (a love letter of sorts to Star Wars: A New Hope) and Something, Something, Something Dark Side (his ode to Empire Strikes Back) comes the self-admittedly obligatory lampooning of Return of the Jedi.  The opening Star Wars-styled scroll says it all.  “Twentieth Century Fox made us do this,” McFarlane admits, then profoundly apologizes for the ho-humness of the release.  Using characters from Family Guy, It’s a Trap! essentially recreates the movie casting Chris (Seth Green) as Luke Skywalker, Stewie (MacFarlane) as Darth Vader, Peter (MacFarlane) as Han Solo, Peter (MacFarlane) as Chewbacca and Lois (Alex Borstein) as Princess Leia…oh, and - in a hilarious bit of casting - Meg (Mia Kunis) as Sarlacc, the many tentacled beast living inside the great sand pit of Carkoon.  Even Carrie Fischer gets in on the fun, voicing Mon Mothma as she briefs the Alliance.

It’s a Trap! presents us the world of Return of the Jedi with all its glorious faults.  The cute and cuddly Ewoks are brain-feasting cannibals.  The storm troopers are ripe for parody with the easiness of their outsmarting on Endor and the “been-there-done-that” aspect of blowing up the Death Star gets a commentary from McFarlane and co-writer David Goodman.  This time, it seems that MacFarlane is pissing on the source material, not honoring it like he did with Blue Harvest.  But, to be fair, there simply isn’t much to honor with Jedi.  It’s a film that succumbs to its weakest link: the marketing.  Jedi was always too safe and way too cute for its own good.  Here, MacFarlane attempts to rectify that embarrassment with Peter calling for the stormtroopers to “dig” their own graves, claiming that “we all need this to happen”, the audience, too.  It’s hysterical and so mean, which makes it all worthwhile.

I, for one, appreciate the honesty of MacFarlane’s confession, but, let’s face it, admitting early on that you should lower your expectations is never a sign of greatness.  It’s a Trap!, while funny at times, is not great material and nowhere lands its mark on the inspired lunacy the show is known for.  It’s just not on the same level as what went before with these Family Guy parodies, but it still retains that similar spark…and MacFarlane’s spark is much better than the fire that resulted in those god-awful prequels Lucas gave us.

Much, much better.

Component Grades Movie Blu-ray Disc Blu-ray Experience

Blu-ray Details:

Available on Blu-ray - September 7, 2010
Screen Formats: 16:9
Subtitles: None
Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Discs: 50GB Blu-ray Disc; Single disc (1 BD); Digital copy (on disc); DVD copy

The transfer, drawn from rotoscoped movie scenes from the original film, looks great in high definition – especially the space battles and establishing shots.  The colors are solid and the black levels are strong.  The hour-long affair is presented in a 16:9 aspect ratio and a pretty brilliant lossless DTS-HD soundtrack.

Supplements:

Commentary:

• The commentary track, provided by MacFarlane, writers Goodman and Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and director Peter Shin, is hysterical and better than the movie with inspired comments and “what-if” moments of absurdity.

Special Features:

The Blu-ray does come with a DVD copy of the movie and a digital copy, but it’s the supplemental material that carries the weight of this release.  The Behind-the-Scenes are great in showing just how much work goes into animation.  There’s a bizarre “special message” from Stewie that’s great for voice mail gags.  There’s also a hilarious sock puppet outtake (ala the Special Editions of Star Wars) that’s great for what it does to the film.  Watching the writers play Trivial Pursuit is pushing it, though.  Not that interesting.  At all.

The breakdown of the disc’s special features are as follows:

• A Very Special Message from Darth Stewie (2 min)
• Drawing with Peter Shin (19 min)
• Sock Puppet Outtakes (1 min)
• Family Guy Animatic (40 min)
• Making the Scene (6 min)
• Star Wars Trivial Pursuit: The Ultimate Challenge (30 min)

{pgomakase}