“This is a story of love and loss, fathers and sons and the foresight to retain international merchandising rights. This is the story of Star Wars. Let’s begin with Part 4…”
So goes the opening to Family Guy’s Blue Harvest, a comic retelling and heavy parody of Star Wars: A New Hope. It’s now 12 years since the hour-long special aired on Fox, but it’s certainly worth another watch if you haven’t done so lately. If you haven’t seen it, then you really should. Blue Harvest does what the best parodies do; namely, poke fun at the source material, while simultaneously acting as a love letter to it.
While the show rather smugly points out the plot holes in A New Hope, it also cannot hide its admiration for the first Star Wars movie. This is especially apparent in the musical score: The music in every episode of Family Guy is provided by a live orchestra, and Blue Harvest references both John Williams’ score and the composer himself a number of times with a sense of reverence.
Stoner R2D2 steals the show
Of course, as it is Family Guy, the gags are quickfire, lewd and often surreal. The ‘casting’ is one of the strongest suits, with Stewie’s Darth Vader, Herbert’s Obi-Wan Kenobi and Cleveland’s R2D2 particularly perfect. The latter is played as a sassy stoner, with some of the best lines in the show.
While Blue Harvest has Seth MacFarlane’s fingerprints over it, the writing credits go to Alec Sulkin, who has partnered with MacFarlane on other projects away from Family Guy, including Ted and A Million Ways to Die in the West. Yet it is MacFarlane’s love for pop culture, which shines through all of his work, that makes Blue Harvest so watchable, even if a lot of the time is spent (seemingly) dissing the movie.
Could Seth MacFarlane one day be involved with the real Star Wars? He has been cited as one of the most important showrunners in Hollywood, and the Disney deal to acquire Fox (MacFarlane’s contract with Fox ends this June) means that he will be in Disney’s sphere for the short-term at least. Of course, there is a little bit of a bridge to gap between Disney’s family friendly output and MacFarlane’s risqué humour. Some have suggested that Disney would need to be offering a nine-figure sum to acquire his services.
MacFarlane one of Hollywood’s big earners
However, even without Disney, MacFarlane is doing more than okay. Like George Lucas, MacFarlane knows that box office receipts are only half the story. He has an estimated net worth of $200,000,000. Family Guy, Ted and American Dad are big merchandising earners, and, indeed, they have been turned into officially licensed online slot games, playable at many of the top casinos listed at https://casinopilot.co.uk/ In short, MacFarlane has created an empire and he still seems to have ambition to achieve more.
However, it doesn’t look like there will be any more in the way of Family Guy-Star Wars spin-offs. MacFarlane has said that Disney “keeps a tighter hold on it”, referring to the cost of getting the rights to the material. Still, there are nearly three hours of quality viewing with the three shows – Blue Harvest, Something, Something Dark Side and It’s a Trap (the trilogy has been named Laugh It Up, Fuzzball).
Without wishing to disparage the trilogy, Blue Harvest is perhaps the only one that is required viewing. The other two are fine, and the joke output remains impressive, but the overall novelty starts to wear a little thin after a while. Still, any of the trio are a must for Star Wars fans, and a much better choice than the badly outdated Spaceballs.