DVD review (region 2)
Directed by Seth Green
Starring the voices of Seth Green, Breckin Meyer, Dan Milano, Seth MacFarlane
Release date Out now

Star Wars-themed sketches from the cult stop-motion animation show…

Like the recent Family Guy: Blue Harvest, this Robot Chicken Star Wars special has been officially endorsed by LucasFilm, showing that, contrary to his image, the great bearded one (George Lucas, not God) does have a sense of humour after all. Lucas even voices a stop-motion incarnation of himself in one amusing sketch in which he flees from an army of hardcore uber-nerds.

Truth be told, this a much more hit-and-miss affair than Blue Harvest. For every rib-tickling moment of near-genius (the Admiral Ackbar cereal; two space slugs ordering Chinese takeaway, Ponda Baba’s backstory) there’s a weak, obvious gag (a ‘Yo Mamma’ battle between Luke Skywalker and The Emperor; George Bush becoming a Jedi). The colourful stop-motion animation is great, and the sketches move by so fast there’s not time to dwell too much on the weaker gags, but taken as a whole this is never quite as funny as it thinks it is.

At least it’s obvious from soaking up the extras that creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich are as big Star Wars nerds as Family Guy’s Seth MacFarlane (who here provides the voice of a rather Stewie-esque Emperor!). Green and Senreich provide an informative pop-up commentary, and there’s lengthy ‘making of’ docs, panel interviews and footage from a ‘Robot Chicken Night’, though eventually the constant camera-mugging induces a headache. James Skipp

VERDICT: 6/10
Star Wars obsessives and Robot Chicken fans will get a kick out of it, but this is only fitfully amusing.

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