KATE SAYS I have to confess I enjoyed Family Guy's parody more than Robot Chicken's. I think Robot Chicken may be a "learned" viewing experience. Every genre has its motifs; with Robot Chicken, the fourth wall has been dismantled, jumped on, dynamited, and swallowed whole by Melville's Great White Whale. It's a little unsettling. (For a broader look at Robot Chicken's meaning, check out Mike's review!)It can also be hilarious, like Palpatine taking Vadar's call about the Death Star and Jar Jar Binks as Vadar's recurring nightmare.
What I really liked was the Monty-Python-esque approach to all the boring, bland, everyday stuff that goes on elsewhere while so-called important history is unwinding--like the poor hardworking guy that just wants to go to the bar for a drink but ends up getting "mistranslated."
I especially loved the "Vadar can't really strangle people, so we have to practice pretending to be strangled" routine. It is VERY Monty-Pythonish.
My one criticism is actually a criticism that applies to parodies in general: irrelevant (as opposed to irreverent) humor. Parodies and satires are so dependent on context: just trying reading Dante's Inferno and guessing--without notes--why Dante consigned certain political figures to certain areas of hell.
The trick, of course, is to have an underlying joke/plot/point strong enough that lack of current knowledge doesn't matter. Golden Girls, despite an abundance of contemporary 1980s references, is still funny. Dante's Inferno, despite an abundance of contemporary enemies, is still great literature.
I'm not sure about Robot Chicken (in all fairness, I doubt Robot Chicken cares that I'm not sure). For example, I thought the George Bush, Jr. as Vadar joke fell flat. Like many political whipping boys, Bush, Jr. was so very much the punching bag of the moment when he was president. I thought it was pointless at the time; now, I just roll my eyes. (I'm not a big fan of the "this political opponent that I currently detest is the worst person in the world/the spawn of Satan/another Hitler" argument. Really? The WORST person? Really?)
On the other hand, surprisingly enough, the Mama jokes still work!
And Vadar's rehearsal of all Lucas's future plot devices is GREAT self-referential fun! I'm actually old enough to remember when the audience DIDN'T know Luke would turn out to be Leia's brother--in fact, a novel came out between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back (which one of my brothers owned) in which the author postulated a romance between Leia and Luke. I understand that Star Wars novels now pair Luke with a Jedi chick. Ah, what a complicated world is the world of other universes!
MIKE SAYS Robot Chicken is one of those shows that can't fully be defined. Sure, it's a parody, but it's also genre-mashing and blending to a degree that was, for awhile, several years before its time. It's not every show that decides to put Christ as the main character of a Kill Bill parody (in one scene, healing a man's cut eye to then chop him in half), whose sole purpose is to kill Santa and the Easter Bunny. Random, blasphemous, and deep at the same time.
Not every Robot Chicken episode scrapes to the same depths, however, though combinations of pop culture references and mash-ups are run of the mill; one episodes features a race with everyone one from Fast and the Furious to Knight Rider to Mario Kart, all organized by Burt Reynolds. Yet another has Inspector Gadget getting parts from Cyberdyne, and his Niece Penny becoming the new leader of the human resistance.
In the end, Robot Chicken is, at least occasionally, an essay examining the effects of pop culture on our society, and its influence on itself; in the end, pop culture feeds itself and hides. The majority of Robot Chicken's sketches just explore how a movie or show might have worked differently if the characters were aware of our world and pop culture in general: like Optimus Prime getting prostate cancer much to the horror of the other Autobots, only to have the event revealed as a twisted PSA.
The Star Wars Special, as a result, isn't really that far off the regular series; in fact one or two of the sketches are actually from earlier episodes. But, as you watch it, each segment does basically the same thing: it takes the show that we're familiar with and injects either reality, or the artificial reality of modern entertainment (like reality TV). Examining the long-term effects of the Bar Alien who loses his arm to Obi-Wan (which leads to losing his job as an architect) works on several levels, casting something well-known in a new light. We've all been out doing stupid things with our friends, and we've all had misunderstandings. To suddenly introduce the idea that there was more going on than we realized is not only brilliant, but brings the film to life all the more.
The Boba Fett Scene is another example of introducing just a little bit of embarrassing reality into the situation. Is it so hard to believe that Boba wouldn't have bragged about catching Han, and maybe even strutted around his ship a little? As far as the awkward romantic tendencies go, well, Harrison Ford is a handsome guy.
The brilliant thing about the majority of these sketches is that they're not that far off what actually happens in the films, with much of the scenes happening when the characters are off screen. Oddly enough, these comic moments actually humanize the characters all the more, and make them suddenly new. It's that aspect of Robot Chicken that I enjoy the most: its ability to reinvent something I had always seen the same way. Not only does this reinvention give the source material new life, but it increases my appreciation for the material . . . though, in some cases, such as the brief Luke/Leah flash, I might need therapy someday.
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