August 5, 2008

Robot Chicken Star Wars

Blake Matthews READ TIME: 3 MIN.

For the past three seasons Cartoon Network has been airing Robot Chickenas part of their Adult Swim section. The show coming from the warped mind of Seth Green and others takes action figures and animates them using stop motion. "Robot Chicken" pokes fun of pop culture, movies, music, and television nothing is off limits including movies and shows that Green himself have been part of, he's even gotten his friends to do voices. Green and his cohorts are big Star Wars fans and have had skits throughout the series devoted to Star Wars.

They were given permission to do a full episode devoted to "Star Wars" (the series itself only runs 15 minutes with commercials because it's time consuming to animate the figures). The show is very funny, but they've pulled out all the stops here, most skits are 30 seconds to a minute, some sketches are 1-2 minutes, while not every skit is a winner, most are hysterical. The show also boasts an impressive vocal cast including Mark Hamill, Conan O'Brien, Seth MacFarlane, Malcolm McDowell, Hulk Hogan, James Van Der Beek, Robert Smigel, Donald Faison, Abraham Benrubi, Breckin Meyer, Ahmed Best and Star Wars creator himself George Lucas who pokes fun at himself.

While the special itself only runs 23 minutes, there are over 2 hours of bonus materials! There are 7 separate commentaries: 2 for the cast, 2 for the writers, 2 for the animators and the final commentary is by George Lucas's kids which covers "Star Wars" from a POV that you wouldn't have expected. But with 7 commentaries and some talent in 3-4 of them because they don so many hats everyone who wanted to say something about this episode gets their chance.

  • "Chicken Nuggets" is an option that when it comes up on the screen if you select it accesses a variety of short featurettes where the creators of the show explain how something was done or why it was done a certain way.

  • "The Animation Meeting" is footage of Seth Green going over some scenes using animatics and his unique persona to act out the scenes.

  • "Behind the Scenes" is a featurette that tells about Robot Chicken'screation and talks about the actors, toys and models used in the show.

  • "Production Design" is narrated by Seth Green who goes into more detail on who does what for the show and shows us the props used for the show.

  • "Time Lapse" shows how "Robot Chicken" uses stop motion animation and the use of time lapse photography to make the show come to life.

  • "Deleted Scenes" contain five scenes that are in their rough form and an explanation of why they weren't used it the special.

  • "Alternate Audio" has scenes that are in the show, but with alternate takes and with some audio bloopers included.

  • "The Panel Presentation" is a featurette that takes bits of a press conference Q&A with Seth Green and the producers, with a room full of Star Wars fans and they talk about their experiences with the materials.

    The final featurette is "On Air Bumps," the night that the "Robot Chicken: Star Wars" aired, Cartoon Network gave the guys at "Robot Chicken" the entire night, which showed not only the special, but their favorite episodes. In between commercial and the episodes themselves the creators did quick little bits that introduced the episodes. Here are many on air bumps, some funny, some not and not all of them originally aired, but you get them all here for your viewing pleasure.

    "Robot Chicken: Star Wars" takes the best of "Robot Chicken" and kicks it up a notch, the special was so successful that there will be a second special this November and while it will be tough to top, the creators have already said it will be even better than the first.

    by Blake Matthews

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