"Robot Chicken: Star Wars" (also known as "Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode I") is a 2007 episode of the television comedy seriesRobot Chicken, airing as a one-off special duringCartoon Network'sAdult Swim block on June 17, 2007 (released after theoriginalStar Wars film's 30th anniversary). It was released onDVD on July 22, 2008.
Palpatine gets acollect call from Vader who tells him that theRebel Alliance blew up theDeath Star, leaving Palpatine in financial turmoil. This skit is recycled from the episode "1987," although the voice of Darth Vader heard on Palpatine's phone has been redone from the original.
Ponda Baba is shown to be anarchitect. He goes withEvazan to the cantina at lunch and there asksLuke Skywalker a question (in non-human tongue). A drunken Evazan convinces Luke that this is actually a threat, and despite Ponda's friendly intentions,Obi-Wan Kenobi slices his arm off. He returns to work, but is laid off as the chopped-off appendage was his drawing arm.
Vader's meditation chamber attempts to put his helmet on, but accidentally lifts him up.
AnImperial officer explains to some new recruits that Vader does not actually have the power ofForce strangulation, but that they should pretend to die anyway, so that Vader does not kill them with his lightsaber.
After destroying the Death Star, Luke asksR2-D2 to call his aunt and uncle, before remembering that they are dead, and R2 was damaged during the fight.
George Lucas attends aStar Wars convention and attempts to escape with a nerd dressed as aTauntaun. After running into an army of fans, the nerd gives Lucas a "ride" to the speech platform on his back – which he later describes as the "greatest day of my entire life".
Luke complains that with the blast shield down on his helmet, during his first lesson in using the Force, he cannot see. Obi-Wan takes advantage of this and knees him in the groin.
The janitor sweeps up the corpse ofMace Windu on Coruscant, now claiming that he's "gotta get the transfer to the Death Star".
After discovering he is a Jedi,George W. Bush convincesLaura Bush to have athreesome withCondoleezza Rice, throwsBill Clinton's car into a pond atMcDonald's, and defaces theLincoln Memorial, before dueling withAbraham Lincoln. Then, in a parody of the scene between Luke and Vader inThe Empire Strikes Back, Bush accidentally cuts offJenna Bush's middle finger. Bush awakens from his daydream, revealing that he does not actually have Jedi powers. This skit is recycled from the episode "Massage Chair".
A weather report reveals thatCloud City is currently "cloudy, followed by clouds".
Han Solo cuts open his Tauntaun, to use its warmth to keep Luke alive, only to find it already occupied by a drunkenhomeless man.
Luke has a"Yo Mamma" fight against Palpatine. Palpatine loses and Vader throws him down the energy shaft as seen inReturn of the Jedi.
The janitor sweeps away Palpatine's corpse on the second Death Star, this time exclaiming "Oh, come on! What are they doing up there all the time?"
During the attempt to rescuePrincess Leia, Han attempts to prevent anystormtroopers being sent to the prisoner control room by telling an Imperial officer that there is a reactor leak. The officer is skeptical, who eventually calls Vader, who decides that installing a reactor there would be a good idea.
Jar Jar Binks meets up withAnakin Skywalker after theprequel trilogy, although remains largely oblivious to the fact that he is now Darth Vader. Annoyed, Vader ejects him from an airlock. Later, however, as Vader prepares to sleep, he is woken up by Jar Jar, who has returned as a Force ghost.
Luke enjoys theTosche Station strippers called "The Power Converters". This implies the "true" motive behind Luke's claim to Uncle Owen, "But I have to go to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters" inA New Hope.
Boba Fett walks up to acarbonite-frozen Han Solo and begins to gloat at his superiority, which slowly turns into Fett coming on to the frozen Solo.
In order to win Luke to the dark side of the Force, Darth Vader reveals many spoilers aboutStar Wars. These include that Vader is Luke's father, Leia is his sister, that the Empire will eventually be defeated byEwoks and thatC-3PO was built by Anakin himself. This sketch is recycled from the episode "Vegetable Funfest", and is the only part of the special where Luke is voiced byMark Hamill.
As Palpatine tries to give an impassioned speech, he is continually interrupted by the ongoing construction of the secondDeath Star. This skit was partially inspired by a conversation in the movieClerks regarding private contractors and construction workers on the Death Star II.[1]
A posthumous advertisement of "Max Rebo's Greatest Hits", which includes a list of "hits" which mostly stress that while he looks like one, he is not actually anelephant. This sketch includes a vocal cameo by'N Sync'sJoey Fatone.
Mid-Night with Zuckuss - A parody ofLate Night with Conan O'Brien (with the real-lifeO'Brien voicing Zuckuss), with guests including aSyncro-Vox Emperor Palpatine and "Darth Vader". The filming studio is visited and destroyed by the Death Star.
Luke and Leia are shown in the aftermath of anincestuous night.
The Empire on Ice! - An "On Ice" musical version ofThe Empire Strikes Back.
End credits – The chickens "bawk" theStar Wars credits music.
Following the credits, there is a continuation of the "Vader and Jar Jar Reunion" sketch, where the ghost of Jar Jar is still annoying Vader.
Robot Chicken had previously featured severalStar Wars parodies in standard episodes of the show. One such sketch from the second season in 2006 featuredPalpatine receiving acollect call fromDarth Vader informing him of theDeath Star's destruction, shortly after the conclusion ofA New Hope. The sketch was pitched byDoug Goldstein (with Palpatine originally portrayed as aBob Newhart-esque character) and rewritten byBreckin Meyer. The skit became popular and was uploaded toYouTube until it was eventually seen byStar Wars creatorGeorge Lucas.[4][5] Impressed, Lucas invited the show's creatorsSeth Green andMatthew Senreich toLucasfilm for a meeting. They permitted Green and Senreich to produce a 30-minute fullStar Wars parody.[4][5] Green noted "The people at Lucasfilm realized you could do a comedic take onStar Wars without compromising the integrity of any dramatic take."[5]
The duo and the rest of the show's writing staff then spent three weeks writing material for the episode, with it being twice the length of a standard episode.[5] The writers did not intentionally tone down their material as they knew that Lucasfilm would inform them of any items unsuitable for broadcast.[4] Lucasfilm's director of marketing Tom Warner noted that "There were definitely a few [sketches] I batted an eye at, and if I were producing probably wouldn't have put in. But they were having fun with it."[5] The writers decided not to choose "obvious" things to subvert so, for example, rather than just penning a sketch mockingJar Jar Binks, had Jar Jar meet up with Darth Vader and react to the changes he has undergone since they last met. Goldstein noted "It was a wild challenge to come up with fresh, new stuff sinceStar Wars has already been parodied for 30 years now."[4] On the style of the humor, Green opined: "We love to emphasize the mundane in the extraordinary, andStar Wars was perfect for that. You have something that's intergalactic, and yet there's got to be some textural machinations of day-to-day business: How can you run an industry that large without paperwork? And where are the bathrooms?"[6]
From writing to animation, the episode took three months to produce. After the script was finished and approved, the animatorsstoryboarded each scene and the dialogue was recorded before the two were merged into theanimatic. As with the other episodes,stop-motion animation of custom-madeaction figures was used to produce the episode.[5][7] Each animator produced 12 seconds of footage a day and the team, which Green directed,[5] was finished in two weeks. Editing,visual andsound effects then took a further two months.[4] Lucasfilm supplied them with the sound effects from the films.[2] A sketch parodying theHan shot first controversy (which sawHan Solo and Greedo repeatedly attempt to shoot each other, but continually miss) was cut from the episode.[4]
Green won theAnnie Award for Best Directing in an Animated Television Production for the episode. It was also nominated for Best Animated Television Production.[8][9] The episode was nominated for thePrimetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour) in 2008, losing to the episode ofThe Simpsons "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind".[10][11] Dan Iverson ofIGN praised the special, calling it "head and shoulders above the hit and miss nature of the regular episodes ofRobot Chicken." He concluded that "it is tough to find anything wrong with [it]" and "Robot Chicken went all out in creating a humorous half hour which would have us [Star Wars] nerds rolling on the floor laughing."[12]Variety reviewer Brian Lowry praised the episode adding that "Lucas' fantasy has frequently sailed the smoothest when he takes a back seat and leaves the starship piloting to someone else."[3] Aubry D'Arminio ofEntertainment Weekly, in reviewing the DVD, stated "Every adult cartoon, fromFamily Guy toThe Simpsons, has spawned aStar Wars parody, but the stop-motion maniacs atRobot Chicken top them all with 23 guffaw-filled minutes."[13] Noel Murray ofThe A.V. Club gave an overall positive review stating the episode has "15 minutes of good gags" and "is pitched to anyone who grew up playing with the lesser-knownStar Wars toys: theUgnaughts,Bossks, andDengars of theKenner line."[14]
A DVD of the episode was released on July 22, 2008.[15]
