I've been into Family Guy for years. Way back when it first premiered in Australia, I loved it. Over the years, my love for the show has had it's ups and downs, with the inconsistent quality of the show over the past few years contributing a lot to the downs. As for this third Star Wars special, it rarely gets more "down" than this.
I wasn't even that crazy about the first two specials. They had their moments, but overall I felt it suffered from a lot of the drawn out jokes and mildly obnoxious humour that Family Guy has suffered from in recent years. Buying this special (for the sole reason that I found it cheap, and figured I may as well give it a shot), I had few expectations for it. Even still, I found the special to be even shorter on laughs than I expected, with more painful to sit through scenes than I would ever expect.
The opening text crawl jokingly makes comments about how they didn't really feel like making this, and that Fox forced them, so they kind of just threw this out there. This may have been funny, if not for the fact that after watching it, you realize that this was probably completely true. There is so little inspiration or emotion behind this, that you can really tell that this was made for the sole purpose of finishing the trilogy.
Don't get me wrong, there are laughs to be had here. They are just too far and between and padded with frustratingly drawn out jokes for me to recommend it. Overly drawn out jokes can be funny sometimes, but when they are drawn out to the extent where you find yourself fighting the urge to fast forward through these parts, then I don't see how they can possibly have any value.
In the end of Blue Harvest, the show took some jabs at Seth Green (Chris), in particular, at his show Robot Chicken. While kind of funny as a one off, they continue to use it throughout this whole special, relying on it when they clearly had no other material. It was kind of funny at times, but it is used so much that it feels lazy. I admire Seth Green's ability to take shots at himself here, but there was no need for there to be so much of it.
As always, the animation is amazing... to the extent where some shots just feel like they are there for the sole purpose of showing how great the animation is.
I like Family Guy. It's not a scratch on what it used to be, and it's sister show American Dad has surpassed it in quality by leaps and bounds, but I still find laughs to be had there. Unfortunately, even by the lower standards that I view current Family Guy, I found little in this particular special to warrant further viewings or a recommendation. It just doesn't feel like the effort was put into it to make it worthwhile.