Robot Chicken: Star Wars | |
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Created by | |
Written by |
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Directed by | Seth Green |
Starring | |
Theme music composer | Les Claypool |
Composers |
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Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Executive producers |
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Producers |
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Cinematography |
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Editor | Chris McKay |
Running time | 30 minutes |
Production companies | |
Original release | |
Network | Adult Swim |
Release | June 17, 2007 |
Related | |
Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II |
"Robot Chicken: Star Wars" (also known as "Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode I") is a 2007 episode of the television comedy series Robot Chicken , airing as a one-off special during Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block on June 17, 2007 (released after the original Star Wars film's 30th anniversary). It was released on DVD on July 22, 2008.
The 22-minute episode's sketches all relate to Star Wars .
The episode features the voices of: [3]
Robot Chicken had previously featured several Star Wars parodies in standard episodes of the show. One such sketch from the second season in 2006 featured Palpatine receiving a collect call from Darth Vader informing him of the Death Star's destruction, shortly after the conclusion of A New Hope. The sketch was pitched by Doug Goldstein (with Palpatine originally portrayed as a Bob Newhart-esque character) and rewritten by Breckin Meyer. The skit became popular and was uploaded to YouTube until it was eventually seen by Star Wars creator George Lucas. [4] [5] Impressed, Lucas invited the show's creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich to Lucasfilm for a meeting. They permitted Green and Senreich to produce a 30-minute full Star Wars parody. [4] [5] Green noted "The people at Lucasfilm realized you could do a comedic take on Star 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 mocking Jar 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 since Star 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, and Star 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 animators storyboarded each scene and the dialogue was recorded before the two were merged into the animatic. As with the other episodes, stop-motion animation of custom-made action 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 and sound effects then took a further two months. [4] Lucasfilm supplied them with the sound effects from the films. [2] A sketch parodying the Han shot first controversy (which saw Han Solo and Greedo repeatedly attempt to shoot each other, but continually miss) was cut from the episode. [4]
Green voices the majority of the characters, with others such as Mark Hamill, Conan O'Brien, Malcolm McDowell, Hulk Hogan, Ahmed Best, Joey Fatone as well as Lucas making appearances. [5] Goldstein wanted James Earl Jones to appear, but they were unable to get him. [4]
Green won the Annie 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 the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour) in 2008, losing to the episode of The Simpsons "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind". [10] [11] Dan Iverson of IGN praised the special, calling it "head and shoulders above the hit and miss nature of the regular episodes of Robot 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 of Entertainment Weekly , in reviewing the DVD, stated "Every adult cartoon, from Family Guy to The Simpsons , has spawned a Star Wars parody, but the stop-motion maniacs at Robot Chicken top them all with 23 guffaw-filled minutes." [13] Noel Murray of The 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-known Star Wars toys: the Ugnaughts, Bossks, and Dengars of the Kenner line." [14]
A DVD of the episode was released on July 22, 2008. [15]
Two sequels were created. The first was Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II , which aired on November 16, 2008. [16] The second, Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III , aired on December 19, 2010.
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