Star Wars: Detours

[Neglify]

Well obviously RC is for adults and Detours is aimed at kids.

That's what's got me upset about it all. You can hate RC all you want, I don't care.

Now also, it may be unfair of me to criticize Detours so much after only seeing a 3 minute trailer and no full sketches. But man, the stuff they show in the trailer just made me cringe.

So let's look at some clips from Detours now, not just a trailer.

Pretty weak and unfunny if you ask me.


I'm not attacking you personally with this next part Tom. I'm attacking the Detours trailer. And of course, everything is opinion. If you like it, that's awesome.

But because you said this

I would say that there's very little about RC that "lovingly pays tribute" to the subjects of its parodies, most of the time. It's more like, "Let's take every show that was cherished and loved by our viewers during their childhoods, and assume that the characters were drunk / high / all sleeping with each other / serial killers / swearing profusely / died in horrible ways / prostitutes / all of the above." Then for the next sketch, move on to the next franchise and drag that one through the mud.

I have to list out what I hated the most in the Detours trailer:

A "dog ate my homework" joke. WTF??? Am I back in 1992?

Space mall. Just dumb.

It's a ploy/ruse/ambush/subterfuge/confining device/a snare/a box propped up on the stairs/a frappe/a wrap/my hat/A TRAP! Oh my god that is lame and the most obvious Ackbar joke you could ever come up with.

Seriously, the animation style is terrible. I hate the BIG HEAD-small body designs. Why is Obi-Wan's nose so goddamn huge? And Leia's hair, wow.

The dancing montage reminds me of that Kinect Star Wars disaster.


Now, here's what I actually liked:

The matte painting joke was good.
The Queen Amidala joke was good. (2:15-2:30)

the sketches you posted are also among the funniest that the show has ever done, and if you'll notice, most of them have little to do with "adult content": "Prune Face," "Slight Weapons Malfunction," and "One-Armed Wampa" could all basically be done on the new show just as they are.

Yes, those clips I posted do not contain the following:

Drugs/Alcohol
Promiscuity
Murder/horrible deaths (well, Jar Jar is murdered but it's wonderful)
Obscene dialogue (yes, there are a couple swears, but nothing too far)
Prostitutes

That's because not every RC sketch is as messed up as you make it out to be. Yes, there is some crazy over-the-top stuff that goes on in that show, but it's not wall-to-wall pig f*cking.

My main point of discontent is that the creators/writers are trying to do the exact same formula with family friendly humor. It's lazy. They're going the Seth MacFarlane route and that's disturbing.

(And yes, of course I know that Seth Green is on Family Guy and Seth MacFarlane does the voice of the Emperor. Nobody needs to point that out.)

I would be shocked if anything half as brilliant as the Wampa sketch from RC makes it into Detours.

I think the greater concern is probably what someone else said: that after a handful of episodes, they're going to run out of material really fast.

I agree. Probably on episode 2, maybe even halfway through episode 1.

It's like, Star Wars used to be the gold standard for everything, and now it's on the level of Shrek Forever After, where the franchise is just everywhere and you can't get rid of it and there's nothing special about it at all.

I agree with this 100%. Of all the possible movies/franchises they could have focused on they picked the most obvious and tired.

 

[Frantic Canadian]

Now also, it may be unfair of me to criticize Detours so much after only seeing a 3 minute trailer and no full sketches. But man, the stuff they show in the trailer just made me cringe.

So let's look at some clips from Detours now, not just a trailer.

Wow! That was just awful. Really, really awful.

 

[Rogue-theX]

...but at least it`s more Star Wars...





















































...right guys?

 

[Gatos]

...but at least it`s more Star Wars...





















































...right guys?

...guys?!

 

[reave]

No. Fucking no.

 

[Gaith]

​

 

[TomH1138]

Well obviously RC is for adults and Detours is aimed at kids.

Well, fart and poop jokes - or even boobs and drug jokes, for that matter - are hardly "adult." That's 12-year-old stuff.

And I'm referring to that element of RC episodes. Naturally, every episode isn't that all the time, but I would say that's a huge part of what the series is. And they have every right to go there. I'm not trying to ban Robot Chicken or say that all of it is unfunny. I'm just saying that it's possible to be funny without going to the raunchy stuff - which was really a subset of my larger point, which was actually against this series (which I'll get back to more in a minute).

That's what's got me upset about it all. You can hate RC all you want, I don't care.

I don't hate RC at all. I like it. But the show frequently goes for the dirty joke just because they could, not because it was the most inspired way to go.

Granted, the more we see of this series, the less inspired it looks.

A "dog ate my homework" joke. WTF??? Am I back in 1992?

Yeah, that definitely could have been stronger.

It's a ploy/ruse/ambush/subterfuge/confining device/a snare/a box propped up on the stairs/a frappe/a wrap/my hat/A TRAP! Oh my god that is lame and the most obvious Ackbar joke you could ever come up with.

Actually, nobody was doing "It's a trap" jokes before RC did it with "Admiral Ackbar Cereal." Of course they're going to do a follow-up to their most famous gag.

The dancing montage reminds me of that Kinect Star Wars disaster.

I took that as an actual spoof of the Kinect mess.

Now, here's what I actually liked:

The matte painting joke was good.

Agreed.

The Queen Amidala joke was good. (2:15-2:30)

I think so, too - although I disagree with Dexter Jettster's assessment that Padme was at least good at politics. She was good at nothing. :-D

I'll grant you that the other clips you posted (the longer ones) certainly aren't very funny. However, while the clip of Leia at the cafe is pretty dull, the closing punchline with Lando was deeply inspired, IMHO.

Yes, those clips I posted do not contain the following:

Drugs/Alcohol
Promiscuity
Murder/horrible deaths (well, Jar Jar is murdered but it's wonderful)
Obscene dialogue (yes, there are a couple swears, but nothing too far)
Prostitutes

That's because not every RC sketch is as messed up as you make it out to be. Yes, there is some crazy over-the-top stuff that goes on in that show, but it's not wall-to-wall pig f*cking.

But that's my whole point. Your point is that because Detours is family-friendly, unlike RC, it inherently won't be funny. And then to show how much better RC is because of the adult content, you posted a bunch of clips that were funny without going to any of those places. You're arguing against yourself, my friend.

I'm not saying that no show ever should be allowed to go to the poop / sex / drugs jokes, or that the gags never work. I'm just saying that it can be an easy way out, that's all.

To further make my analogy: Blazing Saddles? A brilliantly funny movie made for adults that would have been destroyed if it had been watered down to make it family-friendly. Pixar's Up? A brilliantly funny movie that would not have been one tiny bit better if it was filled with vulgar humor.

That being said, the clips coming out certainly don't look like they're up to Pixar's level, by any means. But I believe that the RC team can do better with a family-friendly show.

Just curious: Have you seen LEGO Star Wars: The Padawan Menace? I thought that was a very funny Star Wars spoof that was family-friendly and even approved by LucasArts. (Also, Jar Jar dies in it!) That's kind of what I was hoping Detours would turn out to be (although it doesn't look like it is).

My main point of discontent is that the creators/writers are trying to do the exact same formula with family friendly humor. It's lazy. They're going the Seth MacFarlane route and that's disturbing.

I'm not sure I would call Seth McFarlane family-friendly. I guess you're referring to the fact that there are things he can't get away with in prime-time, but I think the whole point of his shows are to be subversive and edgy. I agree with you that McFarlane is a lazy hack, though. (In fact, if not for Family Guy showing me how terribly unfunny "edgy" humor can be, we might not even be having this conversation!)

I agree with this 100%. Of all the possible movies/franchises they could have focused on they picked the most obvious and tired.

To be fair, it's not like the RC people sat around and said, "There are tons of franchises; which one should we spoof on a weekly basis?" LucasArts came to them. It's the only one that the RC team has rights to spoof on a weekly basis.

The funny thing is, my original point was not even that the show will be great (and certainly, the more we see, the less likely that seems). My point was that I wanted to see something more like what's happening in the DC Animated Universe.

In the DCU, the weekly shows are more family-friendly, while the direct-to-video stuff adapts some of DC's most famous and seminal works. Those movies usually garner a PG-13 rating. They've adapted Year One; Justice League: The New Frontier; The Dark Knight Returns; etc. The fans seem to love both types of productions, by and large.

That's what I want to see from LucasArts. Do a family-friendly weekly series that the fans will love as well (whatever the Star Wars equivalent of Batman: The Brave and the Bold would be). Then, for direct-to-video stuff, do adaptations of Dark Empire, the Thrawn trilogy, etc. And make it PG-13 sometimes if they have to. The fans would love them for that.

Instead, they start with a lifeless weekly series aimed at young viewers, and then they make a new series which seems to skew even younger than that. That's my main problem.

And yet somehow, I wound up wasting a lot of energy in this thread defending this show. :?

I'm sorry that you're upset about this show. I am, too, just for slightly different reasons. But at the end of the day, "this little one isn't worth the effort." ;-)

 

[Omaru1982]

^I wouldn't call the clone wars lifless, just the pilot (as in the movie) and most of the first season, it picked up considerably for season 2, Haven't seen season 3 though

 

[DominicCobb]

Yeah the pilot was certainly lifeless but I would say it definitely grew a beard. Still haven't most of season 3 or anything past, but I've only heard good things.

 

[Neglify]

And I don't honestly feel that raunchy comedy = brilliant and family friendly comedy = horrible.

I'm saying that the creators of RC are assholes now.

That is all.

 

[Rogue-theX]

I like post number 25 the best.