LEGO Star Wars: The Padawan Menace

LEGO Star Wars: The Padawan Menace is a wonderful non-cannon short from 2011, the first of the Lego Star Wars specials on Cartoon Network.  I love this “movie”!  Before I get sarted, here’s the synopsis from IMDB.com:
Ian, a young boy, Commander Cody and Yoda must go to rescue the secret battle plans.  However,when substitute teacher C-3PO and a class of padawans go too, things become more complicated….
For a synopsis with spoilers check out the Wookepedia article.

Okay, as with all things LEGO they do a fantastic job of poking fun at things we love, and this 22 minute film is jam-packed with these moments.  The way Yoda talks is over-the-top, R2D2 has turned his spunkiness up to 11, and (my personal favorite) Palpatine… you just have to see it!  There is not a single LEGO film that I’ve disliked, but this one is one of the best (and not just because it is Star Wars, but because of what they do with Star Wars).

The film itself centers around two groups, a small class of padawans on a field trip to the Senate who end-up in space, and later on Tatooine, being led by everyone’s favorite golden over-anxious worry-wort C-3P0 (also a caricature of himself) and a three person team of Yoda, Commander Cody, and Ian – a young orphan stow-away who has inserted himself into the Jedi dealings; unlike Darth Vader who George Lucas has to get off the set three different times because he jumped in where it wasn’t scripted. <– See, funny stuff!  The film is set during the Clone Wars (with Star Wars crawl read aloud by a familiar voice), but takes elements from both the Original Trilogy and the Prequals.

All-in-all it is a fun watch, and the more you know about Star Wars the better it is.  Just like all things that we love we know there are some aspects worth making a joke about, and this film hits them all!

FYI, this will be the giveaway for this month!