Dark Minions is obviously not the first example of this type of parody. Kevin Smith famously had his characters discussing the random employees onboard a Death Star in Clerks, and the official Star Wars "Tag and Bink" comics had a bumbling duo whose many adventures included some time posing as Stormtroopers.
So how is Dark Minions? It’s… cute. Actors John Ross Bowie and Kevin Sussman (both have roles on The Big Bang Theory) created the series, and voice the main characters, Mel (Bowie) and Andy (Sussman). Mel’s the everyman, a recently divorced guy who takes a job as a soldier for the “Galactic Conglomerate” because he needs the money. Andy meanwhile is the more outwardly wacky character – the heavyset, pot-smoking slacker.
Suffice to say, these two are not zealous members of their legion, but just a couple of guys collecting a paycheck. And the pilot episode gives them a moment of truth, as they meet and befriend a group of rebels – including the feisty Carly (Jaime Denbo) and Lance Supernova (Andrew Daly) – only to realize they’re in great danger from Mel and Andy's own bosses. (You can guess the influences present in Carly and Lance - Bowie and Sussman have a good time with names and situations that are very Star Wars-like, without being directly Star Wars).
One thing that makes Dark Minions a bit tricky to review is it was posted on Amazon in an incomplete form. It’s intended to be a stop-motion animated series, but the pilot only had a small amount of sequences (or in some cases, a few shots) that had completed stop-motion, with the rest presented in animatic form – with the remainder to be finished if the show is picked up. That being the case, we’re not seeing the full visuals, which is pretty important for an animated series. I will say that the stop-motion sequences we did see looked cool and hint at strong visual style.
Of course, that leaves the writing to really carry the rest and it’s… okay. There is certainly some fun to be had with looking at the day to day life working on a Death Star-like space station, as we hear about the food court and the recycling plan onboard. On the other hand, there are a lot of jokes that go for the obvious, low brow punch line – which can be funny, sure, but seemed pretty strained more often than not. If you’re going to have a puke joke, you have to really go for it these days, and Dark Minions puke joke was no Pitch Perfect puke joke, if you know what I mean.
The best part of Dark Minions is Clancy Brown (Savage Opress himself!) voicing Mel and Andy’s commander, Drebnor. He has the perfect bombastic delivery, and there are some very fun moments between him and his right hand man - and possibly the funniest joke of the episode involves Drebnor and an "ant guy."
Do I need to see more Dark Minions? Not necessarily. But if it were picked up to series, I’d certainly at least come back to see what the completed, fully-animated version of this pilot was like, so there’s that at least. Onion News Empire can be viewed now at Amazon.
Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @EricIGN, IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at Facebook.com/TheEricGoldman.
