You ever do something that seemed like a good idea at the time… and then woke up the next day and said to yourself “What the hell did I just do?!?!” Well that’s what George Lucas goes through every Christmas. Oh yes, the fond memories of Star Wars – The Holiday Special still swirl in my head. Never has television been so horribly abused. We’ve posted several times before about this travesty, but now it looks like George Lucas actually wants to get this embarrassment banned. And really, who can blame him? Come to think of it… who would want to stop him?
A great quote from the good folks over at Digital Spy reads like this:
A high point of the film is a scene in which Princess Leia reduces Solo and Luke Skywalker to tears with a heart-rending song. IMDB quotes a source at Lucasfilm as saying: “The Holiday Special was the biggest f***-up ever. The Force was definitely not with Mr. Lucas the day that doozy was born.”
Ummm yeah. Don’t need to say much else do we? So come on! Who else out there has seen this gem?
and what’s with the wookie virtual porn.
I actually own a bootleg of it.
It first aired on my 7th birthday in 1978 and I still have fond memories of the Wookiee Treehouse from the original airing. Watching it now, however, there is little to redeem it, LEAST of all the Bea Arthur Cantina Number (Bantha Pudu). It also broke new ground by introducing the “spoiler” by revealing Boba Fett. This was soon followed by the misguided advertizing of Yoda action figures before the release of Empire, which made a major difference in Yoda’s first scene.
Anyway, there are at least a few seconds on the hours-long special to make it worth picking up. The only bootlegs are, of course, copies from VHS- which sucks Hutt.
I’ve never seen it. But if it makes William want to do such horrible things to himself, then I MUST see this movie. I want to see what is so bad about all this.
WORST SPECIAL EVER. I WOULD RATHER SPLASH ACID IN MY EYES AND STAB MY EAR DRUMS WITH A PENCIL THAN HAVE TO SEE OR HEAR THAT SPECIAL AGAIN!
I dunno, there are plenty of us out there that find 5 minutes of solid wookie-speak, sans subtitles to be sparkling entertainment :)
Seriously though, the Prequels have damaged the S.W. reputation so severely that the Holiday Special is not such a damning piece of evidence anymore. It probably would have been wise for Lucasfilm to just not ever mention it (which was the policy up until Darth Lucas issued that press release).
The cartoon attached which introduces Boba Fett is not too bad though…
Everything else just reeks of Shadenfraude.
KuRt.