By whatever gods you worship, if there was ever a blot on the Star Wars Universe it was the Star Wars Holiday Special. This wonderful masterpeice of farted out garbage makes JarJar look like Brad Pitt. But for many fans it is the obscurity of this one time released Holiday Special something to acquire. I own a copy.
So here is the deal. There is no Christmas in Star Wars so they join Chewbacca’s family in celebrating “Life day” and the show reunites all the cast of the super successful Star Wars Universe for a made for TV movie. This was SO DAMNED BAD that if you ask George Lucas in an interview about it he dodges the question and all but denies its existence. It was aired once – Friday, November 17, 1978 on CBS-TV. ONCE! Not to add to its collector’s value, but beacuse it was so so bad that Lucas never wanted to inflict that on the fanbase ever again. The original director David Acomba left mid project and Lucas, who didn’t have much to do with this project applauded him for it.
Lucky for most, you have never seen it. Its worth a watch just to recognize that I am not making this up. Its bad.
But the official website decided to celebrate this forgotten (aka buried) TV Special on this, its 30th Anniversary week. StarWars.com will be offering these features all week long. I have retained the hyperlinks for the features already live on their site.
* Extended interviews with many of the cast and crew of “The Star Wars Holiday Special”, reprinted and updated by “Holiday Special” aficionado Ross Plesset (Part 1, Part 2)!
* Collecting the “Holiday Special”
* “Holiday Special” animation animatics video
* The props of “The Star Wars Holiday Special”: What has survived?
* Interview with “Holiday Special” fansite administrator SKot Kirkwood
And lo, you are not yet forewarned. So I found this clip outlining the Holiday Special hitting its “plot” in about 5 minutes. They didn’t show the animated segment which features Boba Fett’s first appearance, but it does show you a very girly looking Mark Hamill and Diahann Carroll’s video that looks awfully suggestive in this clip. (she just sings a bad song. Honest)
It’s in the “so bad it’s horrible” category. If you go to Rifftrax.com, you can get the later-season MST3k alums to mock it endlessly — both “pretty boy” Mark Hamill and “Coked to the gills” Carrie Fisher get their fair share of ribbing.
I only watched about 15 minutes of it (because my brother made me), but those are a few minutes that I desperately want back…or I wish I could at least pretend I had never seen it. So painful.
I must admit, I’m really surprised the official site is “celebrating” this. I thought Lucas was doing his damnedest to destroy what few remnants there are of the Christmas Special. Weird.
Oh man, I saw this when it aired when I was 10. Since that was an age before home video, it was great to see ‘the gang’ again. As I recall, the coolest thing was the introduction of Boba Fett.
@John
I Think Mark Hamill looks like he had a sex change because he was wearing quite a bit of makeup due to a car accident he had just prior to that. The accident then had Lucas add the attack from the Wampa in TESB to explain some of the scars.
Man, this was bad. And not in the good cheesy kind of way. Cheesy is if Vader and Luke set aside differences to exchange gifts while Han Solo and Chewie saved Santa. And at one point, there would need to be Stormtroopers line-dancing. A concept like this needed to take itself less seriously to work.
Instead, we get Bea Arthur. They really didn’t think much of themselves back then.
I have a copy as well. A sure-fire way to make any unwanted relatives leave after they have had too much eggnog and are getting aggressive. It blows that hard. Mighty fun if you’ve never seen it before though.
Ah yes, happy Life Day everyone.
WHAT IN GODES NAME WAS UP WITH MARK HAMILL HE LOOKS LIKE HE GOT A SEX CHANGE
Naw this is a rare gem really and I think Lucas should at least make this available for the public. The copies out there look like crap and it would be nice to see a better quality one. I have yet to sit through this all the way through, it’s sooo bad. But I don’t think Lucas should try to hide this, I’m sure he can laugh about it now.
Although I was only 6, I was one of the unfortunate souls who saw this as a star wars crazed kid and was so pissed off I think I whined incessantly to my mom. Lucas should have burned all copies of this tape.
Wish they did this for The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, heck, even The Godfather series!
lol…LIFE DAY!
You can’t compare this to the prequels no matter how you feel about them. Don’t be that silly.
But yes, this Holiday Special does bring up some gag reflex and cringing that is for sure.
I felt like I was watching the prequels. I think it gave me diarrhea.