The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)

140 Character Movie Review – #140RVW

If they would simply rebroadcast this 1 time, all criticism of the prequels would immediately cease. Worst moment in history; can’t unsee…

Spoiler-free Movie Review of The Star Wars Holiday Special:

35 years ago, on Thanksgiving 1978, the world ended. Everything since then has been simply trying to pick up the pieces.

To see the Star Wars Holiday Special is to die a little. Think of the Nazis looking into the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It’s entirely possible that the special is in fact an anti-drug educational film. After all, no one would ever consider using cocaine after a single glance at Carrie Fisher. And the whole experience seems to mirror some terrible 1960’s bad trip.

Actually, despite growing up with the Wars, I have no memory of this special whatsoever, and considered it an urban legend before I finally tracked down a VHS bootleg in the 90’s.

Too many fine people have written extensively on this not to be believed train-wreck for me to go into it in great detail, so I’ll keep this brief(ish). I’ll just run over some of the main points for those of you who’d rather not experience it first-hand:

The big draw of the show was new footage from that galaxy far, far away. Pity then that what you get is clearly deleted footage of Vader wandering around the recently destroyed Death Star with new lines over-dubbed. Helps to not have to lip-sync…
Shame that Life Day never really caught on as a new holiday. Beat Festivus by years…
Love the decision to make the main characters non-English (Basic) speaking…and not subtitle. Entire minutes go by with no comprehensible dialogue. It’s like watching a Senate hearing…
Chewie’s family – yikes. Let’s just say you don’t see a lot of these cosplayers. Which name is worse, Lumpy or Itchy? I’ll give you a few minutes…
Mark Hamill looks terrifying under all that makeup, but do remember that he had been in a horrible car crash only weeks before. He alone gets a pass…
The single most fascinating aspect of this show is how they seem determined to bring back the old-time variety show. Ironically, this must have been the nail in the coffin for that crap. Art Carney, Harvey Korman? Was Carol Burnett busy? What about Tim Conway?
There’s a kind of perverse joy in seeing Harrison Ford trying to roll with the crap dialogue in the cardboard mock-up of the Falcon. It’s like anticipatory karma for being such a stuck-up grouch for the rest of his career…
Speaking of perverse, I’m fairly sure that this is the first example of sci-fi porn on broadcast television. If you haven’t seen it, and I recommend that you don’t, Carney gives grandpa Itchy some sort of virtual reality visor that allows him to participate in the first known wookiee/human hologram phone sex in the galaxy. I wonder how many kids weren’t allowed to watch the 2nd hour of this show after this segment…
Oh, did I not mention that this show was TWO HOURS LONG?
Fortunately, fans of the movie can recover from Itchy’s indiscretions as we now check in with Princess Leia & C-3P0. One of these characters is stilted and expressionless; the other is a droid. (Alright, you’ve heard it…)
Kids, don’t do drugs…
Art Carney shows a new dimension of his ability by distracting a Death Star Trooper (with an impressive 1970’s stache) with a video of The Jefferson Starship. In the long sad history of military strategy, this gambit certainly has the element of surprise.
Many fans of the trilogy will tell you that the only good thing about this is the cartoon by Nelvana which introduces Boba Fett. Don’t believe it. The cartoon is also awful.
Fortunately, we will now check in on the scene at the cantina at Mos Eisley, where BEA ARTHUR carouses with all the aliens from the movie when not being hit on by Harvey Korman. This was probably the breaking point for most kids. Bea Arthur singing. What’s next?
What’s next is that all the wookiees get wrapped up in red gowns and solemnly go to celebrate Life Day, when…
LEIA ADDS WORDS TO THE MAIN STAR WARS THEME AND SINGS THEM! I told you not to turn the page! (In Grover voice)