Have you seen…’The Star Wars Holiday Special’ (1978)

By JOHN BILLINGER

Tiger Media Network

Merry Christmas. It’s the greatest time of the year. No question. This is the day that the entire month and even year has been building up to. It saddens me that I spent it watching the “Star Wars Holiday Special.” I genuinely do make horrible use of my time. 

Ok, here is a little background on this special that I’m sure most people haven’t heard have because it has thankfully sunk into obscurity for the most part. The year was 1978 and the original “Star Wars” had just been released the previous year. Back then, “Star Wars” wasn’t a franchise that neckbeards complained about on the internet, but just a really cool movie. Actually, not just a really cool movie, but a really great movie that pushed the boundary of storytelling, and special effects, and became the highest-grossing film ever made up until that point. And it was no surprise that the sequels were green-lit, and were in pre-production by 1978. 

The cast of the original film had been making appearances on talk shows and variety shows, so the idea of doing a television special about “Star Wars” starring the original cast was eventually pitched by CBS, and after some discussion was made, was given the green light. George Lucas and company ultimately had little to do with the production of the special, as they were far too busy with the production of the sequels, but he did provide the basic framing device of the special, which was that most of it would revolve around Chewbacca’s family. 

The resulting holiday special featured most of the original film’s original cast (Mark Hamil, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and James Earl Jones), and a bunch of popular 1970s-era guest stars, such as Bea Arthur, Art Carney, Harvey Korman, Diahann Caroll, and the band the Jefferson Starship. The special was a variety show, and was mostly live-action 

but did include an animated segment that was made by an animation studio called Nelvana which later produced the 80s “Star Wars” animated series “Droids.” The special aired on November 17th, 1978. It was from then on known as “the worst two hours of television ever” according to the book “What Were They Thinking?: The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History.” 

Having seen the whole thing, I agree. I can also easily see why this thing never aired again or had an official home video release.

It’s really hard, to sum up, the “plot” of this special. In a nutshell, Chewbacca and Han Solo are running late, and are racing across the galaxy to get to Chewbacca’s home planet to visit Chewbacca’s family for Life Day. First off, what Life Day is, is never explained to the audience, but according to production notes it’s a combination of Christmas and Thanksgiving. Make of that as you will. Second, yes Chewbacca had a family this whole time. Introduced and only appearing in this special are Chewbacca’s wife Malla, his son Lumpy, and his father Itchy. Most of the special (as suggested by George Lucas) is focused on his family. And most of it is just them interacting with each other, and you better believe that there are no subtitles. You’re just

watching and listening to wookies roar at each other. The segments with them are truly a test of patience. It’s like if someone made a sitcom of the first 10 minutes of “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The wookies also make contact with Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia to ask where Han and Chewie are. Their response can be summed up as: “I don’t know where they are, but I’m sure they’re on their way.” 

Now, this is a variety show, so there are a bunch of other very boring segments that make up the film. First, there’s a segment where Lumpy is watching a hologram of a dancing Cirque du Soleil-type show, which goes on for like five minutes, and by the end of it, you feel like you’re brain dead. Nothing else can be said about this scene. 

Then Harvey Korman comes over to the Wookie household, to give the family Life Day presents. He gives Mala a kitchen thing, Lumpy a computer thing, and Itchy a virtual reality chair thing. Itchy finds the virtual reality chair useful, as he watches a weird video of special guest star Diahann Caroll, speaking suggestively to Itchy, and she sings a suggestive song. 

Then there are two painfully long and repetitive scenes of special guest star Art Carney doing an instructional video of some kind. One is a cooking show where he wears an outfit that resembles Lady Tremaine from the original Disney “Cinderella,” and then there’s an instructional how to put together a computer video in which he pretends to be a robot. A potential game one could play while watching these scenes is “spot the joke”, but honestly nothing funny ever happens so there would be no winner. 

Another segment is a Jefferson Starship music video. I really have nothing more to say about it. It’s a boring segment that plays no role, but at least it confirms that rock music exists in a galaxy far, far away. There’s also the Bea Arthur segment, where it’s a documentary of life on the desert planet Tatooine. It’s revealed that Bea Arthur was the owner of the cantina, but the Empire is closing down the cantina, and she sings a long boring song about how the customers of the bar are her friends.

The one segment that stands out is the cartoon. At one point, Lumpy starts watching a cartoon that exists within the Star Wars universe. The cartoon is titled “The Faithful Wookie”, and follows Luke Skywalker, C-3PO, and R2-D2 on a mission to rescue Han and Chewie. During their adventure, they encounter a bounty hunter. But not just any bounty hunter. It’s Boba Fett in his first appearance before his appearance in “Empire Strikes Back.” Even though that film was still in pre-production at that point, but Lucas allowed him to be used in the Special for some unknown reason. I take it that Lucas later regretted having Boba Fett appear in this, as in the special editions of “A New Hope,” he added a cameo of Boba in the Jabba scene, almost as if to discredit the holiday special place in Boba’s history. 

This animated segment is considered to be the best aspect of the special, but it’s not really saying much. The animation is odd. It resembles a mix between the 80s “Droids” animated series, old McDonald’s cartoons, and those infamous “Zelda” CD-i games. Other aspects of the cartoon are odd as well. C-3PO blinks and has an elongated neck, Han Solo’s face is stretched at an odd angle, Harrison Ford sounds like he couldn’t have cared less when he was recording his lines, and the whole concept of the cartoon within the special doesn’t even make sense. The idea is that Lumpy is watching this cartoon about his Dad. Why is there an in-universe cartoon 

about his Dad and his friend’s adventures? The only explanation I could come up with is that it’s rebel propaganda. The cartoon is bad and is only the best aspect of the whole thing because there is finally something of a plot. 

There is only so much I can say about each of the segments. They’re all unfunny, boring, repetitive, and a true test of patience to get through. Every second of this special makes you yearn to turn it off so you don’t have to watch it anymore, but I had to continue, not for this article, but because ever since I had first heard of this special, I kind of wanted to watch the whole thing just to see what it was like, and so I can say that I’ve seen it. Surprisingly despite the fact that this only aired once and has never seen an official release on home video, it’s been bootlegged many times and has been uploaded to YouTube. It hasn’t been taken down, as that would mean that someone would have to acknowledge that they own it. 

Each year, I would say that this would be the year I would finally watch it, but then I would never watch it. But not last year. Last year, I said I would finally watch it. I sat down to watch it, and 15 minutes later I stopped watching because I needed a break. The next day, I decided to watch it again, and 15 minutes later I decided I needed another break. I planned to get back to it again the next day, but for “some reason” I never got back to it. 

This year I made another attempt, and I decided to have a friend watch it with me for emotional support. We managed to watch the whole thing. My friend who watched it with me described the movie as “This movie is like that feeling when you’re sick. Like, I don’t know what’s going on, my head hurts, and I don’t want to feel like this anymore.” 

Overall, I have nothing more to say. “The Star Wars Holiday Special” is the worst thing produced in the Star Wars canon. It’s worse than the prequels or the sequels. At least, they have a story. This was just awful. I get that George Lucas didn’t have much to do with the final product beyond the license approval and plot suggestion, but I feel like someone could’ve come up with a better story. It’s also the worst holiday special ever produced. As said earlier, Life Day is the holiday, and this special gives the audience little idea of what this fictitious holiday is about, except going by the ending it might be cult-influenced.

Here’s my Christmas present to anyone who reads this: don’t watch “The Star Wars Holiday Special.” It will take decades off your life expectancy, kill your brain cells, and make you lose your faith in humanity. If you’re one of those who say “The Last Jedi” is the worst thing in the franchise, I can say with certainty that you have no idea what you are talking about. 

In any case, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.