If there’s a bright center of the Star Wars universe, this is the movie that it’s farthest from. Back in 1977, when A New Hope was released, it took the world by storm. The level of fandom that rushed to see it over and over was unprecedented. In a strange effort to capitalize on that popularity, and provide families with some fun Christmas viewing, George Lucas made Star Wars: The Holiday Special.
In this extremely forgettable TV Special, Han and Chewy are trying to get to Chewy’s home planet to celebrate Life Day with his family. Life Day is presented as a Christmas-like holiday on Kashyyyk. The most amazing Life Day miracle was that they were able to get Harrison Ford and the rest of the Star Wars cast to make an appearance in this TV “special”. That smell Han found in the trash compactor in A New Hope might have been the plot of this program. Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice effort to get families to gather around the TV to watch a fun Star Wars-related Christmas special, but this just doesn’t work. The beloved stars of the movies, especially Carrie and Mark, are simply shown as glorified cameos. In the plot, Han and Chewy run into an Imperial blockade slowing their homeward passage. Meanwhile, the audience is subjected to Chewy’s strange little family as they seek to entertain themselves while waiting on their papa.
There are musical numbers. Dance sequences. Puppetry. Cartoons dropped into the middle of an otherwise live action story line. We even revisit Mos Eisley Cantina and see all the movie monsters that frequent the place, but this time we’re entertained by Bea Arthur as the bartender. For shear camp, watching Bea sing is many people’s favorite part. The whole thing is very low budget, weird, and bizarre.
That cartoon is the one saving grace of this oddball movie. It marks the debut of fan favorite bounty hunter, Boba Fett.
The Star Wars Holiday Special has, for the most part, been buried and with good reason. You can tell by the quality of the photos we had to use that the special has not been remastered in glorious High Definition 4k. Every now and then on YouTube you can find the video, but it never seems to stay up very long. In today’s era of electronics, though, nothing ever stays buried for long.
Bad acting, bad singing, and bad special effects mar this purposely forgotten entry of Star Wars to the point the movie isn’t just dull and bad, it’s nearly unwatchable. Likely, only disappointed families in front of a 3 network TV set in 1978 and die hard Star Wars fans have ever seen it.
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