The Star Wars Holiday Special

USA 1978
produced by
Joe Layton, Jeff Starsh, Ken Welch, Mitzie Welch, Gary Smith (executive), Dwight Hemion (executive) for Winters Hollywood Entertainment Holdings Corporation, 20th Century Fox/CBS
directed by Steve Binder, Clive A. Smith (animated sequences)
starring Mickey Morton, Paul Gale, Patty Maloney, Art Carney, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, James Earl Jones (voice), Dave Prowse, Bea Arthur, Diahann Carroll, Jefferson Starship (= Marty Balin, Craig Chaquico, David Freiberg, Paul Kantner), Harvey Korman, Jack Rader, Stephanie Stromer, Michael Potter, Wazzan Troupe, Yuichi Sugiyama, Mum Brothers, Claude Woolman, Lev Mailer, John McLaughlin
written by Pat Proft, Leonard Ripps, Bruce Vilanch, Rod Warren, Mitzie Welch, Star Wars created by George Lucas, music by Ian Fraser

TV-show
Star Wars

review by
Mike Haberfelner

The planet of the Wookies: Chewbacca's (Peter Mayhew) family (Mickey Morton, Paul Gale, Patty Maloney) is awaiting his return for Life Day, apparently the biggest holiday of the Wookies, but he and his friend Han Solo (Harrison Ford) are delayed by space battle after space battle. Instead of focussing on this though, the film shows us what Chewbacca's family is toing meanwhile, which is mostly watching TV, cooking, making friends with a local trader (Art Carney) and the like. Then a bunch of stormtroopers show up to search the place. They find nothing but leave one guard behind, who almost kills Chewbacca's son before Han Solo, who has just arrived with Chewbacca, kills the trooper.

In the finale, everybody celebrates Life Day, even Lukie Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), who have come by for the occasion. It all ends with the Princess singing a schmaltzy song.

I admit, I have never been the greatest fan of the Star Wars series (in fact anything but), and never made a secret out of my opinion that the series is just an over-budgeted, overly simplistic and quite militaristic fairy tale for schoolkids that is as derivative as it is pretentious and that lacks any kind of originality.

Having said that, The Star Wars Holiday Special is a trainwreck of a TV-movie for a whole different set of reasons, inasmuch as it gets its source material dead wrong. It's basically a space opera done as a musical revue, which includes besides musical numbers also the occasional comedy, even an animated interlude, and of course the obligatory poor plot that is just a bad excuse for presenting yet another musical or comedy act. Now this in itself isn't even such a bad thing, problem is the music is less than special, the dance routines are dead boring and sloppily staged, and the comedy is anything but funny. And all of this results in a trainwreck, no matter whether or not you like the Star Wars series as such, trust me.

By the way, Star Wars mastermind George Lucas loathed the thing so much he wanted to have all copies destroyed (he didn't succeed) - which is understandable given the poor quality of The Star Wars Holiday Special, on the other hand though it also shows that Lucas overrates himsels a bit as filmmaker ... and I don't believe he has given back the money he got for the special either.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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