The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) – Review

Are you a fan of Holiday Movies?

How about Star Wars?

One might think mashing those 2 things up would be magical and amazing…. They would be Wrong!!!

If by the grace of God, you haven’t seen this “special” that aired in 1978 and follows Chewbacca’s family as they await his arrival to his home planet of Kashyyyk to Celebrate Life Day, Let me go over some of the  confusing, inappropriate, and just plain bizarre things that happen in this movie.

Aside from Mark Hamill’s face that is.

The Movie opens at Chewy’s home with his wife, Malla, his son Lumpy, and his father Itchy awaiting Chewy’s arrival.  Here’s where the first issue arises.  In the films, Chewy will Grunt something, then another character will respond to him so we sort of know what he was saying, but in this, they thought a Grueling 10 consecutive minutes of “Wookie talk” would be interesting! (Spoiler: It isn’t)

What we end up with is a pissed of Malla Grunting at Lumpy to take the Garbage out,

Then for his good work He gets to watch a strange Cirque Du Soleil type holographic show:

 

We Meet Art Carney  as a trader who is loyal to the rebellion and visits the family with gifts for them. Strange, inappropriate gifts…

He brings gifts for Malla and Lumpy (that tie into the story later) but brings Grandpa Itchy a Cartridge for his “virtual reality” chair that he tells him he’ll really like, and boy does he!

Lucky ol’ Itchy gets to “enjoy” (Quite loudly by the end of his viewing Pleasure) a Virtual Diahann Carroll seducing him with an eclectic song all the while letting him know she is there to pleasure him.

If you want to see just how creepy this scene is, Look here: (Don’t say I didn’t warn you!)

Now we do get a few interludes of Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewy (Peter Mayhew) trying to evade imperial forces:

Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill)and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) trying to fix an engine:

And Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and C3P0 (Anthony Daniels):

But the Bizarreness and WTF moments just keep coming.

The Imperial Forces Enter the family’s home like a group of Nazi’s searching for rebels or a sign that they may be rebels themselves, but are soon distracted to watch another hologram (This time Nalla’s gift) of  a Jefferson Starship Music Video!?

While this distraction is happening, it gives Lumpy time to build a Radio with the help of the instructional video hosted by Harvey Korman in one of his 3 over the top, crazy characters in this film.

The ONLY cool thing in this mess and possibly it’s only redeeming quality is the crudely animated short in the middle of the movie that introduces us to the Fan Favorite Bounty Hunter Boba Fett.

As the Empire is trying to find more rebels they decide to institute a curfew, and back at a Cantina that means it’s last call and our bartender Bea Arthur  after cozying up to a giant rat;

Decides that the best way to empty out the bar is to sing them all out with a conga line.

Once we’re back to the family, the Imperial forces have left except for one guard after being called away by radio (By  Lumpy’s gift which he built)  As soon as the lone storm-trooper realizes what has happened, he chases poor Lumpy and has him Trapped until Chewbacca & Han arrive to save the day.

Now that the family have reunited, the can celebrate Life day!

Don’t worry though the craziness hasn’t ended just yet,

Here’s Chewy & family in their CULT  “life Day” robes ready for the celebration.

Magically (out of nowhere) the entire gang shows up for the celebration.  How sweet.

Then Princess Leia inexplicably breaks into a Christmas-y song set to the Star Wars theme. Sure why the hell not at this point!

And that’s about all she wrote. Chewy & family go home and enjoy their Life Day Dinner

 

You may think that it can’t possibly be that bad right? I’ll leave you with this:

-George Lucas tried (and Failed) to buy all the master copies of this special so it could never be seen again.

-Carrie Fisher pretended she had no idea what an interviewer was talking about when he brought it up several years later (In fairness it could have been the cocaine, but still.)

-Carrie Fisher also claims that the copy of the special she received from George Lucas is what she pops on the TV when she wants party guests to leave.