Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) Director: Steve Binder
“Happy Life Day!”
As an aspiring Star Wars completionist, I decided to watch the “Holiday Special,” a hilariously bad, awkward, surreal, cringeworthy made-for-television movie featuring the main cast from the original film — Mark Hamill (sporting eyeliner for some reason), Harrison Ford (who quite evidently wanted nothing to do with this project), Carrie Fisher (who was apparently inebriated the whole time), Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and even James Earl Jones as Darth Vader. But the whole movie is little more than a bizarre patchwork of re-used footage from the movies, spontaneous musical numbers, and constant pauses for characters to watch video transmissions of cartoons and even a softcore Wookiee call-girl performance. Suffice it to say this variety hour of a Star Wars program is utterly abysmal.
Sponsored by General Motors, the central premise of this “movie” concerns the Millennium Falcon racing home to Kashyyyk (the first appearance of the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk) so that Chewbacca can celebrate “Life Day” with his family –with his wife Mala, his father Itchy, and son Lumpy. But this is as far as a plot goes. Littered throughout this cornball parody there is a performance by Jefferson Starship, a lengthy circus interlude, various fake intergalactic advertisements and television shows, a four-armed robot speaking during a silly science fiction version of a Julia Child cooking show, an elderly man (who is apparently a robot) breaking down during a faux informercial, and even a cartoon sequence involving Luke Skywalker (along with Threepio and Artoo) trailing Han Solo and Chewbacca who are searching for a mystical talisman, and along the way they encounter Boba Fett –amazingly, this was the first introduction of Boba Fett into the entire Star Wars universe! There is also a return to the Mos Eisley Cantina on Tatooine where an oddball humanoid takes his drinks through a hole in the top of his head. And even a Wilhelm Scream can be heard when Han Solo tosses a stormtrooper off the upper balcony to Chewbacca’s home! In the end, Han and Chewbacca return to the Wookiees in time for “Life Day” and Carrie Fisher sings a jarring, hilariously awkward song in honor of “Life Day.” Now I see why George Lucas announced that he wanted to take a sledgehammer to every remaining copy of the “Star Wars Holiday Special.” In 2006, Harrison Ford said he never watched it; in 2010, Carrie Fisher admitted she had a copy of it at home just so she could play in order to chase guests out of her house; in 2018, Mark Hamill claimed to have never seen the whole thing; and in his 2019 autobiography, Anthony Daniels eloquently dubbed it a “turd.”
I’m glad that The Empire Strikes Back had made great amends as the next Star Wars endeavour. Thank you for your review.