Saga 35th Anniversary of The Star Wars Holiday Special!

Evening everyone,l haven't commented here in a while.

As some of you know, tonight (11/17) marks the 35th anniversary of The Star Wars Holiday Special. My wife & I run a blog where we review holiday programming, here's our take on the SWHS:
http://holidayfilmreviews.blogspot.com/2013/11/star-wars-holiday-special.html
And if you don't feel like reading the review, at least check out the "crawl" we made in honor of the special's anniversary:
http://starwars.com/play/online-activities/crawl-creator/?cs=e8b2adr6jg

 

Better than The Phantom Menace? Really?

Anyway, I know what I'm doing tonight.

 

Ha ha the SWHS was hilarious. It was so bad you couldn't help wincing and laughing at the same time. They used a bunch of the stuff from ANH (the TIE chase scene) My favorite part is when Han says, "And you're all an important part of my life," I just felt like barfing the acting was so wooden. Then Leia starts singing and you feel like turning it off. I also think the part with the singers on the Wookie's computer is incredibly stupid. If you haven't seen it, watch this alt. ending to the SWHS, it is better than the original:

 

For all the people here who say the OT fans love of the OT movies is pure nostalgia, then how come we all hate the Holiday Special yet we saw it the same time as the OT? I remember watching the Holiday Special as a 6 year old kid in 1978 and was terrible then. I haven't watched it for 35 years, nor have cared to watch it ever again. Its that bad!

 

I think you just answered your own question. People don't tend to get nostalgic for things they thought were terrible at the time. Besides, I don't think I've ever seen anyone say that people only love the OT because of nostalgia, but more that the nostalgia can sometimes get in the way of appreciating the evolution that the saga has been through over the years.

 

I disagree, as there are a lot of bad 1980's songs that when I hear on the radio for the first time in years tend to make me nostalgic cause I think of that particular time of my life growing up. And trust me, there were a lot of bad 80's songs!

The 'nostalgia' argument gets thrown around here a lot by many people here (not you personally) about fans of the OT. It always pops up in every OT vs PT thread, etc. As much as people get annoyed of OT fans bashing the PT, its just as annoying people who throw in the 'nostalgia' argument or 'Lucas raped my childhood' statement.

 

But did you like those songs in the 80's despite regardless of whether or not they were good? (I happen to love 80's music quite beyond the nostalgic qualities of it but that's another matter)

And I have said on occasion that nostalgia definitely colors people's view of the OT. I don't say that as an insult against the people or the movies though. I still experience it to some degree as well. It's something to be cherished. I've also found that it's best not to hold onto it too dearly if you have any hope of accepting the changes that have come about in this series, or at least to find a way to compartmentalize it. But I do think it's a fact that many of the people who have a more difficult time embracing the SEs and the PT (and I'm not trying to generalize here because I understand and in some ways sympathize with many of the criticisms leveled at them) have a much more precious view of the role of Star Wars in regards to their own childhood experience.

 

Nostalgia only holds so much weight, and won't last for long when you keep coming back to it. What I mean is that I get nostalgic for Atari, The Muppets, and Star Wars Action Figures, but you wont see me playing Space Invaders on Atari 2600 over an XBox360 game! You won't see me playing with my Star Wars Figures (my mom got rid of them all like most kids my age!!!!!) if I still had them, because it would get boring after about 30 seconds. I get nostalgic for The Muppets (as me and my brother used to watch them every weekend as kids), but I would probably be bored if I watched an old episode these days.

Yet I can still say that ANH & ESB are JUST as great to me now as they were as a kid. ROTJ has not aged well, so I rate that like the PT, its something I enjoy but not as good as ANH & ESB. For some reason, we get the constant psychoanalyzing of why we love the OT movies around here by PT fans, and I can answer it real easy: They're great movies, and most people I know love great movies.

 

...35 years is kind of a random anniversary, isn't it?

 

I get what you're saying. I agree they're great movies, and I've seen very few if any PT fans dispute that. It's just been my experience that nostalgia is thrown around more as a reason for OT fans to dislike the prequels and SEs than as the sole reason for their love of the OT. There are things I enjoy for nostalgic value and things I enjoy for reasons beyond that, but Star Wars is a unique example for a lot of people because while the OT is undeniably great, it wasn't just another part of their childhoods (which it was for mine) but actually defined the childhoods of many. I think in those instances the nostalgia factor can skew one's perspective, not so much about the movies of the OT themselves but in affecting one's ability to let go of the place those movies in their original forms hold in their lives or to open themselves up to a broader view of them as defined by the prequels. Again, I'm not generalizing here. Just making an observation about a certain subset of OT purists.

As for the Holiday Special, that's a somewhat different case because most of the people who saw it when it aired either hated it or were at least disappointed with it if they were being generous, regardless of how much they loved Star Wars, and as such that's the defining association they have with their memory of it. So it becomes if anything a case of a kind of anti-nostalgic effect that it has on them now.

 

OK, then I will ask another question: Why are PT fans so accepting that we all hated the Holiday Special back in 1978, but question our motives when we don't like the PT as much as the OT, or some cases of my friends, don't like the PT at all?

I have never had one person on the internet question me about why I loathe the Holiday Special as they take it at face value. But when I tell people here I like the OT more then the PT, all of the sudden they start rationalizing why? How come no one is convincing me to like the Holiday Special, yet I constantly get told that I am closed minded on the special editions? Why can't love the OT, enjoy the PT, loathe the Holiday Special & SE here, and not have my motives questioned?

 

Because the Holiday Special is genuinely bad and the PT isn't.

 

That was terrible

 

Never watched it, never will.

 

You forgot IMO.

 

I figure any anniversary that ends in a 5 or a 0 is worth noting.

 

Because the Holiday Special came out at the same time as the OT.

 

Nope.

 

Carbon1985 Let's leave that tired PT vs OT nostalgia stuff out of this thread.

Feel free to put the boot into the SWHS, though. It's garbage. Does have to be watched once, nevertheless.

 

Yeah sorry for indulging that conversation. I wasn't alive in '78 to see the Holiday Special when it aired, but as bad as it is (and it's very bad), I don't actually find it difficult to watch. In fact I kind of love it in a weird way. If a high quality version were made available I would probably watch it pretty often.

 

I've got a soft spot for it, but I'd never claim it's anything but complete rubbish. And yeah, I'd probably pick up a proper copy of it if one was available, maybe for a few minutes of torture each Xmas.

Strangest thing about the SWHS - I did see it back when it first aired, aged about three or four, and I had extremely vague memories of it for years (mainly the tree house), but I figured it must have been some sort of dream, because nothing I remembered was in any of the films.

Here's the one-stop spot for everything anyone could possibly want to know about the bastard child of the SW franchise:

http://www.starwarsholidayspecial.com/


(Incidentally, I'm well aware that the SWHS was a TV show, but discussion of it in Saga is permitted - certain aspects of its development are related to abandoned ideas for ESB and another SW sequel about Wookiees, plus it features virtually all the main cast of SW/ANH)

 

In general, I've always been a defender of all the weird old kitsch of the Star Wars universe. I love that the first story arc in the old Marvel Comics had Han and Chewie teaming up with a 7-foot green rabbit and a guy calling himself Don-Wan Kihotay in a Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven pastiche. And I still can't stomach this... thing.

I've been hoping for years to find some kind of full, official explanation of just what the frell Lucas and company were thinking when they came up with it.

 

In a nutshell?

a) GL wanted to do a story purely about Wookiees, perhaps as a future movie;
b) A TV special was a quick way of capitalising on SW's success;
c) Busy developing ESB, GL didn't have the time to focus on this TV special, so it was handled by the sort of people who produced stuff like the Brady Bunch Hour.

The result was about the only thing which has ever created true unanimity among the SW fanbase.

As for how anyone, tacky TV people or not, could possibly create such an abomination, here's a couple more examples of how SW was approached by the world of 1970s TV:

 

I found a Torrent of this lately, and then happened across a DVD version at the local toy expo. Have yet to watch, but will at some point for humor value.

 

Good luck with that. Oh dear...

Novelty and shock value aside, the SWHS has only ever had three redeeming features:
- the Boba Fett cartoon, which was Fett's very first appearance (although you'll be baffled with what they've done to Han Solo's head);
- a short, re-dubbed deleted scene from SW featuring Vader & Chief Bast;
- some even briefer deleted footage from SW in Mos Eisley.

Of course, all three of these are now included on the 2011 Blu-Ray set in high quality.