Classics The Holiday Special - General Discussion

The first and last time I saw The Holiday Special in it's entirety was when it originally aired on T.V. back in the late '70's'; being a little kid (early elementary school) at the time, I have extremely dim memories of this.

I tried to watch it again more recently and couldn't sit through more than five minutes - quite horrible. I'm glad that Lucas never made this commercially available, since it's an extreme embarassment to Star Wars & intelligent people in general...

The only worthwhile aspect to this was the Nelvana Boba Fett cartoon, which is included as an Easter Egg on the 2011 SW Blu-ray set. Excellent animation & story, and it was cool to see Luke in his outfit from the awards ceremony at the end of ANH (nine continuity there), the various aliens, Stormtroopers, etc.

I liked that Nelvana also did the animation for the excellent & underrated Droids/Ewoks cartoons in 1985/1986...speaking of which, we do still need those on DVD/Blu-ray.....

 

I saw it once...was flipping channels and saw someone was playing Star Wars....but I could not remember Han and Chewie ever having that conversation in all the other times I watched the movie.

I lucked out (depending on your point of view) and got it right as it was starting on a local access channel.

 

I've seen this thing maybe once, and that was in small chunks. I can't watch the full thing. I just can't. I absolutely hate the Wookiee family. Then you sit through Lumpy watching an instructional video on how to start up a computer or something. It's just horrible.

 

Its like a guilty pleasure in some ways for me. I liked the connections to ANH, used some of the same actors/characters and costumes. The wookie family was interesting, was also like Fett's first appearence. Was like proto-EU as if written and directed by someone on psychedelic drugs, it was the 70's afterall.

 

I like the cantina costumes and the cartoon but that's about it. Honestly, I wouldn't mind LFL and Disney making more cartoons like this.

 

The animation in the holiday special Boba Fett sequence was very similar to that used in the 1985/1986 Droids/Ewoks cartoons; the same company (Nelvana) did the animation for all of them. Unfortunately, these cartoons are still not on DVD/Blu-ray yet...

 

It's an interesting part of Starwars history that really helps to show why Lucas was so protective of Starwars in general. It's also an interesting part of American Television history that has sort of faded from the popular culture, The idea of this type of holiday special can seem very strange by today's standards regardless of quality. So in that way, it is this strange relic from another age that will always have a small place in television history.

As far as the Special itself....well, as everyone will tell you, its simply horrible! It's just bad; and it's not even so bad it's good...it's just terrible and painful to watch. I completely agree with those that recommend you watch an online review or commentary of it. That is really the best way to get any enjoyment out of it, otherwise, its just a very slow, agonizing experience.

The animated segment with Boba Fett, is truly the only redeeming quality in the whole thing. It's alright, and worth watching on it's own, but nothing amazing, and definitely not worth sitting through the rest of the monstrosity just to watch it.

Could you imagine, after devoting so much time and energy to finally see "A New Hope" turn out to be a huge success, Lucas probably felt the public really understood and appreciated the film and the type of adventure story he loved. So a big television network wants to do a holiday special for Starwars; sure it might be a little silly, but as long as Lucas gave them a basic outline it should be fun, right? Well, Lucas must have been completely horrified by how badly they misunderstood and screwed it up when he saw it, I know I would be. I don't blame him at all for not wanting it ever released. He did a great public service by trying to erase it from everyone's memory.

I actually think including the animated segment on a "bonus disk" in a blu ray set would be cool idea. I would love to see a documentary where they get everyone's perceptive about the holiday special and how it turned out so wrong. That would be a great place to add in a nice quality version of the animated part. Either that, or perhaps they could include it on an updated release of the Droids series.

 

I really want a blu ray release of Droids. I love that show.

 

You're in luck. The animated Nelvana Holiday Special segement w/Boba Fett is included on the Star Wars Saga Blu-ray set that came out three years ago. I have this, and they cleaned up the picture & audio so it looks & sounds great. This is the only part of the holiday special that I wanted to own, so it was great to finally have this available. Here's a link with more info.:

http://www.galactichunter.com/gh/story/star-wars-blu-ray-boba-fett-holiday-special-segment-found

 

That's kinda awesome! I had no idea. I'll definitely check that out. Thanks so much for the info,

 

I've seen the Nostalgia Critic review as well as the HelloGreedo review of it and I can see why George Lucas is embarrassed by this. I felt sorry for the main cast, I heard Ford and Fisher were embarrassed by this though I can't remember what Hamils thoughts of it were. Either way I thought it was the worst thing to happen to star wars ,but I've only seen the reviews of it, that's still enough to see it was not good at all.

 

I saw it when it first (and last) aired, and I'm ashamed to say I was young enough not to know how bad it was. That said, I did like some of their ideas, even though the execution was so bad. It was interesting seeing a bit of how the average people lived under the Empire, and seeing the Empire's occupation of Kashyyyk. The idea of Chewbacca having a wife and kid was compelling. It was the first time we ever saw ANY other wookiees in the entire saga until Episode 3. But, again, they just did such a bad job that any good ideas were completely wasted.

 

How much influence did Lucas have over this? I can only imagine the writing conferences.

 

I've seen it twice. Once was when I stumbled across it online somewhere and watched out of morbid curiosity, after hearing how bad it was. The second was after talking to my girlfriend at the time, and she wanted to watch it out of curiosity.

 

I tried watching it yesterday, inspired by this thread. I couldn't get very far.

 

I have never watched it is it really that bad.

 

You'll die in agony.

 

Well then I will make sure not to watch it.

 

Yea this is dumb. I couldn't get passed the first four minutes of the Wookie family banter.

 

How did you all celebrate Life Day??

Some thoughts on the show:
http://onesaga.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/happy-life-day-the-agony-and-the-infamy/


Yancy

 

Wow its been that long so that means episode 4 was realized around 37 years ago and I am also happy I did not watch the holiday special nor can I legally.

 

I celebrated Life Day by watching Empire Day. A much better holiday in my opinion.

 

Someday, I'd love to see a really detailed "The Making Of..."-style investigation of just what everyone involved in this... thing was thinking. Unfortunately I suspect it's never going to happen.

 

I bet they were all high.