Star Wars Holiday Special - All the horror, in only 5 minutes

Everyone looks miserable. Except maybe the Wookies and Bea Arthur. The Wookies' misery is surely hidden by their costumes. There will always be debates, but I believe Han Solo should have killed Bea Arthur *before* she opened her mouth.
 
Glad to see this is such a hit around here
:)

I first heard about this in college - a friend of mine told me about it and I thought he was lying. I didn't remember it at all, and it just sounded WAY too ridiculous to be true.

I now have it on DVD - and I think I've made just about every person I know watch some of it at some point or another... the thing is mind bogglingly bad. I mean, I know no one sets out to make a BAD product...but WOW, this thing is shocking.

As a friend of mine always says, it's a "beautiful disaster"


The only thing that would have made it weirder is if Lumpy actually did wear a tux.
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I'm both old enough, and was enough of a Star Wars freak at the time to have watched it when it was on, but somehow I didn't. I don't even remember hearing about it; was probably out doing chores on the farm at the time anyway...
 
I have fuzzy memories of seeing it as a child. (I would have been 6 or 7 maybe?) I remember the Stormtroopers tearing the Wookie house apart. Fortunately my parents probably sent me off to bed.

I believe George Lucas once said at a Star Wars convention that he'd like to take a hammer to every existing VHS copy of the SWHS. That was before YouTube.

Sorry, George.
 
Bea Arthur and Greedo do have some pretty sweet moves, I must admit. I heard about the Holiday Special a few years ago, but have never seen it. Can anyone direct me to where I can see the whole thing? I'm not even much of a Star Wars fan anymore (I kind of realized I was over it when they released the unaltered versions of the films, and I just didn't care anymore) but I'm a big fan of the absurd, as well as anything that's so bad it's funny, so I'm willing to take the plunge and see the whole thing.
 
I just saw Wookies walking through space in a single file line into some kind of star or something? Yeah, I definitely have to see the this.
 
Billy Pilgrim said:
I just saw Wookies walking through space in a single file line into some kind of star or something? Yeah, I definitely have to see the this.
Click to expand...

OH YEAH!
It just gets better and better -

Did you notice all the wookies are wearing robes, so that they didn't have to get a ton of wookie suits? Just a lot of masks.
 
what year was this on? I finally know where Luis' weird Wookie avatar came from.

I feel bad for the Harrison Ford of that time.

Mark Hamill looks like he's having a blast.

This is a perversion of something sacred.

But I have to admit, the Star Wars that is today is not what it was in the late 70's.
Of course, I'm talking about the intensity of how movies get darker and badder as we move towards the future.

I dont know how to describe this feeling but something tells me that if Lucas made Star Wars ep 4 today, not only would it be a flop but it would be a cult classic as well. And it probably would look something like today's Battlestar Galactica.

I would watch it.


sorry just ranting out of this weird sort of a cross-cultural, time experience.
 
I want to watch the full version of the holiday special. I'm morbidly curious. Damn, this thing is terrible.

Addressing the quip about Phantom Menace... oh how soon we forget about the Darth Maul fight scene. I don't think there is a filmmaker on these boards who could shoot as streamlined and well paced of an action scene. No offense, I just really think the scene was well put together.
 
Agreed. That fight scene was badass. One of the best lightsaber fight scenes of all six movies. Darth Maul was underrated.
That scene is about all I'll defend in Episode One.

Back to the SWHS: Several years ago, the entire special was on a Star Wars website, but has probably been pulled down. If I can find the link, I'll post it. Don't get your hopes up.
 
Well, actually, the first ten minutes of Phantom Menace kicked ass. But after the weenie boys folded in front of (gasp) SHIELDS, it went downhill from there.
 
That's not fair, David. I for one, was super excited that they finally gave a rational scientific explanation for the Force. I mean, the T-cell count? Genius. Pure genius.
 
I tried very hard to like it, but as soon as the whole midichlorian thing happened, I checked out. At that point it quit being "Star Wars" and tried to become "Star Trek"...
 
Yeah, overall that was a major issue. The original series was about mythological level forces and characters, good vs evil. The new series was about trade routes, senate votes, unpaid bills, etc. Really mundane stuff.

About the time Attack of the Clones became about a long lost invoice for a clone army, I'd had it.
 
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As I saw it, the original series was about spirituality triumphing over technology; faith vs. science, etc. It had a soul.

The new series is clinical, sanitized, scientific. And tediously boring.

But the Darth Maul lightsaber duel almost saved Episode 1... :thumbsup:
 
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