The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)

Last night while the rest of the world slept, fans across the country were united in projecting their hopes, dreams, and imaginations against the latest – and, some have said, greatest – Star Wars film.

This is not a review of that film. This is a review written by a very confused, very dissatisfied Star Wars fan who, for the first and likely last time in his life, inflicted upon himself the horror, the horror, that is The Star Wars Holiday Special from 1978.

Any attempt to summarize the plot of The Star Wars Holiday Special, such as it is, would be doomed to inevitable failure. Suffice it to say that something has happened to prevent Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) from attending some kind of festivity (the nebulously defined “Life Day”), leading the audience to be held captive for a series of bizarre and senseless vignettes which can only loosely be defined as tangentially relevant to the Star Wars universe, including the sale of a mustache groomer, a Wookiee cooking/drag show, a kaleidoscopic sex drug, and the first appearance of Boba Fett, which is in no way, shape, or form worth sitting through this monstrosity.

To say that this film is unwatchable by modern standards would be to pay The Star Wars Holiday Special a compliment. It is, in fact, unwatchable by any standards of any generation ever. Ten minutes in, I was already not sure whether what I had seen – an interminably long segment which consists of an apparent Married With Children script done entirely in Wookiee-speak followed by a hallucinatory juggling act with Chewbacca’s bloated son Lumpy as voyeur – was actually real or whether I had somehow died on the way home that evening and dreamt up the rest.

The Holiday Special – a poor name indeed, for it is neither festive nor special –  is so catastrophically mystifying that it is a great wonder that Star Wars became the fan-fueled juggernaut that it is today. One wonders how many fans looked at this thing and never returned to that galaxy far, far away, for fear of getting another Holiday Special as recompense for their entertainment dollar. After twenty-five minutes, I felt so insensate that I wondered if Jar Jar Binks might show up as the least offensive thing on the screen. That’s right; a racist cartoon rabbit would not only fit in perfectly in the milieu of the Holiday Special, but might actually have been the most entertaining part of it. Wrap the ethical centers of your brain around that one.

Thirty minutes in, I had to go to the bathroom. I considered leaving it run in my absence, wondering if it would make a difference. I started asking myself a lot of questions. Would I miss anything of merit? (No.) How the hell did they get Art Carney to appear in this travesty? Was this still canon, in the wake of the Great Disney Purge? Had it ever been canon? What had become of my life that I was thinking so deeply about this thing at eleven at night? Could I ever enjoy anything ever again?

Halfway through the Holiday Special, my computer abruptly restarted itself. A scan of my computer revealed no corrupted processes, no viruses, no malware. It is as if my computer refused to suffer any further indignity by playing a moment more of the Holiday Special than was absolutely necessary, as if it wished to spare me the perpetual suffering. As I verified that my computer wasn’t irreparably damaged by the experience, I found myself at a crossroads. I could go to bed, post the review as if I’d seen the whole thing. No one would know. No one would ever have to know, and I’d probably be doing myself a favor. But, equal parts stubborn and honest, I soldiered on.

Thank heavens I did. Not because the animated segment lived up to any expectations at all. No, I’m thankful I didn’t give up so that I’m never tempted to sit through this thing again. I can now say that I’ve watched the first appearance of Boba Fett, and the cartoon episode which interrupts the Holiday Special is as shambolic, plotless, and pointless as anything else in the ninety-some minutes of my life I’m never getting back. Then there’s a strange scene in which Bea Arthur cuddles with a hamster while tending bar at the Mos Eisley Cantina, in which the set and the costuming look even cheaper than their playfully hokey appearance in the original Star Wars film.

It’s at this moment in the Holiday Special that my mind returns to inquisition. Is this thing meant to be funny? Coherent? It’s certainly neither, though there are moments that playact at the former. In short, what the hell is this thing supposed to be, and on what level did anyone look at the finished product and say, “Yep, that’s something I want the rest of the world to see”? If this film was so much as shown a picture of a cohesive narrative, it wasn’t looking. It’s as if George Lucas had a child with David Lynch, and then that child were given a box of Star Wars action figures and a Betamax video camera, and then that child snorted a tremendous amount of cocaine and passed out. The Star Wars Holiday Special is that fever dream.

Thank God I’m going to see The Force Awakens in a matter of hours. I had said of the new film, “It can’t be worse than The Phantom Menace.” What I should have said was, “It can’t be as unfathomably inaccessible as The Star Wars Holiday Special.”

The Star Wars Holiday Special is rated why are you even still reading this.