The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)

Just because something is bad, doesn’t mean it’s the worst thing in existence. You’d be surprised at how few people grasp that – whether something is the absolute best, the absolute worst, the coolest/sexiest/scariest/whateverest, there can only be one “-est” or else the title of “-est” becomes meaningless.

Then again, sometimes one can be objective. While the movie I’m about to talk about may not be the worst movie in existence (I’m sure there are plenty of competitors for the title, from Birdemic to A Serbian Film), it is certainly, objectively, in the running.

Last night I joined a special elite of people who have seen The Star Wars Holiday Special all the way to the end. It was my second attempt: A few years ago I sat down with the remnants of a bottle of vodka and did my damnedest to actually watch this. I failed. About twenty minutes in I ran out of booze and realized that there was no way I could get through this without it. I even doubted whether or not I should try.

Spoilers: I shouldn’t have.

Now, for those who don’t know this actually exists (which seems to be quite a few people, actually), the holiday special is a real thing. A. Real. Thing. That happened. It takes place between Episodes IV and V, before Mark Hamill’s accident and back when he looked suspiciously like Ellen DeGeneres. It features the actual Star Wars cast, and happens to be so godawful that George Lucas hunted down every copy he could find and had them destroyed.

Had them destroyed.

Let that give you something of an idea of how truly bad this movie is. Even the person who made it (the person who gave Jar Jar Binks the “okay”), thought it was so bad that he had to burn every single one. That’s the movie I watched. The one that Anthony Daniels (C-3P0) said would kill you if you watched it.

Not that I didn’t do it without help, of course – I had a liter of bourbon to help out, of which I polished off about half. Needless to say I’m in a world of hurt, with tonsils the size of Lithuania and what feels like the French Revolution taking place inside the veins in my head. But just as the horrors of this movie didn’t detain me from watching it, the horrors of my hangover won’t detain me from reviewing it. It’s almost Christmas, and the show must go on.

See? They’re all there. Aaaall of them.

So, basically, a couple disclaimers. First, I’m not going to be reining in my vulgarity as much as I normally try to do. Secondly, I’m so hungover I can barely move, so there’s that. Thirdly, FUCK THIS MOVIE.

Yeah. Tha’s right. Fuck this movie. If you can even call this piece of shit a movie. It’s more of a variety show, of the absolute worst kind (it’s a wide variety of things that all fucking suck), which includes everything from instructional videos, a cooking show, acrobats, some really artsy porn, a cartoon, and a performance by Jefferson Starship.

Jefferson Starship.

As Jefferson Starship.

It’s not just like, some in-universe Star Wars band portrayed by Jefferson Starship. The guy actually calls them Jefferson Starship.

HOW CAN THIS BE A LONG LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY IF IT’S GOT JEFFERSON FUCKING STARSHIP IN IT? Are they intergalactic time-travelers? Is that the secret of how Jefferson Starship sucks so bad?

Either that or this.

Speaking of the bands of Star Wars, y’know those big-headed cantina guys? You know the ones. The ones that play the song. Well they show up again! And if you were wondering whether or not that’s actually the only song they ever play – it is. On a totally different day, one of the two only times we’ve ever seen them, they’re playing that exact same song. Now keep in mind that this was like one year after the original Star Wars, so that song hadn’t become memetic yet. Star Wars was barely even a thing beyond “that one thing we saw that was cool and had fucking laser swords in it.” So add laziness to this movie’s infinite number of sins.

As I said, this is a variety show of sorts. Some of these brief shows are annoying, boring, both, or otherwise don’t stand out among the sea of absurdity that is the Star Wars Holiday Special. But there are far, far more of these that are so bad they deserve special attention.

My favorite (by favorite I mean it was horrible) was a very racy and bizarre video given from Art Carny to Itchy, Chewbacca’s father (yeah… Chewbacca’s family is not only in this, they’re the main characters, and they’re horrible too). The video is some virtual reality nonsense where Itchy’s mind creates a fantasy, which then becomes sentient and shares a mental bond with him. Or… something. That’s at least what his creation seems to think. Itchy treats it a lot more like porn, and does an absolutely nightmarish amount of lower-lip-undulation while watching it. Come to think of it, Art Carny rather treats it like porn too, with a very sleazy “you’re gonna like this” when he gives Itchy the video.

Nothing will ever be okay ever again.

Sweet baby raptor Jesus I’m talking about Art Carny sharing porn with an aging wookiee. And I have to talk about it, because it actually happened. Why does the world have to be this way?

Honestly, I’m surprised at how challenging this was to actually get a hold of. I mentioned early on that the hard copies were all destroyed, and while it’s no shocker that it managed to eventually leak and find new life online, it’s still not that simple to watch. It is on YouTube, but in multiple parts… multiple parts uploaded by different people, that don’t line up. Like there’s a quota for how many segments of this piece of shit can be cropped and uploaded by each individual person. I think I spent about as much time searching for the different videos and trying to line them up than I did actually watching the movie. I feel like I should get a knock on the door, and some guys in suits will be like “We see you finished it. Hm. Good. Then you are ready for the next step.” Which will obviously lead to me getting some cool power armor and going out into the world to fight aliens.

I kinda lost my train of thought, now. I did warn you.

But I can hardly be blamed for that. The Star Wars Holiday Special is so jumbled and disjointed, and every single aspect of it so trivial and wretched, it’s a wonder I can remember anything about it at all. Hell, Carrie Fisher didn’t even know it existed, and SHE WAS IN IT.

…Or was she?

No, she was, she was just stoned as fuck on pills. It shows, too – while the official Star Wars movies apparently had someone on the sidelines to steal Fisher’s drugs between takes, the holiday special must not have had the budget to pay for that guy. Fisher literally staggers on screen, her eyes are permanently glassed over during her performances, and… actually, y’know what, I don’t think she was performing at all. I think somewhere along the line she starts tripping and just spouting out nonsense. There’s a point during the end (wherein she ruins the Star Wars main theme by adding really weird lyrics to it) where she’s supposed to be getting really affectionate and loving, and honestly it looks like she just stumbled onto the stage and started giving out free snuggles.

Like Dungeons and Dragons, there’s too much wrong with this movie to pay attention to each infuriating detail. This is an avalanche of ruination. It’s terribly acted, with terrible dialogue, a hellaciously boring plot (get Chewbacca home for Life Day), and almost seems like it was created with the sole purpose of annoying and enraging people. Entire scenes go by with nothing but Wookiees, roaring and squealing at one another, without subtitles. These Wookiees aren’t cool either, they don’t have kickass blaster rifles, they don’t rip any arms off, they’re just awful.

While this has all of the trappings of a passion project, it lacks all of the passion. Usually when a creator creates something they shouldn’t, and that thing ends up being really, really bad, it at least shows that the work was put into it (Sucker Punch springs to mind as a great example of this). This holiday special on the other hand… it feels like everyone just kind of showed up and did the bare minimum. For fuck’s sake, the exterior scenery of the Wookiee household is a fucking picture. They can’t go outside, because there is no outside.

Stir and whip and beat and stir and stir and whip and beat and whip and stir.

The only exceptions, really, are Harrison Ford (who acts like Han Solo, even if he isn’t really written like him), Bea Arthur (who actually did quite well), and the aforementioned Anthony Daniels, who pretty much showed up and did exactly what he was supposed to. But a fistful of performances that were something other than unbearable doesn’t make up for a dozen or so that are.

There’s actually only one good thing about this, and it’s the cartoon they show in the middle. Notorious for being the first ever appearance of Boba Fett, he’s just stupendously cool in this, briefly allying with Luke and masquerading as a good guy. Masquerading so well, in fact, that at first I wondered if his character was changed to become a bad guy later on. But oh, Boba, you smooth bastard, you tricked me. You were working with Vader all along.

You cool motherfucker.

Though honestly, if it weren’t for him, the cartoon would have sucked too. The animation is truly heinous, and makes the Flintstones look like Ghost in the Shell. They couldn’t even keep R2-D2’s body from wiggling like a soda can-shaped termite. And like every other attempt at humor in this garbage heap, it’s… well it’s not funny. Hell, I’m pretty sure the “stir and whip” scene killed comedy on the spot, and it’s never been the same again.

I wish there were enough bad things to say about this – or rather, enough time to say all of them. The best way to sum it up is to just tell you, dear reader, that this is among the worst movies ever, with no redeeming qualities (unless you’re really into Art Carny’s man-cleavage, which plays a prominent role in the plot). The mere mention of this project in interviews causes people to clam up (except Carrie Fisher of course, who’s convinced it didn’t happen) or, in extreme cases, run screaming from the room. There’s a reason for all that. It’s really as bad as it’s chocked up to be. It’s worse than Dungeons and Dragons, it’s worse than Berserker: Hell’s Warrior, it’s even worse than Beastmaster II (Ed. Note: Review coming Friday!!). It’s just a genuinely unholy thing.

When George Lucas gathered up and destroyed every copy, he was doing the world a favor. It’s not his fault that we didn’t get the hint.

By the way, here’s the first appearance of Boba Fett!