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Two DVDs recently arrived out here.  They were pretty much the last package I am expecting, since boxes usually take about 4 weeks and it has been up to 6.  One was "Starcrash" and the other was "The Star Wars Holiday Special."  

As many know, I show a movie when things permit.  Usually I give the Marines two or three choices and let them pick which one.  I offered the two recent arrivals and they all wanted to see the "Star Wars" muck.  This was after I warned them and suggested they would all be much happier watching Caroline Munro and David Hasselhoff.

They insisted.  I consigned my brave Marines to their fate.

This was the dreck I pulled out of my butt when my wife insisted Harrison Ford had never been in a bad movie.  It has a couple of surprising performers in it, like  Beatrice Arthur, Art Carney, and Harvey Korman.  It also seems to go on forever.  I think that the director was trying to go for some sort of variety show special, but with a "Star Wars" flavor.  The Imperials are turned into some sort of comic Nazi brigade, ala "Hogan's Heroes."  That works poorly.

The real problem is that the movie is based around the Wookie custom of observing Life Day.  There is no background given for why the Wookies celebrate this holiday, so the audience is left adrift amid poorly connected script work.  The highlight - indeed, the only really interesting section - is a stylized cartoon short.

It should also be noted that, since Wookie's are the main characters, you spend a lot of time listening to Chewbacca's family talking amongst themselves.  Which ends up meaning, "WGGGGGHHHHHHTTTT!"  (Or however you spell that.)  Anyway, this is not a good way to keep anyone's attention.

I started trying to help the Marines survive the film, via MST heckling.  One impromptu call will definitely make it into my review.  When a friendly trader arrives and gives the Wookie family presents, the kid (Lumpy) takes his and runs upstairs.  As an aside, said by the trader:  "It's a puppy.  You can eat it in your room."

And when Leia started singing, man did that ever cause some hate and discontent.

I thought you were brave just being there in desert land Andrew, but it takes real guts to show a group of war weary Marines something like this. Of course, you did warn them.

I am continually amazed at the movie bravery of our armed forces.  
-Ed

You got that right!
I've never actualy seen this...thing...and it hurts to think about!
Heres an idea. Print out pics. from the flick, and put them on the targets next Rifle Qualification day. Scores will soar!

I actually saw this when it was originally broadcast. I had not seen STAR WARS at that time. It took years before I would actually watch STAR WARS after that.

Andrew, the Holiday Special was a TV variety special, not an actual movie. It just seemed to drag on long enough to have been one. For some reason the scene of the kid wookie transmitting "return to base" would get stuck in my mind occasionally for years afterward, irritating the crap out of me.

I actually recall seeing this in the original broadcast when I was a kid.  How did you get it in DVD?  I thought Lucas banned the thing from ever being reproduced and rebroadcast and it only existed in bootleg form.

If I'm not mistaken, the animated bit was the first time Boba Fett was introduced to the world.  The characters looked real lumpy like the TV animated version of The Hobbit.

I have heard that an interviewer asked Carrie Fisher about this special a few years after it came out and she actually pretended that she didn't know what the interviewer was talking about, basically denying there was such a special.

All I remember is that for me it was like crack.  At my age, TWO YEARS until the next movie seemed like a freaking eternity and I wanted to get all the Star Wars I could, Bea Arthur or no Bea Arthur.  I'm sure now I would find it hilarious.

I actually recall seeing this in the original broadcast when I was a kid.

I did too..at a time when I thought anything "Star Wars" was cool


I have heard that an interviewer asked Carrie Fisher about this special a few years after it came out and she actually pretended that she didn't know what the interviewer was talking about, basically denying there was such a special.

Given her condition on the set, she may not be aware it exists and she was in it

Yeah, this movie pretty much turned the young Marines into Peace (or Piece?) from "Wizards."  They would hunch over and repeat the phrase, "Not good, not good." over and over.  For my part, I went ahead and made notes for writing a review - which I will work on before going to sleep for a few nights.  Just something special for next Christmas.

Heres an idea. Print out pics. fro the flick, and put them on the targets next Rifle Qualification day. Scores with soar!

Yeah, but they lose points if they do not follow the course of fire.  Can you imagine the chaos in the pits as Marines unload on Lumpy in burst mode, during the 200 meter slow fire?

How did you get it in DVD?  ...  All I remember is that for me it was like crack. At my age, TWO YEARS until the next movie seemed like a freaking eternity

The Internet is an interesting place and DVD-Rs are pretty widespread; someone sent it to me.  Also, I think that the one episode of "The Muppet Show" would be a safer way to get your "Star Wars" fix.  If "Star Wars" is cocaine, well, this is like cocaine cut with Borax...

The above mentioned episode of "The Muppet Show" did have Mark Hamill gargling Gershwin, but Kermit told Animal, "Go sic 'em!' and that was darn funny.

yes. it's horrible and until I hunted it down on video and showed it to people, they just thought i was nuts when i told them about it.

"no!", I would say, "it really was a tv special back in the 70s".

they didn't believe until they saw it. and then they couldn't erase it from their minds. scarred for life.

i will say that chewie's grandad had an interesting suit, with the pot belly and tootless lower jaw/lip jutting forward.

an interesting article on the making of this hunk-o-s**t appeared in Filmfax a couple of years back.

i'm not a big star wars fan - haven't seen any of the new ones.

The Star Wars Holiday Special is exquisite bad taste entertainment!

When I saw it first, I found it better than Episode I.

Carrie Fisher has admitted more recently that she was indeed heavily in her drug taking phase around the time of the Holiday Special. Since this thing's notority has lived on despite Lucas trying to erase the memory of it (he also denied it's existence for years), she may have figured it was easier to own up to it rather than deny it whether she remembers the thing or not.

I also saw it when it first aired, but it was before we got a VCR, and I only had vague memories of what I saw. I totally forgot the variety show bits with Art Carney, Bea Arthur, and company (I wouldn't have known who they were at the time anyway). I didn't remember the animated Boba Fett segment either, and used to be confused or did not believe other kids I knew who told me they had seen him on TV before ESB was released. The couldn't remember it was part of the Holiday special just that it was a cartoon.

I do remember being really bored waiting for the main cast of "Star Wars" to show up since the show was so long and the teasers at the commercial breaks kept mentioning that they would appear. Damn Wookies...........

Better be careful. Showing The Star Wars Holiday Special to the marines could be considered undermining the war effort. You could be charged with treason.

I also saw this when it aired. As with everyone else who saw it, I was hungry for anything Star Wars. I do remember being somewhat disappointed in it, but it might not have seemed so bad at the time. Harvey Korman, Bea Arthur and Art Carney were bigger names then, and cheesy TV variety specials were the norm. In hindsight, however, it's the worst of a bad lot. I'd pretty much forgotten (repressed?) it until I found a bootleg a few years ago, and it all came flooding back. Who could forget Korman pouring a drink into the top of his head? And I'm sure lots of kids were traumatized when the Imperials trashed Lumpy's room and ripped the head off his stuffed bantha. Funny, as bad as it is, you can't take your eyes off it. It's like a trainwreck.

By the way, does the bootleg DVD include the Kenner toy commercial? I recall that was the best part of the bootleg I saw.

AndyC wrote:

> does the bootleg DVD include the Kenner toy
> commercial? I recall that was the best part of the bootleg I
> saw.
>

It sure does, with C3PO and R2D2 stumping for parents to fork over money to fund their kids' "Star Wars" habits.

Ah....so, maby pics from this travisty might lose points from the Rifle Quals.....but, if you offered a 3 day pass for keeping to the rules, you might make for a bunch of happy Marines.

Semper Fi...Carry on!

On my usual trawls of YouTube, I came across The Star Wars Holiday Special, and I'm wondering if this is what I saw as a very young kid on TV in Australia, perhaps in the very early 80's.  I'm scrolling through the horrific Holiday Special but I can't find the scene I can remember.

I seem to remember young Wookies (check) and I think Stormtroopers go through their house, looking for something.  A stormtrooper rips open one of the young wookie's stuffed toys (is that a bantha?).  Later, the young wookie returns and sadly picks up his torn toy.  Is this the Holiday Special?

I never even got to see the whole thing, because I was watching at my grandmother's house.  She was disturbed by the 'hairy things' and despite my insistence that I knew what this was, and it was what I wanted to watch, she turned off the TV!

Yes, that is the Holiday Special. I may have watched it on TV as a kid when it first came out, but November 1978 was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away for me. I did see it in 2006 after the infamous Conan O'Brien show where he interviewed Harrison Ford about it. The look on Mr. Ford's face after a clip of the TV special was shown piqued my curiosity, so I managed to track it down online, which was a little tougher to do than YouTube back then.  :cheers:

My sincerest condolences that you found it.
What is seen cannot be unseen.

That's no joke, brother. What were they thinking in 1978? A few hundred lines of coke probably had something to do with it.

I haven't watched this movie in about a year, it's time to settle down with some drinks and endure it again. 

a war within a war

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP4H4jV1Spo

Seriously though, this is really as bad as people say it is? I don't want to waste my time by daring to sit through it all.

Bushma has the correct remedy for enduring an ordeal such as this. I believe I was drinking when I found it on the Internet years ago. Booze definitely doesn't hurt in this particular scenario.

Well, it isn't one of those movies you can sit down and enjoy or walk away from feeling good about life.  It's something you watch because you think "It's Star Wars, how bad can it be?"  Every person I know that's seen it has had that thought.  Then they watch it and their world became a darker place.

Do I recommend you watch this?  Yes, because I'm a sick bastard who will also suggest you watch The Room.

NOOO!!!!! Don't listen to him!  It's too late for me but save yourself!!

Yes, don't listen to me. No one should have to watch Chewbacca's father getting way too excited about what wookies consider porn.

Which certainly does make a person wonder. A good topic for another thread, perhaps?

Re: the pic...Yowsa! Oh, momma...

"I saved dem bondles, dey are crazy!"

"I already ordered a pizza"

"Haha, you theenk of everything!"

Call me weird, but this thing's problem is its execution, not its concept. Han trying to get Chewie to his homeworld for an important religious celebration, and the Empire using this opportunity to try and catch them? That's a great setup right there. It's what they do with it that makes it suck. And as odd as most of it is, it wouldn't suck so much if stuff actually happened to advance what little plot there is. Instead, it's 90% "we watch other people watch stuff."

-Lumpy watches some weird interpretive dance routine on a holographic device.
-Mala watches a cooking show.
-Itchy watches some woman sing to him. (And gets way too excited about it.)
-The Imperial guard watches a Jefferson Starship video.
-Lumpy watches a Heavy Metal-esque cartoon.
-Lumpy watches an instructional video about how to fix his toy.
-The Imperials watch a show about a cantina being shut down.

Seriously. I can take all the other weirdness in this thing, but watching other people watch TV isn't my idea of a good time.

And how cool (or at least more interesting) would the special have been if it'd been entirely animated like the cartoon segment?

And regarding the instructional video, the toy company's quality control must suck if they used the take were the robot host has difficulty speaking and shuts down halfway through. And if that's the take they went with, I'd hate to see what the previous attempts were like. Sheesh. And I thought instructions were useless in this galaxy.

Explaining the cartoon's events in-universe, I always assumed it was an animated Rebel propaganda video based on real, recent events. Although maybe I'm giving the screenwriters too much credit. More likely the special's writers just couldn't think of where to include the stuff about Boba Fett and the sleeping virus and someone said "Just have the characters watch it on TV." Ditto the stuff involving Bea Arthur's cantina.

I exposed a friend to this recently. After 5 minutes, she said, "I love Star Wars, but I can't even concentrate on this thing...and it just started."

I think the words LUMPY and ITCHY could refer to the contents and condition of my undies. :buggedout:

 :buggedout: :buggedout: :buggedout: :bouncegiggle:

Oh, like we doubted THAT! :lookingup:

The SWHS is a horror I've only seen fragments of. That's why I think of it as George Lucas brain shrapnel.

... I just threw up in my mouth

I saw this when it originally aired,too....mostly because we were really into Star Wars at the time. Wow! This sad piece of exploitation almost gave me nightmares. :buggedout: :teddyr:

     If nothing else, it had the first appearance of Boba Fett....

http://www.indiedb.com/groups/star-wars-fan-group/videos/star-wars-holiday-special-boba-fett-cartoon

 :wink: :wink: :teddyr:

 :wink: :wink: :teddyr:

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