I've been meaning to tackle this particular project for a while. As a fan of science fiction (I even studied it in university fercryin'outloud)... how could I not address this franchise at some point?
Star Wars is surely the most commercially successful 'Science Fiction' property ever created. Even people who have never seen any of the films and don't give two Tattooines about any of it... still know what Star Wars is and can most likely identify the iconic characters.
The appeal of Star Wars, in my mind, comes down to its relatable simplicity flirting with a sense of magical, otherworldly adventure. This is a classic storytelling formula: the "big evil oppressive force" against "grassroots resistance", and the hero/viewpoint character being someone not even initially involved in the conflict or action. Our lead character is destined as a "chosen one" and so grows along with the adventure. Harry Potter and The Matrix have almost as little in common as you can possibly imagine, yet both follow this type of narrative progression. A New Hope is likewise just this fairy tale told with spaceships and laser swords... and yet so many of the characters, imagery, dialogue and scenes in that film (and its immediate sequels) are so culturally iconic and endlessly quotable. Why? It's the connection with the audience, the groundedness while being taken away on a grand adventure that sells it...
...when it works. Because there is an awful lot of awful Star Wars that has been unleashed upon that same audience.
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Full
disclosure: I like but don't love Star Wars. Hey, I'm a big Star Trek guy... and their recent severe awfulness is far more painful to me than any "meh" Star Wars product ever can be. As such, I'm not really the type to nerd out about this specific universe. Revisiting an old planet from the Prequel Trilogy, seeing a particular spaceship design or meeting a character referenced once on a TV show... it's going to bounce off me without even a blink. Over any kind of deep lore, I'm more interested in the storylines, the acting or just how these films visually dazzle.
Anyways, lets jump into this. Quick disclaimer: this review will be divided in (likely four) parts, and will only be the films belonging to the three trilogies. I'm not including Rogue One or Solo (I haven't seen either and you'd have to pay me actual money to review Solo).
There is surely a bundle of retro-continuity I'll also be missing with my ignorance of the Mandalorian show or the Andor one... sigh. Look... I'm sure they're probably both good shows but coming back to my comment about the lore: I just don't care. I'm just not a big enough fan of Star Wars to get into that stuff... consider me a detached critical outsider, and as such an objectively fair one.
I will get more into the details and history of Star Wars as we go through the films. We're starting bad, of course, so bring the noseclips. Oh, and there will be spoilers for all films (I mean, duh)... just in case you haven't seen any of these and yet are reading this article for some reason. Hey, you do you I just appreciate you checking out my work.
May the force be with us.
#0. The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)
That ranking is not a typo.
Okay okay okay, one can argue an unfairness to include this one. It's a struggle to regard it as canon within the franchise... or just as a film... or even just as a barely comprehensible work that (somehow) exists.
Cards on the table, half the
reason I'm even doing this big Star Wars review is so I can talk about the Holiday Special...
because boy, there just isn't anything like it. This goes far beyond the galaxy of "so bad
it's good" since there's nothing close to redeemable about it. No, it belongs
isolated within its own 'universe of terrible'. Such things of this measure require unique definition.
The obvious target for arrows is the cynical half-hearted cash grab it clearly was, especially considering the time and place. How
involved George Lucas was in the production of the special is notoriously
debatable, as he sure has tried to distance himself from the whole
affair since this monstrosity aired (hilariously spoofed by Red Letter Media's Rich Evans in costume as Lucas at a convention
buying copies of the special just to destroy them). By most accounts, it
was Lucas' idea to have the story revolve around Chewbacca's Wookie
family and to have them interact without subtitles. While that amazingly isn't the worst thing going on here... was still a really, really, really bad idea. GRRRRGHNNNN!!! (that's Wookie for: this special is fucking horrible).
From a distance, the datedness of the whole affair stands out the most. Variety television shows
were still common in the late 1970s and so a televised spectacle of dancers, acrobatics,
singers, musical acts and comedy skits all blended together in a single run-time didn't seem
as comically haphazard or insane as it would now. If anything, The Holiday Special has so many other problems that this misplaced format might be the only charming thing about it... at least until you actually watch those segments.
Dissecting this from an objective critical lens will lead to madness... a critical failure in reason that even Plato could not resuscitate. Fortunately, I possess skills (masochism apparently) uniquely akin for this level of intolerable jibberish. As such, I will just propose as many problems with this nightmare that come to mind before all the last bits of joy and sense escape my mind for better sledding. Here goes:
Problem #1: It tries to be both a variety show and an exciting Star Wars tale (failing at both)
I'm not sure if you could call it overly ambitious or just pure cluelessness... but the way this was filmed and produced just doesn't fit. The variety show bits strangle the story (such as it is) to a complete halt, eliminating any attempts at tension or excitement. Or audience awakeness. The "story" itself is probably supposed to be silly? But even just as written, this isn't silly in a cute or fun way.... it's silly in a "random clown blocking the entrance to a train you really have to catch" way, and the dope keeps bouncing on a balloon giggling while dozens of people scream in frustrated confusion.
The variety show stuff? Even how dated it is... just wow. This would've really impressed people in the 1920s if Technicolor had stolen a very crummy time machine. It's baffling this was even aired...
Problem #2: It's BORING
There are just so many long stretches in this thing where all you're watching are furry characters shuffle around a house, meow and growl at each other (remember you have no f*ing clue what they're saying), turn on video screens and slowly open gifts. To quote MST3K and Rifftrax legend Bill Corbett: "It's uh, an interesting idea to watch a farm animal open a present. Not sure I'd build a show around it".
Problem #3: The opening credits
Man, the special even begins like a weird mess. For whatever reason, it starts with images introducing the characters as the actors who portray them. "Harrison Ford as Han Solo!" etc. Okay, it's a variety show, it's supposed to be a spectacle and perhaps a bit of fun, like Groucho Marx donning the greasepaint and cigar one final time to whip off killer one-liners on the Ed Sullivan show or something (that probably never happened, but you see what I'm getting at).
But, then the credits introduce Chewbacca's family with the captions: "His wife, Malla! His father, Lumpy!" Huh....? In your credits... why are you switching from announcing real people portraying their iconic roles... into purely fictional characters nobody watching this has ever heard of... somehow playing themselves??? What does this mean? To flip it, this would be like if in one of the Muppet films the credits read: "Kermit The Frog!" "His wife Miss Piggy!" and "Miss Piggy's puppeteer, Lance Johnson!", then showing Lance in a plaid shirt grinning goofily.
Problem #4: Your main actors (understandably) phoning it in
This is most obvious with Harrison Ford, who while filming must've been counting the seconds he could be done with this mess and hit the bar. I hear ya, man. I couldn't watch this cluster-disaster without a beverage or seven either. Mark Hamill dials up the dopey wide-eyedness to 11 (his glow under the production lights could be a rescue beacon for people lost in the woods), while Carrie Fisher... well I only hope the distant planet she was clearly visiting while on camera was at least a pleasant one.
Problem #5: The painful comedy bits
Here's where the special really breaks its ankles and stumbles hard into the bottom of an oozing septic ditch. Harvey Korman was a well respected comedic actor, his hilarious turn as Hedley LaMarr in Blazing Saddles surely proof of that... but here? He's beyond unbearable. Korman appears in three different sketches: in drag(?) as a four armed alien hosting a cooking show (Whose Line Is It Anyway did this shtick waaaaaaaay better)... then he returns as a malfunctioning android in a "how to" video for installing some computer thing, which the child Wookie is watching and mewling (...don't ask)... and then finally Korman is a bar patron with a cup-head (seriously) hoping to romance Bea Arthur. Sure why not. He pours a beverage into the cup-top of his cuphead. This actually happens! It was filmed. It exists. ......just baffling.
Problem #6: The music
You have circus music composed by off key farts (really), Jefferson Starship
singing "We Built This Wookie" (okay not really, but that bad joke far surpasses anything this show could come up with), Bea Arthur doing a showtune about
her bar closing that goes on way too long (and is still by far the best performance of the special), and of course the infamous
bit at the end with Carrie Fisher chorusing about "Life Day" with a
horribly dazed and awkward smile. Words do not do it justice... it's regrettable to bash Fisher for many reasons but this musical number is truly
unforgivable in its dreadfulness. Watching it gives the sensation of being stuck in a time warp wherein the song never ends. That Sarlacc pit is starting to sound pretty good by comparison.
Problem #7: The... WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?
So here's a scene where Art Carney (an Academy-Award winning actor... that fact must've been awarded an asterisk after he appeared in this) offers some kind of computer disk to the elderly Wookie, named... Lumpy? Grumpy? Bumpy? Humpty Dumpty? Anyhow, Carney tells Dumpy how this disk is a great show he'll enjoy wink wink nudge nudge say no more... and I can't believe that was a sentence I just wrote.
This leads into a sensual musical number sung by an attractive lady, while the grandpa Wookie Mumpsy is clearly "getting into" what he sees... nudge nudge say no more (please say no more). For the love of anything holy, can you imagine watching this in 1978 with your kids, and then having to awkwardly explain this to them? You see, Timmy, it's like when two droids love each other very much...
But geez, what were the creators going for by having this in the story? Is it supposed to be funny? (it isn't). Genuinely erotic? (it really isn't). Also, children have kinda always liked Star Wars you know! They'd probably want to watch a Star Wars thing, which this purports itself to be! Just.... wow. Astonishing.
Problem #8: The production
It's not like any big studio will ever be in a rush to digitally clean up this thing (all versions that exist are bootlegs from that '78 broadcast) but even video quality aside... every scene rolls as though shot in a single take with much
of the dialogue and blocking improvised. Some credit, there is a nice matte painting of the Wookie tree house (although without a landing pad how the hell all these characters keep getting up there is a damn good question)... but the rest of the special impresses by appearing to have the budget of a mildly successful children's program. It's the same flat shot no matter which performance... a problem when the overall intent of this thing (one assumes) was to visually captivate and entertain.
I could keep going... you can write a book about how batshit crazy this whole thing is, but staying here forever picking this thing apart has to be a form of madness and there are way better films to talk about related to this franchise... like you know, any of them (and this is the same franchise that unleashed Jar Jar Binks upon us, don't forget).
Watching The Star Wars Holiday Special is a truly bewildering, baffling experience that will leave you weirded out and very, very confused. The sensation of watching it, while unforgettable, is mostly just incredibly painful... your brain trying and failing to understand what it is beholding. While watching I had to pause every few minutes just to recollect my sanity... it's the first thing you misplace while experiencing such a thing as this.
Perhaps the only persisting aspect of the Star Wars Holiday Special is how nothing remotely like this will probably ever be allowed to be released again. While the idea of a bizarre monstrosity like this blindly sent into the wind by a billion dollar film studio is amusing... it is for the best this never happens. Trust me. This is truly among the worst movies that can ever be watched.
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With that wreck out of the way, next time I'll look at what are, in my opinion, the three worst REAL films within the trio of the trilogies. It'll be very very bad, but well above this special bottom floor.
I've never even heard of this. OMG.
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