Star Wars Holiday Special
The Star Wars Holiday Special was made by Smith-Hemion
productions and starred all of the main Episode IV cast members (but
without Sir Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing) playing their respective
characters. There also were other celebrities such as Art Carney, Harvey Korman,
Bea Arthur, Diahann Carroll, and the Jefferson Starship. It aired
during the Christmas Holiday season in 1978 and was the
only time it was ever shown.
I bet many of the site readers have heard about this special,
and most of the rumours say it's qutie bad. Well, it is bad. Chewbacca
and his family are portrayed as silly little furry monsters. The acting is
laughable (looks like the actors had no idea what they were doing in there) and
the production values are worst. The story is childish (and makes no sense!) and...
well... songs in the Star Wars universe? For me, the only good thing about it is
the Boba Fett cartoon, which was pretty cool and was the first time that the
character was shown. (this was before Episode V.)
Availabilty
Although I admit that this special is pretty bad, I guess it
could be considered as a guilty pleasure, and would make some Episode I haters think twice before criticizing Jar Jar Binks. I personally don't own a
copy of this special, but I guess that if you look hard enough you can find a
few bootleg copies in E-Bay. It is also sometimes shown in sci-fi conventions, I
think, but you will never find it in video stores such as Blockbuster or others.
It hasn't been released officially on video because Lucas is supposed to hate it.
More about it
To be honest, I don't know much about the Holiday Special (I've
only seen it in some bootleg copies, which aren't of the best quality.) but I
know a couple of sites that have a lot of information about it.
http://www.lucasfan.com/swtv/index2.html is pretty informative
and there's also a lot of information about it and other Star Wars shows in
http://www.lucasfan.com/swtv/index.html.
The hype
Anyway, most of the Star Wars fans have heard about it but
haven't seen it. There's a copy, it's not that good, but it's watchable.
If you wanna know what all the hype's about, you can watch the special by
clicking
here.
Thanks to the Galactic Voyage site for the link.
If you wanna watch the Boba Fett cartoon, which is pretty
cool and, obviously, much better than the special itself, click
here. Thanks to the Galactic Voyage site for the link.
