Customer Reviews

The Star Wars Holiday Special

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Let my preface my review by saying that I actually do remember watching this as a wee lad back in 1978 and loving it. Specifically, I remember that Han was trying to get Chewie home for Xmas (well, Life Day - what ever the hell that is) and that Chewie's tree-house dwelling family were "captured" by storm troopers. I also remember all the major characters being in it (except of course Governor Tarkin and Ben Kenobi who bought the farm in the movie). Call it selective memory, but I LUCKILY didn't remember anything beyond this! Seeing that I have/had found childhood memories of this special, I was curious to see how it would play almost 30 years later. Boy, was I surprised...

It starts off OK. Our heroes, Han & Chewie are in the Falcon fleeing 2 imperial star destroyers (déjà vu?). The cockpit is the cheaped out TV version and actual movie footage of the space ships are used but no big deal. At this point, I'm just amazed that Harrison Ford agreed to this! Obviously, Stardom had not hit yet. And then Boo-yah! They jump to hyper space and all is well. Then the open credits role and announces the cast and "special guests": Bea Arthur (what?), Harvey Corman (are you serious?), Art Carney (Norton in a galaxy far far away?), Dianne Carroll (who?) and the Jefferson Starship (no!!!!!!!!). At this point, I'm thinking so far so good - maybe it won't be as bad as they say it is...............WRONG.

Back from commercial break, we go to the first scene at Chewie's tree house. We are introduced to Chewie's family, wife = Mala, his cute yet annoying as hell son Lumpy (very creative name!) and lumpy's perverted grandpa Itchy (OK, heads need to roll for this!). Now begins the 15 plus minutes of pure torture - grunting wookies playing house! Just when you think it can't get any worse Lumpy The Whiney goes for an electronic gadget. Now we have to suffer through 10 minutes of Circus Solei type non-sense with jesters, jugglers and dancers. BIZARRO WORLD times 100! Note: whenever one of Chewie's family members go for an electronic gadget or gizmo, prepare to suffer. Also note: have the remote ready to fast forward through the things that are so bad, you will get nightmares if you watch them. Worth noting is the fact that after viewing this part of the show I got up and made myself a nice bourbon on the rocks. Take that for what it's worth...............

After the viewer survives what just happened, I believe we are introduced the Art Carney the Space Trader. I think he sells a nail clipper or something to a grumpy Imperial Officer. It seems "Norton" is close to Chewie's family but more importantly, plays the comic relief role in the special. He pops up a few more times in the next hour plus and frankly, he annoyed me the least out of all the Special Guests. Call me crazy, but I kind of liked Art Carney in this role! He was given crap to work with and gave 110% effort. I loved the beer gut and the bi-focals too! CLASSIC.

Next we go back to more annoying Wookie shenanigans. This time Itchy, who obviously got hit with the ugly stick, heads for an electronic gadget. NOOOO!!!!!!!! This is where it gets really interesting. Itchy attaches himself to this dream machine where your imagination runs wild. In comes the sensual Diane Carroll as what I can only describe as a call girl in space. It's borderline pornographic here. Itchy is making noises that one should not hear on Network Television! Soft core wookie porn is not my thing. I actually got a kick out this part until she started to sing a never -ending song. Time to hit the fast forward button again........................

I think at this point Chewie's family gets a video call from Princess Leia and C3p0 looking for Han & Chewie. Relatively speaking, not a horrible scene really but Carrie Fisher has a mischievous look in here eyes (i.e coked off her gord no doubt).

Next, Luke Skywalker and R2-D2 check in via video to check on Han & Chewie's progress. SHOCKING MOMENT! Mark Hamill is almost unrecognizable! I'm guessing that this is one of his first appearances after that horrific car crash. His eyes look weird and small and his nose, well rumor had it that he actually lost his nose in that accident (although never really confirmed). Very disheartening actually. He appears to be on pain killers or something too. And the make-up - it's caked on big time covering huge scars I suppose. So sad but interesting to see none the less.

OK, let's talk about Harvey Corman, funny man from the Carol Burnett show. Not funny whatsoever. In fact, every second of time he got was annoying and pointless. He gets the award for "#1 Show Wrecker" along with whoever wrote the crappy story! Save yourself and fast forward thru every scene he is in! Trust me............

I think at this point in the show, two imperial storm troopers and an imperial general come a knocking looking for rebels and what not. They start harassing the wookies and trashing the place. They even trash poor little Lumpy's room to bits (even his new toy!). For some reason the scene where the stormtrooper trashed lumpy's room and toys sticks with me to this day. This is probably where my feelings for the Empire went from dislike to hate. Kudos to the guy that played the imperial general, he did a good job portraying a bad guy. I was hoping he would order the storm troopers to shoot either Lumpy or Itchy (or both).

Finally, we get something cool. The cartoon that features our heroes and BOBA FETT. You think that Boba may be a nice guy after all but in the end, we find out what side he is really on. Pretty cool. Probably the best part of the special next to seeing Luke, Leia and Han act like idiots.

Next we go to Tatooine and the bar in Mos Eisley! SO COOL. All of the original characters are there: wolf-man dude , hammer head, the white bear thingee with one tooth, the dude that didn't like Luke, the band, the vampire guy etc etc. In comes Bea Arthur as the bartender. Real corny and stuff but when her ex-boyfriend, Harvey Corman the space alien, comes in you get the worst bit of television in the history of television. FAST FORWARD NOW! Corman leaves and you think the worst is over. Wrong again! Bea Arthur has to sing and dnace around with the alines. WHY GOD, WHY? Cut 10-15 minutes out of this scene and just have Bea offering a free last round of drinks and we are good to go.

To make a long review short, Han & Chewie show up and save the day. Han throws a storm trooper out of the tree house and all is well. Han and Chewie embrace (real big hug - very curious???) and we get on with the queer Life Day celebration. Anyway, we now have out heroes (han, leia, luke, R2, 3PO and Chewie back together again and here is when the show really shines. The whole Life Day celebration is friggin ridiculous but the best part is when Princess Leia sings the Life Day song to the theme of Star Wars. HILARIOUS & CLASSIC TV MOMENT!

In conclusion, there' so much wrong with this special that I really could go on for hours about it. It easily could have been cut down to 30 minutes (by cutting an hour plus of needless crap) and been a good little show for kids. Really, the writers should be tarred and feathered for this pathetic effort. Also, Lucas needs to take some blame here. It's his franchise - He let them use his stars, his characters, clips from his movie, theme music from his movie, sound effects from his movie etc. Without a doubt, Lucas learned his lesson after this fiasco. Oh, I forgot to mention Jefferson Starship because they suck and I fast forwarded thru that part..............

Was it worth seeing? Hell ya. At least for nostalgia purposes. Now I know why Lucas wants to find and destroy every copy of this show!

Why 5 stars? What were we Rotten Reviewers thinking? It seems unfair to penalize the creators of "Star Wars" for a mistake they perpetrated, but also ones that fans preserved and propagated. Yes, the "Star Wars Holiday Special" is a horrible mistake, an utter train-wreck to watch. Never officially released on video, it would have vanished into obscurity had its release occurred before the advent of home video recorders. Now ofcourse, those who've somehow gotten their hands on this "too bad for even MST3K" can provenance their copy by watching for the all-important "station identification" label. (My first copy hails from Kansas City, as revealed mid-way through the all-important animated short.) Thanks to bootlegs and sci-fi conventions, those attached to this holiday-time horror can never escape their ignominy - they have been forced to relive their worst nightmare, become the victim of their own worst holiday special. So the answer is, 0 stars for quality, five sympathy stars.

So how bad is it? It's tempting to excuse TSWHS by admitting that all holiday specials are inherently evil, and that they age poorly even when compared to sit-coms and variety shows. It's also tempting to consider how negligible TSWHS's faults would appear had SW itself not become such a legend - and comparisons would have been inevitable. Neither of those theories, however, answers the overarching question of "why" it was made. It appears that nobody knew why they were making a holiday show based on SW, and that instead of trying to find out, simply threw the same lame elements of similar celebrity specials over a threadbare Star Wars story.

The result? A bag of tricks that's utterly painful to watch. It's not like one of those character-building trials, like running a marathon for the first time, or climbing mount Everest - TSWHS is one of those debilitating experiences that makes you feel like you've shortened your life, with even the arguably good parts somehow suffused with embarrassing mistakes.

Wrap-around story - it's holiday time for Chewbacca's family, as we see in repeated and extended scenes containing nothing but Wookie grunts for dialog. Had these guys forgotten "2001"? It only came out ten years earlier! Despite the lack of dialog, we can tell what's going on when Chewbacca's father plugs into some VR porn (which beams Diahann Carrol's words of love directly into Grampa Wookie's cranium, in a scene that must be seen to be believed), or when Chewie's wookie offspring watches a holographic performance of Mummenschanz (talk about dating).

We've got a nonsensical animated short that's probably more fun today because it's a time capsule of what animated sci-fi looked like before it was taken over by Anime. (Unfortunately, it falls out in the second half of the special, so it's too late to be a time capsule for the part of the special that wasn't irreparably bad.)

We've got Art Carney as Trader Saundan - a nutty traveling merchant whose bumbling manners get him past any imperial stormtroopers, but also make him practically useless. Presaging Jar-Jar Binks by over 20 years, Carney is at one point reduced to channeling Ed Norton into his performance (an annoyed Imperial even barks ala Ralph Kramden "Will You Get On With It!!?").

We've got the wickedly great Harvey Korman who suffers by having to adapt numerous roles - a multi-limbed alien cook suggesting Julia Child; a soft-hearted bar patron who drinks through an aperture at the top of his head; an "Amorphian" who constantly runs out of energy - none of which tap into the man's comedic timing demonstrated on "Carol Burnett" or his films with Mel Brooks.

We've got Jefferson Airplane singing "Light the Sky on Fire" - it's actually a decent song, but the oversized `70's microphones meant to suggest lightsabres...unfortunately suggest something else. We've got Bea Arthur singing! And once your eardrums have forgiven you, we've got Carrie Fisher singing as well.

We've got low production values, horrible direction, bad jokes, painfully bad dialog, and (for a musical) hideous music - all of which remind us that while the legend of "Star Wars" may be timeless, it's still a product of the 1970's.

TSWHS may be unwatchable for many reasons, but there's one overarching reason for its utter badness. While SW the saga was about a brave band of freedom fighters seeking to liberate the galaxy, TSWH is about a family of Wookies who do little more than the SW-universe's equivalent of watching TV and playing video games - it's basically an unintended and unflattering parody of people sitting through inane holiday specials.

I remember seeing this when it was on television (I think I was in the 6th grade). I was thrilled to have something Star Wars on television (this was LONG before the days that movies made it to VHS in 4 months or less like now). I was so thrilled that I did not realize just what kind of nightmare of a 'Holiday Special' it was.

So, you are wondering, why did this idiot give it 5 stars???? Well, I belive that it deserved the 5 stars from its legacy status only. It is one of the most pirated movies on EBay. George Lucas has stated that he wishes he could hunt down every black market copy and destroy them. He has also vowed that it will never see the light of day as a DVD or VHS. I hope he is wrong on that.

If you have never seen this before and can get it, watch it to join the ranks of us who know what the snicker is that people do when they hear 'The Star Wars Holiday Special' mentioned anywhere (as it was in the background of the ABC Family movie 'Chasing Chritmas'). It truly is one of the bad classics of all time. It even out does 'Santa Claus conquers the Martians'.

In the pantheon of projects which must have seemed like a good idea at the time, few reign more ignobly than a truly disastrous attempt at cashing in on one of the biggest movies of all.

Yes, Virginia, there is a "Star Wars Holiday Special."

As the public mania caused by the original "Star Wars" was peaking back in 1978, 20th Century Fox proposed a television special starring the film's main cast. George Lucas originally approved the idea but took his name off the credits after many unwanted revisions, including relegating most of the cast to brief appearances.

The result is so terrible it is both repellent and attractive, holding all the morbid fascination of a bloody car wreck. Nothing works, the brain-dead dialogue often borders on pure incoherence, the supposed action is virtually nonexistent and the whole thing seems to be some surreal fever dream.

The story, such as it is, begins with Han Solo attempting to get his sidekick Chewbacca home for "Life Day," the Wookiee version of Christmas. (All together now: "I'll be hoooome for Life Day...") In pursuit of this lofty goal, the two of them take on terrifyingly vast numbers of "Star Wars" film clips, only some of which match what is actually happening. Meanwhile, back on the Wookiee home planet of Kazzook (!), Chewie's wife Malla awaits her husband's return, accompanied by her father-in-law Itchy (!!) and her son Lumpy (!!!). In what is evidently supposed to pass for a family atmosphere, the three of them grunt and growl at each other for minutes on end - without subtitles, of course, so we never really know what they are supposed to be saying. For all we know, they could be complaining about how Chewie got a great movie role and they're stuck in this TV show.

In the door stride Imperial troopers, supposedly on a mission to track down hidden Rebels except they often take a break to watch TV. And just to prove how nasty they are, they wreck Lumpy's toys and then sneer at him to "go clean up your room." In the midst of all this, Lumpy turns on what appears to be the distant ancestor of a video iPod to watch a hideously animated cartoon featuring the voices of the film's main cast and the first appearance of bad-guy bounty hunter Boba Fett.

Occasionally interrupting this riveting saga are "guest stars" Art Carney, Harvey Korman, Diahann Carroll, Bea Arthur and the band Jefferson Starship, presenting between them a sort of intergalactic "Gong Show" minus Chuck Barris. Carroll's bit is easily the most mortifying of the lot, as she appears to Itchy in a "mind evaporator" recording of what can only be called early virtual-reality porn. "I am your fantasy," she coos as the Wookiee grunts with desire and the viewer cringes with embarrassment. "I am your experience, so experience me. I am your pleasure. Enjoy me. This is our moment together in time that we might turn this moment into an eternity." One wonders how parents explained it to their kids without warping them for life.

Not that the others do any better. Korman humiliates himself in several roles, including that of a manic alien TV chef (think Julia Child with extra arms) baking something repulsively called "Wookiee Ookiees." Arthur, still under the impression that she can sing even after croaking her way through "Mame," appears as a bartender who clears out her Tatooine establishment by singing and dancing everyone out the door. Carney plays a Rebel sympathizer with a "who me?" act so incredibly transparent even Inspector Clouseau would have nailed him in seconds but which the Imperials just don't seem to notice. (With troopers this dumb, no wonder the Rebels kicked the Empire's behind.) Only the band escapes relatively unscathed, and that's just because they sing an admittedly forgettable song and nothing else.

Also appearing from time to time are people who appeared in the 1977 film. Harrison Ford is evidently concentrating not on acting the part but rather how best to dismember his agent for getting him into this. Mark Hamill, the facial scars he received in a car accident not yet written into "The Empire Strikes Back," shows up caked with enough makeup to smother small animals. James Earl Jones provides the voice of Darth Vader in a brief film clip very badly dubbed with new dialogue. And a visibly stoned Carrie Fisher stutters her lines while tripping over scenery and gazing off into space.

With disaster all around, one can be forgiven for wishing the Empire would blow everything to smithereens just to put an end to this travesty. But since this is a holiday show, a happy ending is guaranteed, and one is provided as Han and Chewie arrive just in time to save the day. With everyone rescued, we are treated to a head-scratchingly strange clip of Wookiees walking through space (without spaceships, one should add) to a bright star where the Tree of Life is guarded by other Wookiees in red robes.

Luke, Leia, Han, C-3PO and R2-D2 magically appear to celebrate Life Day with their furry friends, and Leia wraps everything up by trying to sing, allegedly to the tune of John Williams' title theme, a heartwarming holiday tribute. "A day," she warbles somewhat off-key, "that brings the promise that one day we'll be free to live, to laugh, to dream, to grow, to trust, to love, to be." And as Chewie, with the aid of those ever-present film clips, reminisces on the events of "Star Wars," the show mercifully draws to a close.

The show aired once - and only once - to such scathing reviews that Lucas instantly ordered it pulled from rerun schedules and sealed off deep in the Lucasfilm vaults. The intervening decades have not seasoned his initial reaction. "If I had the time and a sledgehammer," he once told a fan convention, "I would track down every copy of that show and smash it." Needless to say, an official DVD or even VHS release is just not to be.

But the special lives on, thanks to a then brand-new gadget known as a VCR. The show was taped off a number of TV stations and circulated by fans of all things "Star Wars" as well as fans of all things bizarrely awful. Today, with the show having achieved a warped sort of cult status, digitized recordings varying widely in image and sound quality can be downloaded off the Internet to be appreciated (?) by a new generation of fans.

OK, first off, I am serious. Get that through your head before you go insulting and complaining. I have given the special 5 stars, and rightfully so. The Star Wars Holiday Special, though not up to the standards of the big-budget star wars films, is good in a way of its own. Set roughly a year after "A New Hope," in 1 ABY, The Star Wars Holiday Special is a story based on the idea that Chewbacca is trying to reach his family on Kashyyyk, his home planet. The Empire, who, following the destruction of the first death star, are searching for rebels on Kashyyyk, are giving Han, Chewie, and Chewi's family, a hard time. During the wait for Chewie's return, his family entertains themselves in some strange ways, and runs into imperial forces. For those of you who will, and the one who has, put down this show, all I have to say is, you are too up tight, and one who takes Star Wars way too seriously. I am an extreme fan of the series, but also understand that ytou must also be able to have fun with Star Wars, and this show is the perfect outlet for that. I mean, come on, you have to admit, everything in star wars, just as in our daily lives, can't alwayts be explosions, and lightsaber fights, and killing, there are also comical, and fun moments. You have to look at this show as merely a day in the live of a star wars family, not as a big, action packed, thriller! A day in the life of one of us normally would not be exciting either, as most of us live quite boring lives. You must judge the special for what it is, not against the star wars episodes. Only when you accept the holiday special, and its good points, can you truly appreciate it. LUcas should release the special. It will certainly not hurt him. At least he could give it a release similar to that of "R2-D2: Beneath the Dome," as he did a couple of years back! It won't kill you to watch it. In the meantime, until Lucas releases it, you can easily find the special on eBay or at science fiction and star wars conventions. Be forewarned, the quality varies, from bad to good, There is even a digitally remastered copy out there which I have a copy of. If you look around the net and eBay, you can find it. It won't kill you, just give you a good laugh, just the same as if you saw a video of your family's day-to-day life!

I watch this horrible tv special every Christmas. It is a true atrocity, yet I cannot turn it off once It begins. It is as though I am magically drawn to the awkward scenes and out of place actors. I have never written my opinion on any product before, but for the Star Wars Holiday Special I am compelled to speak strongly in favor of the DVD release so that we can all loathe the horror in high resolution.

When the "classic" versions of the original Star Wars trilogy were remastered and released on VHS and laserdisc back in 1995, the advertising tagline was "The Original...One Last Time." Following the 1997 theatrical release of the "Special Edition" versions of the original trilogy, and their subsequent appearance on VHS and DVD, a small but annoyingly persistant and vocal legion of Star Wars fans has demanded that George Lucas rerelease the original cuts of the films on DVD, something that up until last Thursday (May 4th), Lucasfilm spokespeople insisted was NEVER going to happen.

Hmm...it makes one now question the credibility of similar proclaimations that have been repeatedly made about the "Star Wars Holiday Special".

It's fascinating how a tiny handful of Betamax and VHS recorders back in 1978 apparently managed to capture a television special that has never again been officially screened within the United States. Are these the most duplicated home video recordings of all time? Probably. Considering the technical limitations inherent in a 30 year old home video master, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of suprisingly good quality versions of this program floating around. An official "Star Wars Holiday Special" release, however, would put this entire subindustry out of business.

It's fashionable to bash the the "SWHS", although it's not that much worse (and a lot more interesting) than a lot of other prime-time network TV schlock that has passed for high art over the years. Sometimes not-so-great movies can make wonderful DVD's--a case in point, Image Entertainment's "Plan 9 From Outer Space" DVD which features an astonishingly outstanding print of the original feature and a fascinating 2-hour documentary about the film and about Ed Wood, the man who directed it.

Will the "Holiday Special" ever be officially released on DVD in George Lucas's lifetime? Well...for whatever reason, he's letting us once again see that sorry-looking blob underneath Luke's landspeeder. And again, more importantly, Lucas apparently has reconsidered his hardline "one last time" stance on the DVD release of the classic original Star Wars trilogy. Who knows what else he might change his mind about releasing?

This is the ultimate form of awfully made sci-fi theater. The ultimate reason to get a party of some guys (with intoxicants, preferably)is to sit through the craziness of an incredibly baked Carrie Fisher and a Luke Skywalker from the kabuki theater, not to mention the absolutely freak-out Wookie cybersex that's family friendly. Add in the incomprehensible celebrity cameos of Bea Arthur (I despise her as much as Randal Graves does) and Jefferson Starship (to quote SP's Kyle: REALLY??)then you get an opportunity to enjoy the TV event that was the Star Wars Holiday Special.

Own it for the sake of knowing that you're angering George Lucas. Ever since the whole "not doing anything with Shadows of the Empire" thing, the whiny Anakin, and the painfully infamous Jar-Jar, I think I'll just pray that Indy doesn't wind up fighting Ewoks at some point.

Where does one begin...
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, some fella at 20th Centruy Fox thought it would be a great idea to promote the hit movie Star Wars, keep the fans happy as they waited for Empire Strikes Back and make a few bucks in the process.
So, while twisting George's arm painfully behind his back, using stock FX footage and an AWFUL script he got produced what is the FIRST sequel to Star Wars, the very beginnings of Star Wars on the small screen (now its new home) and the first appearances of Boba Fett, Kashyyyk, Princess Leia and Bea Arthur's singing voices, Jefferson Starship actually in space and Harrison Fords embarrassed face, surely ruing the day he said "You can type this **** but you can't say it.".
It is as much Star Wars as the ORIGINAL cinema versions of the trilogy (not the make-over versions we get now) and as such SHOULD be released asap. The fans made this series of films as beloved as they are, and stuff like this, as cringeful as it is (and GOD is it awful) really should be out there, with a commentary by George and the cast, and treated with the good humour it deserves.
Oh yes George, The Audience is indeed Listening...

Among STAR WARS fans, nothing brings forth such a grimace as placing these five words in a single sentence: THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL. Still, it's a sort of legend amongst fans. It's become one of the most sought-after DVDs around, showing up only as bootlegs because George Lucas has famously stated, "If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every bootlegged copy of that program and smash it." Lucas also attempted to purchase every master copy of the program, to make sure it would never be broadcast again. This was not just the move of a filmmaker who feared the destruction of his work's reputation. It was the move of a concerned humanitarian, fearing for the health of all humankind. You see, I have seen many terrible films, but out of all of them, THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL takes the cake as the all-time worst.

The premise, or what little of it there is, involves Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford) attempting to return to Chewie's home planet for "Life Day". Life Day appears to be the wookie form of Christmas, though it closer resembles Hanukkah, as - at the end of the movie - Chewbacca and his family don huge red robes, travel to some misty place in the stars, and hold up shining orbs.

Unfortunately for the viewer, Chewie and Han do not return home until about fifteen minutes before the end of the movie. For the rest of the film, we are subjected to numerous forms of torture. During the first thirty minutes of the film, we are left with Chewbacca's family (doting mother Malla, cantankerous old grandfather Itchy, and troublesome child Lumpy), the members of which proceed to growl and grumble in their native tongue. Diahann Carroll shows up as a hologram which flirts with Itchy, much to his apparent pleasure. Jefferson Starship appears to perform their song "Light The Sky On Fire" as a bewildered Imperial trooper watches. Art Carney makes some jokes which, I suppose, some three-year-olds may find humorous, had they the courage to sit through forty minutes of this. Beatrice Arthur plays a bartender at the Mos Eisley Cantina who decides to sing with the alien drunks. Harvey Korman also appears as a frighteningly eccentric four-armed chef, who teaches Malla - yes, the wookie - how to cook "Bantha Surprise". Of course, THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL also has its good moments.

Oh, wait - no it doesn't.

If the show did have a good moment, it would be a cartoon made by the animators who would later produce the 80's cartoons DROIDS and EWOKS. This short cartoon is worth nothing because it introduced one of the most popular characters of the STAR WARS universe - Boba Fett. It's a very interesting segment indeed, and the only thing which makes this pile of Bantha poodoo worth watching.

At times, THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL is laughably bad, but for the most part, it's just horrifying. How could anything this bad EVER be shown on television? How could anything this bad come from the STAR WARS universe? How could anything this bad EXIST? Friends, I have seen MANOS, THE HANDS OF FATE - often cited as the worst movie ever made - and THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL makes MANOS look like CASABLANCA. There is an absolutely absurb script, filled with terrible dialogue. The acting is atrocious. Carrie Fisher sings a song about the joys of "Life Day" to the tune of the STAR WARS theme.

Need I say more?

Having heard so much about this TV-movie atrocity over the years, I found it to be quite an ... INTERESTING experience to finally see it. I would recommend that every STAR WARS diehard give it a watch, as it is an important (and notorious) part of the series' history. Anyone else would be insane to come within a mile of it. I'm glad that Uncle George didn't destroy every copy of this - but I certainly sympathize with him.