Rating: ***
Review Date: 10/16/25
Cast: Seth Green, Kevin Smith, 'Weird Al' Yankovic, Donny Osmond,
Gilbert Gottfried
The "Star Wars Holiday Special" (1978) is an enigma, and there are still people who believe that it doesn't exist, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I myself am a first generation eye witness who saw its one and only television broadcast back in 1978, which makes me one of the few and proud members of the "Star Wars" old guard, dedicated to preserving the traumatic memory of its existence.
For those of you who weren't old enough to see it when it came out, or had other plans, or never bothered tracking down an nth generation VHS bootleg years later, it was a 2-hour long variety show revolving around the Wookiee Life Day celebration. Chewbacca is trying to get home to his family, and while they wait for him, there is singing, dancing, comedy, and virtual reality sex. No, really. The entire thing is an abomination, apart from a nifty and somewhat trippy animated sequence featuring the introduction of Boba Fett.
The documentary isn't so much about the holiday special itself, but rather an attempt to explain how and why it ever came about. Hollywood was convinced that the "Star Wars" craze would die within a year and George Lucas desperately needed to keep it in the public eye before the inevitable sequel came out. A TV special seemed like the best option at the time, and one that could be aired annually, like "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer." As Seth Green put it, "George Lucas made the holiday special out of spite," just to prove the Hollywood execs were wrong. And despite being a complete disaster, it paid off and served its purpose.
More than anything, the documentary is an examination of just how bad television was in the 1970s, and how popular the variety show format was, with shows like "Donny And Marie", "Shields And Yarnell", and the infamous "Brady Bunch Variety Hour." And while these shows are mostly forgotten, the "Star Wars Holiday Special" was not. That's just the nature of fandom and how sci-fi nerds are. So, while the holiday special is undeniably awful, it's really not any worse than anything else that was on TV at the time. In fact, I've been watching old episodes of "Buck Rogers" (1979) recently, and they're appallingly bad. And that show actually won an Emmy! There was also a lot of drama behind the scenes, as the show quickly fell out of Lucas's control, was expanded from one hour to two hours, blew through its entire budget in less than a week, lost its original director, and the writers ended up having to edit the final piece. It's a miracle that CBS didn't scrap the production altogether.
Overall, I found it to be an interesting time capsule of 70s TV culture and the beginning of the "Star Wars" phenomenon, before anyone knew what to do with the property. While it includes some poor quality clips from the original show, I was left longing for more footage and less talking. Additionally, the interview clips from starring actors like Harvey Korman and Bea Arthur are disappointing because they literally don't remember anything about being in it. It was just another work day for them. That's show biz for ya!