Tonight, instead of watching Plan IX, I decided to watch the Holiday Special with some friends. Hey, I was in the
Christmas Life Day spirit.
I was surprised to find...okay, I'm not gonna say it's good, because it's not really. But it was entertaining to shitpost about, I'll say that much.
I previously knew about it from watching the RLM Best of the Worst episodes, and I think knowing what to expect going into it certainly helped. Here are some general thoughts:
- The scenes of nothing but Wookiees growling at each other with no subtitles were a little dull, but there's enough context to where you can still follow it. That's more than can be said of some moments in Disney Wars. It's also really only at the beginning; later scenes have actual human characters coming in to provide dialogue.
- It's interesting how Wookiee interior design is so similar to 70's interior design. Mala even ordered more shag carpet!
- The plot: paper-thin, but that's somewhat to be expected of an old-school variety show. Chewie wants to get back home for Life Day, but the Empire thinks there are rebels on Kashyyyk, so they set up a blockade. Meanwhile, the rest of the main cast shows up in video calls to be like "where's Han" or "Han's on his way" or whatever. Han slips past and gets Chewie home, then everybody has a nice Life Day celebration where Leia
is obviously on cocaine sings an anthem. More coherent than Disney Wars, at least.
- There was literally a Wilhelm scream when the stormtrooper fell through the railing to his certain death (really great for that Christmas spirit). That got a real good laugh out of me.
- Quick rundown of the acts, in order: acrobatics show was okay, the cooking show was goofy and entertaining in a weird way, the VR song was alright (though it's hard to get the image of Itchy fapping in the middle of the living room out of your head), Jefferson Starship was fine if you like that kinda music, the cartoon was definitely the best segment, the transmitter instructional video was like seeing a Youtube Poop or a Tim and Eric sketch in the 70s, and the cantina scene was the second-best and a great reuse of all the costumes from the original movie. I personally think it should be canon that Bea Arthur owned the Mos Eisley cantina.
- Carrie Fisher looks really coked out in places. Really adds to the humor.
- Gotta give a little extra thought to the cartoon again, it was really great and felt the most like Star Wars. It had more of an involved storyline than the main special which is pretty funny. Nothing too complex, just a quick side story with a double cross at the end, but it's a fun watch. The animation's a little wobbly (especially with regards to Han's face which looks like it's melting off his skull) but it's certainly quite nice to look at, with vivid colors and pretty detailed backgrounds and animation. Apparently it was included as an easter egg on the Complete Saga Blu-ray set, the only part of the Holiday Special to get an official release.
Again, the Holiday Special isn't good. It drags in places, a decent amount of the comedy sketches fall flat because they're more weird than actually humorous, and the music won't be up to everyone's tastes. But y'know, it's got a certain charm to it. Before Star Wars became the gigantic media juggernaut we know today, it was still in an experimental phase, where someone thought that a holiday special was going to be the best thing to follow up the original movie with. And that's not a bad idea per se, but a lot of it was filled with strange scenes that only bear a tangential relationship to Star Wars.
And yet, it still feels like it in a way. I can believe that the world of Star Wars has a four-armed alien woman(?) doing a cooking show, or that Jefferson Starship exists there, or that you can buy VR sex simulators (hell, you can do that in our world). I have a much easier time believing that than Palpatine randomly surviving after exploding in the second Death Star, or Leia's Mary Poppins in space moment, or Rey becoming literal Space Jesus.
So yeah. Gonna go out on a limb here and say that the Holiday Special is unironically better than the Disney trilogy. If you disagree...well, that's your opinion. But at least it's shorter, right? If you're gonna pick one thing to suffer through, better to spend an hour and a half than over seven hours on Disney Wars.
Happy Life Day, everyone.
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