A new documentary explains why the Star Wars Holiday Special is terrible

This breakdown of the documentary A disturbance in the Force was originally released when the film debuted at the 2023 SXSW conference. It was updated for the film’s digital release.

Still a few decades after the one-off broadcast on November 17, 1978 The Star Wars Christmas Special was a secret handshake among nerds. “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “White & Nerdy” video includes a scene where Al buys a bootleg VHS of the special in an alley next to a dumpster, winking at how much fanfare this infamous televised fiasco created among fans in the days before YouTube. Now, a quick search on this particular website results in several uploads of the full-length special – much to the presumed annoyance of George Lucas, who did this publicly expressed his wish to self-destruct every copy of Star Wars’ first major misstep.

Only because The Star Wars Christmas Special being easier to find in 2023 doesn’t make it any less confusing. Once a fan learns of the film’s existence and watches it, they still have access to it – Lucasfilm never officially released it The Star Wars Christmas Special, and probably never will — A series of questions inevitably follows. “What?!” comes first, followed by “Why?” and How?” The documentation A disturbance in the Force tries to answer these questions.

The film opens with the “WTF?” of it all, in a montage that includes clips from pop culture speakers like Seth Green and Kevin Smith, both of whom have their personalities inextricably linked to their love

war of stars. These are intercut with old clips of Star Wars actors, including Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, refusing to talk about the special, portraying it as a holy grail and tantalizing mystery: “The Star Wars weirdness.” She I don’t want you to see it!”

This part of the film is Fine. It’s fun and lively, but it doesn’t really add to the legend. Then the film brings in people who can answer the questions raised by the special rather than simply repeating them in a colorful way, and A disturbance in the Force becomes something much richer and more interesting.

The most surprising thing A disturbance in the Force reveals about The Star Wars Christmas Special is the caliber of talent involved. The crew was the best 1978 television had to offer, and CBS brought in its top stars to appear on the show. And yet somewhere, somehow, everything went to hell. Here are some questions that are actually addressed in A disturbance in the Force:

Why does the Star Wars Holiday Special exist?

In short, due to a combination of conventional wisdom about film advertising in the late ’70s and George Lucas’ spite towards 20th Century Fox. Star Wars back then wasn’t as ingrained in our cultural consciousness as it is today, and studio executives thought that despite its box office success, the enthusiasm for the film would only be temporary. An executive told Lucas that at a meeting in the summer of 1977, Lucas began pushing to get as many Star Wars characters on television as possible to prove the executive was wrong. (The fact that Star Wars

(It didn’t hurt that toys were still coming out a year after the film first hit theaters, and that Lucas had a personal financial stake in the sales of those toys.)

But why the song and dance numbers?

At the time, variety specials were a staple of television – more common than rollicking sci-fi adventures told in the style of old-fashioned serials, which meant that Lucas’s new model of film was stuffed into an old box to deliver to the masses for sale. A disturbance in the Force argues that The Star Wars Christmas Special wasn’t Star Wars’ worst late-’70s television appearance: that honor goes to a 1977 episode Donny & Marie in which Donny Osmond played Luke, Marie Osmond played Leia (who was still Luke’s lover at the time, not his sister), and Kris Kristofferson played Han. The clips shown in the document support this theory.

Why does the Star Wars Holiday Special exist? Do you feel so disconnected?

A combination of factors comes into play here. First, the original director, David Acomba, was fired after three days for spending most of the show’s budget within those 72 hours. Steve Binder, a professional who had also directed the Elvis ’68 comeback special, stepped in to finish the job. But Binder had another commitment that prevented him from getting involved in editing the special, and so that job fell to a pair of producers named Ken and Mitzie Welch, who had done a lot of variety shows but nothing about editing Star Wars knew, or science fiction in general.

Who designed all these wild costumes?

Bob Mackie, RuPaul and Whitney Houston’s favorite fashion designer, and The First customer for film and television in the late 1970s. Mackie, now 84, has a great sense of humor about the whole thing and his interviews are a highlight of the film.

Why is Bea Arthur snuggling up to a rat in the cantina?

Like the rest of the masks used in “The Star Wars Christmas Special”s cantina scene – and the original Mos Eisley Cantina in War of stars, By the way, the rat was a leftover from another production that special effects artist Rick Baker had worked on in the past. The rat also appeared in the 1976 creature film The food of the gods.

Why do Chewbacca and his family speak for nine minutes in Shyriiwook without subtitles?

Another misguided conventional wisdom: CBS executives thought viewers would change the channel if they saw closed captions.

Why is Jefferson Starship in the Star Wars Holiday Special?

Because they had a song called “Hyperdrive” and the band name had “Starship” in it. Really.

Was Lucasfilm embarrassed by the special after it aired?

Not really. Television was rather ephemeral in the days before VCRs became commonplace and the interviewees in the documentary who watched it The Star Wars Christmas Special as kids say they and their peers thought it was great – especially because of the Boba Fett cartoon, which marks Fett’s first official appearance in the universe. Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni were two of those kids, which is why Mando had his rifle on The Mandalorian is modeled on Fett’s in the Christmas special.

Is Disney now embarrassed by the special?

The company has begun selling Life Day merchandise and has designated November 17, the day the special aired on CBS, as the official broadcast date Star Wars vacation in its theme parks. So as always with Disney: Any spin-off is fine as long as the company can make money from it.

Why does Chewie’s father Itchy celebrate the day of his life by watching Wookiee porn?

Some mysteries are best left unsolved. All we know is that Cher was supposed to play Diahann Carroll but dropped out at the last minute.

A disturbance in the Force is now available for digital rental via Amazon, VuduAnd Apple.