Saturday, November 21, 2009
STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL (1978)
Although Star Wars was a HUGE part of my childhood fascination with space opera and science fiction adventure, I probably won't be posting a lot about it. The one thing the internet has more of than porn is Star Wars. Besides, these days, the Star Wars universe is vast, with hundreds - maybe thousands - of books, comics, video games, etc. I long ago lost any ability or interest in trying to keep up with all.
Still, back in the day, there wasn't a lot of new Star Wars stuff to enjoy if you were one of those first-generation fans - there were the Marvel comic books, Kenner toys, and Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster. And before that - the legendary (and now officially disavowed) Star Wars Holiday Special.
A two-hour mix of wookiee domesticity, odd comedy sketches, strange musical numbers and stock footage, the Holiday Special aired on CBS television on November 17, 1978. Still, it was new Star Wars, and extremely exciting at the time.
It was, to be honest, pretty awful. But one bright spot in the otherwise ill-conceived television spectacular (well, aside from Carrie Fisher's off-key singing) was this 9-minute animated adventure from Canada's Nelvana Studio (Rock And Rule). With bizarre-yet-appealing character designs, wonky animation, the original cast providing voices, and the first-ever appearance of bounty hunter Boba Fett, the cartoon is an offbeat gem.
Enjoy.
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I have no idea how those character designs got approved, but I've always loved the hell out of them...
ReplyDeleteThat was Nelvana? For real?!? It looked more like Ralph Bakshi's back-up unit...
ReplyDeleteDear God, what ever happened to the folks responsible for this one? Not the company, we all know they went on to MUCH better things, but the animators tied to this one; anyone know the names of the folks who worked on this, and what they did after this?
The Star Wars Holiday Special was considered something huge when it was broadcasted and in my opinion it still is. The quality of course is not comparable to the movies, but one should not forget that the Star Wars Holiday Special gives us the only oportunity to see the original cast of Star Wars together aside from the first trilogy. Another aspect that I have noticed through the years is that the Star Wars Holiday Special is usually reviewed as a bad T.V. movie, when in fact it´s a T.V. special. I gues one could say that if a T.V. special gets a review that it´s a bad T.V. movie, well that ends up not being a bad review after all. I guess in fact the Star Wars Holiday Special was writefully considered legendery when it was broadcasted and for the wrong reasons disavowed yaers aterwards. I would just like to finish saying that I still love it.
ReplyDeleteI want to congratulate you for your blog, there are not that many places in the net where one can find the quality and quantity of information on these issues as one can find here. Thank you for your dedication.