The Star Wars Holiday Special 1978

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

3.4 / 10   438 vote(s)
PG
Fantasy Science Fiction Family TV Movie

Luke Skywalker and Han Solo battle evil Imperial forces to help Chewbacca reach his imperiled family on the Wookiee planet - in time for Life Day, their most important day of the year!

Release Date 1978-11-17
Runtime 1h 37m
Directors Steve Binder, David Acomba
Producers Gary Smith, Mitzie Welch, Joe Layton, Jeff Starsh, Ken Welch, Dwight Hemion
Writers Pat Proft, Rod Warren, Mitzie Welch, Leonard Ripps, Bruce Vilanch, George Lucas

I recently spoke about how, in my opinion at least, Attack of the Clones is the worst theatrically released Star Wars of all time. The reason I had to put that "theatrically released" qualifier in there, is because of The Holiday Special, because it absolutely blitzes Clones when it comes to how low it sinks. The Holiday Special isn't just a bad Star Wars movie, it isn't just a bad movie full stop, it basically isn't a movie at all.

Final rating:½ - So bad it’s offensive. I may never fully recover.

Gimly

What were they even thinking? Astonishingly bad, and not even in a humorous way either.

After watching and, all in all, enjoying the main films from the 'Star Wars' franchise, I thought I'd check out the many spin-off films. 'The Star Wars Holiday Special' makes for quite the start!

I had heard bits and pieces about this down the years and those bits and pieces were usually pretty derogatory and now I can see why; it's far worse than I was anticipating though. The worst thing is that it doesn't even try to be silly and stupid, if actually attempts to be sincere and meaningful.

It's utterly dire, from start to finish. No idea how they roped Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher into this, you gotta especially feel for Fisher given that end scene... wow. I wish it was 'so bad it's good' so it could've been ironically fun to watch, but it's the furthest thing from that.

r96sk