The Nostalgia Critic vs. The Star Wars Holiday Special

[Trekker4747]

I, too, cannot wait to see the NC traumatized by this. I bet it'll be as good as the Batman & Robin review. I'm hoping for another "Bat credit card" moment myself.

Linkara using that against him in his Superman IV review was awesome.

I've enjoyed the buildup to this all through the month.

The build-up has been good. Damn, I need to watch my Rifftrax of this sometime too, it's a yearly "tradition" for me.

But, I'm hoping TNC makes the Holiday Special "episode" nice and long. Spoony long. He can rip the movie to shreds and still have shit left over to come back too.

This is going to be great and will be a LONG wait until Tuesday night. I can't wait to see his reaction to grandpa basically watching porn in the middle of the living room, or a coked-out Carrie Fisher "signing" the Star Wars theme.

Man. This is going to be GREAT!

 

[Trekker4747]

The review is up!

 

[Gepard]

I was somehow expecting...more. The funniest bit was him looping the cooking show over and over and over and over and over and over and...

But for something this bad, there may not be much for a comedian to work with.

(Santa Christ!)

 

[Trekker4747]

I was somehow expecting...more. The funniest bit was him looping the cooking show over and over and over and over and over and over and...

But for something this bad, there may not be much for a comedian to work with.

(Santa Christ!)

Yeah, I was expecting a lot more too.

I mean, it was only 25 minutes long. He seemed to "hold back" on ripping into the thing.

Still, it was pretty funny.

 

[Christopher]

I was somehow expecting...more. The funniest bit was him looping the cooking show over and over and over and over and over and over and...

It didn't sound like it was looped. I think it really did run on that long.

And yeah, this wasn't any funnier than the special it was mocking. Many of this guy's critiques came off as very ignorant -- like condemning a variety show for not sticking to a single plotline. That's just stupid. And mocking Mark Hamill's appearance, when it's well-known that the heavy makeup was necessary because Hamill was still recovering from an accident that scarred his face. Way to be both ignorant and insensitive, Mr. Critic.

If anything, all this guy did was make the special look better in comparison to his inept attempts to ridicule it.

Although I did like the dubbed Vader/Emperor footage during the cantina sequence. "Why do we want Bea Arthur?" Except the premise of the gag again made the Critic sound stupider than the special. Why is it so ridiculous that an oppressive empire would want to shut down a cantina that was a known den of thieves, especially given that several of its recent patrons just blew up a brand-new and very expensive Imperial space station?

 

[Kegg]

Santa Christ was painful. Holiday clusterfuck painful. Why do I still watch this guy, really, I don't know anymore.

Why is it so ridiculous that an oppressive empire would want to shut down a cantina that was a known den of thieves, especially given that several of its recent patrons just blew up a brand-new and very expensive Imperial space station?

Different cantina.

 

[The Evil Dead]

This reminds me, I might have to fire up the Rifftrax edition of the Star Wars Holiday Special sometime over the next couple of days.

 

[Christopher]

Why is it so ridiculous that an oppressive empire would want to shut down a cantina that was a known den of thieves, especially given that several of its recent patrons just blew up a brand-new and very expensive Imperial space station?

Different cantina.

No, it was clearly meant to be the same cantina on Tattooine. It had the same band playing the same music (Bea Arthur's song actually incorporated that music), and its patrons consisted of the same aliens (even the late Greedo).

And even if it had been a different cantina, my point stands: why would it be ridiculous that an oppressive state would shut down a place of business? That's part of what they do. They like to be in control of people's lives on every level.

 

[Kegg]

No, it was clearly meant to be the same cantina on Tattooine.

Nope.

It's meant to be a different cantina. It dose use the same set and costumes, though, though even more than a few of these are modified.

 

[Broccoli]

Was Santa Christ played by the Angry Video Game Nerd?

 

[Trekker4747]

Was Santa Christ played by the Angry Video Game Nerd?

Santa Christ was played by Rob Walker, who is not the Angry Video Game Nerd (James Rolfe).

This video was OK, but considering the mound shit we're talking about, I expected so much more. Like I said, he could've really railed on this thing for 45 minutes and still had more to go on. Some of his nitpicks, yeah, were odd and petty but considering what we're talking about I think we can give Doug a pass.



As for his rant on The Empire shutting down the bar -which I also took to be the cantina in ANH- it struck me as odd too, considering I thought The Empire had imposed the curfew galaxy-wide or maybe even just on Tatooine.

I wish he had gone into more with Art Carney's introductory scene, the ending song being set to a minor keyed Star Wars theme, and yeah his railing on Luke was a bit harsh considering what we know now. (But if we're to go with "in character" that TGWTG is seeing this movie for the fist time he "may not have known" about Hamil's accident.)

All and all, I was disapointed in this review, but is still otherwise enjoyable.

 

[Dac]

This reminds me, I might have to fire up the Rifftrax edition of the Star Wars Holiday Special sometime over the next couple of days.

Was it me, or did NC reuse the Queen Bohemian Rhapsody gag from Rifftrax when talking about the Life day celebrations at the end?

 

[Gepard]

It didn't sound like it was looped. I think it really did run on that long.

I just checked the cooking segment on my copy of the holiday special (yeah, I know, I'm a glutton for punishment), and the "whip, stir, whip, stir, whip whip, stir" bits lasted 12 seconds, and were broken apart in two locations by several other bits of dialog. The video on TGWTG is taking forever to load, so I can't check the runtime in his review right now, but at the very least he did some editing to get the nonstop string of whips and stirs he used.

At the very least, he looped the video, as you can see Korman's third arm appearing and disappearing over and over again.

ETA: The "stir, whip" business in the review lasted 32 seconds. So, some looping.

 

[Trekker4747]

It didn't sound like it was looped. I think it really did run on that long.

I just checked the cooking segment on my copy of the holiday special (yeah, I know, I'm a glutton for punishment), and the "whip, stir, whip, stir, whip whip, stir" bits lasted 12 seconds, and were broken apart in two locations by several other bits of dialog. The video on TGWTG is taking forever to load, so I can't check the runtime in his review right now, but at the very least he did some editing to get the nonstop string of whips and stirs he used.

At the very least, he looped the video, as you can see Korman's third arm appearing and disappearing over and over again.

ETA: The "stir, whip" business in the review lasted 32 seconds. So, some looping.

It was clearly looped to an exagerated level to me. It's still a horrendous scene.

 

[Trekker4747]

Cracked is taking on the Holiday Special today.

At Chewbacca’s home, his family is expecting him home for Life Day, and they’re starting to get worried. I think. The first ten minutes are spoken entirely in unsubtitled Wookiee and accompanied by meaningless gesturing. You’d think a race whose language is based on the sounds donkeys make during sex would learn some sign language. But they haven’t. The actors in these fur suits are so terrible at pantomiming that if they tried to signal for a waiter to get their check, they’d end up with a regionally offensive gesture up their ass and a missing eye. They might as well have filmed this shit in Braille.

Chewbacca’s wife calls Luke Skywalker and R2D2 to see if they’ve heard from Chewbacca, but the two of them don’t speak Wookiee any better than the viewer, and one of them can only beep, so it just adds to the confusion. And when she finally gets hold of someone who can understand her, it’s a shopkeeper surrounded by Imperial spies who can only speak to her in code. If my grandmother and a dog had a conversation about checking their email, it would be less confusing than this.