The star cruiser looked nice: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Towani_family_star_cruiser
The Star Wars Holiday Special
- Thread starter indycar
- Start date
I found a copy on a torrent site years ago. It's really bad and, try as I might, I struggled to connect it with what I consider to be Star Wars, it was like a really bad pastiche. As an oddity in itself it's fantastically bizarre but I do believe Lucas is correct in suggesting the whole thing was a bad idea.
I just can't believe someone actually thought it was a good idea in the first place.
Well, there were a lot of comedy-musical variety shows on TV at the time. Remember, they also did a Star Wars-themed Muppet Show episode whose guests included C-3PO, R2D2, Mark Hamill, "and" Luke Skywalker. And it was only a year after the Holiday Special that Hanna-Barbera did Legends of the Superheroes, those bizarre live-action specials that turned the Justice League into a sketch-comedy show. SF/fantasy wasn't taken very seriously at the time, and the original Star Wars certainly didn't take itself as seriously as its later sequels and prequels did, so it kind of makes sense that network execs at the time, wanting to latch onto its success but not really knowing how to deal with something like it, decided to try to force it into the comedy/variety mold that was then popular. I'm not saying it was a good idea, mind, but I can understand how it happened.
If Lucas had known the behemoth his creation would become he would never have signed off on it but at that point, I think, whilst Star Wars was doing great numbers it wasn't actually confirmed for a sequel, was it? So, for Lucas it was an easy way to cash in on his movies popularity without having to even get involved.
From what I've read George had finished the first draft of TESB by November of '77, a year before the Holiday Special aired. And one of the main reasons he agreed to the idea was to sustain interest in the franchise between films. Wookieepedia says that George only attended a few production meetings and didn't get too involved because he was busy with TESB. It hadn't begun filming yet but I'm sure by that point writing and design were taking up a lot of his time. I'm sure you're right about him not shying away from the easy payday though, especially since he was financing the film himself with money he'd made from ANH and a large loan from Bank Of America. If he'd known how seriously people take movies/TV in general these days (as Christopher mentioned) he might have thought twice, but things were different back then. People didn't deuce a brick (or scream about George deucing on their childhood) over the little stuff back then. At least not that I noticed. If people didn't like a movie or show they just said "that sucked" or whatever and went on with their lives, as opposed to these days where you see people turn trolling IMDb into a full-time job just because their panties are in a wad over their personal expectations not being met. Whether they enjoyed it or hated it I'm sure most of those people who watched the Holiday Special enjoyed their November 18th 1978. If they released a crappy holiday special this year November 18th 2016 would be the day the internet imploded and a fanboy militia would burn down CBS headquarters. Although in the present I guess it would be on the Disney-owned ABC.
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^Ohh, there were always dedicated fans who complained about movies and shows just as passionately as they do today. It's just that their complaints were found in the letter columns of comic books and media magazines, and the Q&A columns of media reporters in newspapers, rather than on the Internet, so they weren't quite as widespread in their availability. But if you read the letter columns of Marvel or DC comic books from the '60s and '70s, or of magazines like Starlog or Cinefantastique in the '70s and '80s, you'd find exactly the same kinds of fan complaints you see online today.
The only comic books I own are the original Marvel Star Wars run, it's been a while since I read them but I don't recall any serious complaints in those, but I'm sure there were those who complained. I'm not saying there were no gripes and everybody lived in harmony, but complaints today take on a whole new level. Mailing a complaint letter is one thing but spending all day and posting 10 messages an hour putting down every aspect of a movie is a little different. Maybe those letter writers would have gone to the same lengths had the technology existed. And I think people are way more nitpicky these days. Maybe it's just because I didn't know such people, but I also don't recall the attitude that people have where they seem to want to hate a movie before they've even seen it. I'm always amazed to see on IMDb the countless threads saying an upcoming movie is going to be "the worst movie ever" before there's even been a trailer released. I'm sure such people existed but I think there are a lot more of them these days.
I don't think there are more of them, it's just that the Internet makes it much easier for them to be heard, and to get in contact with each other so they can reinforce each other's rhetoric.
I don't know, but I think fandom (whether it be film, TV or video games) in general has gotten a whole lot larger and more mainstream in the past 15-20 years. Not to mention more obsessive. Remember when trailers were just a commercial and nobody really cared all that much? Now it's an art form in its own right and in the build-up to every film we have 5 different trailers "drop", people film their reactions to it, do reviews of a trailer, and there are dozens of videos with paid panelists weighing in on what they liked/disliked about it, etc. It's gotten to the point where the actual news is reporting on the latest gossip about upcoming films or showing behind the scenes photos or whatever. Especially if you watch ABC, being owned by Disney they disguise hype for the latest animated movie, Star Wars or Marvel news like actual news stories. I was trying to watch the weather the other day but had to sit through them showing all the latest drawings from Finding Dory (complete with character biographies) as if it were some important breaking news story.
The "actual news" has been doing that for as long as I can remember. Heck, even the old '20s and '30s newsreels they showed in theaters before the movies had as much entertainment news as serious news.
I know there's always been entertainment news but I don't think to this extent. At least not that I saw in my lifetime. Prior to the 24 hour news cycle and before the networks had the news on 5-6 times a day they simply didn't have as much time to devote to non-news. The past week I haven't even bothered watching any news on ABC because every time I land on it they're promoting Captain America: Civil War.
I didn't realy think about the fact that variety shows like that were a big thing at that point. Taking that into account I guess I can see where the idea of mashing it up with a popular movie like Star Wars does make sense.
True, the commercial mainstream media have deteriorated considerably since the heyday of Murrow and Cronkite and Rather. But their current degenerated state is, historically, closer to the norm than the exception. Before the age of reputable journalism was the age of yellow journalism, where it was common to fabricate and manipulate stories in order to sell newspapers. There was even a time when it was common for one city's newspapers to insult other cities routinely, stirring up rivalries to generate sales. Chicago's nickname, "the Windy City," was actually an insult popularized by my own hometown Cincinnati Enquirer, more a reference to Chicagoans talking too much than to the actual windiness of the city.
Or even starting wars as Hearst is often accused of. Interesting, I didn't know that's where "Windy City" came from, I just thought it was really windy there lol. Well I guess it is, but the nickname was more of an insult to the people.
This is a very sad trend. It's happening more and more and has started to happen here too on one or two of our TV channels where they'll shove a "story" for want of a better word into the news about some celebrity or program they have on the same network as part of the news. Or some crap movie promotion. It's going to happen more and more as media companies buy into TV networks and news gets diluted into some frankenstein monster of itself. The lines will keep getting blurrier and blurrier as to what is proper news and not news.
As far as more modern dreck, this was officially sanctioned, was it not? It's just as cringe-inducing in its own way.
There's a fine line between being willing to poke fun at a franchise and permanently destroying ones ability to suspend disbelief.
Since Star Wars was a target of ridicule and parody from day one, it seems like the right way to protect the franchise would be to shy away from anything that would be taken as self-parody, as it would just confirm all the critics that the entire thing as an absurd B-movie joke.
Oh, come on, there's nothing wrong with a franchise being able to have fun with itself. Being able to have a sense of humor about yourself is a lot healthier than being defensive and self-important because you're hypersensitive to criticism. It doesn't matter what assumptions others make -- as Peggy Carter said, "I know my value." Yes, Star Wars is based in old B-movies, but it didn't treat them as absurd; rather, it treated them as something worthy of appreciation because they were fun. It was never meant to be plausible or naturalistic or solemn, adult hard SF. It was meant to be a romp, an affectionate homage to childhood fantasies. So why shouldn't it be able to have fun with itself?
And I can't believe you're talking about Hardware Wars as if it were some kind of malicious attack against the integrity of the franchise. Hardware Wars is great. George Lucas has called it his favorite parody. The franchise doesn't need "protection" against fun.
