Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Jade Praerie (jadepraerie) 'Star Wars: Holiday Special' was clearly well ahead of its time. It's true that when I first saw this bizarre "film", I winced and gagged at the cheap sets, flimsy plot, and veiled eroticism. But now, looking back forty years, and having seen 'The Last Jedi'-an horrifically insulting and insipid "film", produced by a supposedly woke woman, and financed by once-family-favorite Disney no less-I can see the SWHS for the artful masterpiece that it truly is: a literal variety offering, which subverted expectations long before we really knew what to expect. Happy Life Day to all.

danielemerson Guest stars: Bea 'Golden Girls' Arthur, comedian Art Carney, Jefferson 'not as good as they used to be' Starship and Harvey 'Blazing Saddles' Korman. Korman plays three characters - a 4-armed female TV chef, a barfly who drinks through the top of his head and a malfunctioning computer help file.Warning: 99% of the dialogue in the first 10-15 minutes is pure, unsubtitled Wookie. Stick with it if you can... even if it isn't worth it. Luke, Leia and the droids phone in short interludes, if only to explain what the hell is going on (and so slowly).Art Carney plays either a shopkeeper or a pornographer. Or both. Whatever he is, his 'Life Day' present to Ol' Dirty Grandpa Wookie seems a bit fruity at first, but then turns into a tame musical number. By the way, Grandpa is called Itchy, and can beat Robert DeNiro in doing that bottom lip thing any day of the week.When Bea Arthur (as the landlady of the cantina) gets her musical spot (not remotely connected to the rest of the film), it all goes a bit Weimar. Actually, she's not bad, given the material.Han Solo and Chewbacca do eventually appear. Mild jeopardy ensues. By this time Harrison Ford looks like he has lost the will to live.Towards the end there's the quasi-mystical 'Life Day' bit that doesn't really make any sense, but at least tells you that the show is almost over. The more expensive cast members actually make an appearance on-set instead of their earlier phoned-in segments.Princess Leia sermonises... and then sings. It doesn't go well. Somewhere a long long way away in England, Alec Guinness looked at his bank account and felt bloody lucky he didn't have to be in this.Decidedly odd. And remarkably bad. However, no Ewoks and no Jar Jar Binks, which is a plus, although there is a baby Wookie called 'Lumpy', who even PETA would have enthusiastically hunted and shot.

goolizap I survived the Star Wars Holiday Special. If you've ever hear word that it's terrible, that's no exaggeration. It's a TV movie, but I use to word "movie" loosely. About 10% of it is actual coherent plot. The rest plays out more as a variety show with pointless segments and musical numbers scattered randomly throughout.The overall premise follows Chewbacca's Wookie family as they wait for him to return home for Life Day (the Wookie version of Christmas), but he is nowhere to be found. We, the audience, know that he is battling TIE fighters with Han Solo on his way home. Additionally, the Galactic Empire is searching homes for members of the Rebel Alliance.Because there's such little plot, and it's a very simple concept, it shouldn't be this hard to understand what's going on in the movie. It doesn't help that none of us speak Wookie (even the characters in the movie can't understand what they're saying). The scenes without any humans, which constitute the majority of the special, are incomprehensible and borderline unwatchable. According to writer, Bruce Vilanch, he had wanted many of these scenes cut due to the fact that the audience can't understand the Wookie language. George Lucas insisted that they remain. Turns out Vilanch was right, as it's not only incoherent, but in a holiday special that's supposed to be jovial, we can't even smile or laugh at what's happening. But I'm not sure it would matter anyway, as even the jokes that are told by humans have terrible delivery.Even the music numbers can't be looked at as a pleasant break from the insipid journey through the Star Wars universe. They're extremely plodding and lack any real character besides being hypnotic. At one point, Diahann Carroll performs some odd erotic piece which may make this the most uncomfortable holiday special in history--along with the most boring. I think when they torture prisoners they make them have to stay awake through the Star Wars Holiday Special.Lucas couldn't even get all the characters in the same room together. Every major actor's scenes are filmed remotely, except for Harrison Ford's. It's a film that is said to feature Darth Vader--even though he literally only gets 4 seconds of screen time (which I'm pretty sure was just a cut scene from A New Hope).The only highlight is an animated short halfway through that features the first on-screen appearance of Boba Fett. And that's not all, the storyline is pretty good also. It makes you wish that the whole special was just animated.The Star Wars Holiday Special wouldn't have been nearly as bad if it was only an hour maybe. But 90 minutes is just ridiculous (2 hours including commercials). And you can't say that it's even bad in a funny way. It's just flat-out painful. I love Star Wars as much as the next guy, but there's no wonder why George Lucas wanted all of these destroyed.Twizard Rating: 32

Jayme Schmitt Upon finding a copy of this at Goodwill, commercials intact, I must say... what were they thinking? The copy I saw was a fresh tape from it's original 1978 airing and didn't lose it's taste in cheesy badness. I'm sorry, but when you have Harvey Korman dressed as a multi-armed female alien on a cooking show singing "Whip, Whip, Stir" I don't know how anyone can take this seriously. Even the DVD box art which encased this gem was making fun of it the whole time. It's one of those cases where you feel embarrassed for the people who made the production along with feeling embarrassed for have seeing it. Same feeling I get when I see "WE WISH YOU A TURTLE Christmas."