34: Star Wars Holiday Special

These two trees ganged up on a friend and pushed him into this fence.

That's it. I'm turning back.

I know your family's waiting.

I know it's an important day.

Our only hope now is I'll run that imperial garbage scout.

I'm going to Lightspeed.

That's the spirit you'll be celebrating life day before you know it.

Hello and welcome to We Can't Rewind We've Gone Too Far, a podcast where a Scotsman, an

Irishman and a Bulgarian discuss the silliest, worst or downright the most memorable music

videos most of the time.

All of you have already seen the title of today's episode, so before we dive into today's insanity,

I must reiterate that the idea to record this episode was entirely fueled by David's mental breakdown.

On behalf of his friends, family and colleagues, I extend my deepest sympathies and offer my thoughts and prayers.

Let us take a second of quiet contemplation in memory of his well-being this holiday season.

Makes me sound like I've actually had a mental breakdown.

I think he's young.

Did you not?

And now let's dive in headfirst into the Star Wars Holiday Special,

a film that is teaching us what the holidays are all about.

Monday's consumerism, endangerment of children, and heavy acid.

And we also have a guest. It's a Christmas miracle. Yay! Say hi, Charlie.

Hello. He's here to help us talk about this absolute fucking travesty of all of the film.

You turned up at my house and made me watch it last night.

Yeah. I saw it was an hour and a half and I was like, I'm going to need help for this.

I tried to get Scott to watch it. He just peered over my shoulder and he was like, no, and walked away.

I feel like it's something we had to do, though. You have to watch it once.

Do you know?

I saw it in the first sequel.

Yeah, yeah.

It's the first thing.

Star Wars would have been out 18 months before this came out.

So a year and a half of it being in the public consciousness.

I can't imagine how excited kids all over North America must have been

when this was going to be on TV.

It must have been a major television event.

You know, I'd love to see how the ratings as the show progressed.

It wouldn't have been long before.

Kids would be like, "Mommy, Daddy, I'm bored shitless now."

I'm confused and a little bit frightened.

listening to home

me and Charlie

are just sitting

in the living room

with a microphone

pointed vaguely

towards us

so this might not

sound as good

as usual

but fuck it

it's Christmas

I couldn't be arsed

the Star Wars

holiday special

starring Mark Hamill

as Harrison Ford

as Princess Lady

Daniels as C3PO

R2D2

and James Earl

as the voice

of Dark Knight

introducing

Chewbacca's family

his wife

his father

his son

Lumpy

with special guest star

Beatrice Arden

and Carol

the Jefferson Starship

on the Star Wars

Holiday Special.

It's not so often we get to discuss

a creation that has been discussed, reviewed

and written about so extensively before

and this film has its own wiki page

amongst multiple hours of material from YouTube reviewers

and internet bloggers.

It originally aired in November 1978 on CBS

and it was directed by Steve Binder.

Who is Steve Binder you may ask?

Good question.

Do you know Steve Binder?

Yes.

Hold that up.

The initial airing of the special was very poorly received.

It was never aired again

and it would have stayed entirely forgotten

for the good of humanity

if it wasn't for dorks like us

who decided it was actually a cult classic.

Disney still don't want to have anything to do with this,

and that's where we come in.

So you were saying you know who Steve Thing is?

Well, I do now.

Yeah, no, he looks like he's a guy who did a lot of music,

like, you know, song and dance numbers and things like that.

So it makes sense to get someone like that.

It's a marriage of Star Wars and variety show acts,

which is just what kids wanted, clearly.

But yeah, so they got this guy.

But it looks like there was another director

that they got on board first,

an up-and-coming filmmaker

that was a classmate of George Lucas.

So he got involved in it.

And he was like,

it's too complicated for not working with a single camera,

you're working with five.

And it's, I guess, a different set of skills.

He dodged a bullet.

And this other guy, Steve,

was it Binder?

But did it.

And I think he's still around.

He's still working today.

He's like nine years old or something,

which is quite amazing, to be honest.

He has to work till he dies.

That might be the revenge for his karma for making this.

But yeah, I mean, there's a big deal about George Lucas

not really having anything to do with it,

but I don't think that's actually,

having read up on it,

I don't think that's as true as people say.

In fact, the opening 15 minutes.

When we talk about the storyline,

I mean, again,

What storyline?

Yeah, I mean, it's,

I mean, how,

what did you think of it?

I thought it was the second worst piece of media

I've ever watched apart from Cats.

I was going to say it's Cats isn't it?

I was going in thinking

is this going to be worse than Cats

and it wasn't quite as

it didn't give me that visceral feeling of

what the fuck

it was just dull

that was a problem

it was dull and fucking baffling

you know you're off to a good start

when the first 15 minutes of it

is a bunch of Wookiees

speaking in Wookiee language

to each other

for 15 minutes with no subtitles

you could argue if they did it

like the start of Wally

where it's all sort of

visual storytelling

and all that stuff

but it's fucking not

it's just a bunch of Wookiees

going

And there was just something so grating about the way they were doing it as well.

Was it lumpy or scratchy or something?

His voice is just, he was just sat right there,

that frequency that just gets into your brain.

It's like, shut up!

So I think this is the moment when I should actually say how I actually watched it.

Well, I tried watching it three different times.

Three?

Three.

I managed to get 10 minutes in, which was last night,

and I then decided I can't do this.

so I did watch it this morning but yeah I didn't actually watch it in the way you watch a normal

movie so I watched it uh watched it sound off at two times the speed and I just had random songs

playlists going on in my head and I had a jolly good time because it was the great songs and I think

whatever was going on on the screen it was just working very well so yeah so yeah so basically I

was having a jolly good time this morning so you enjoyed watching it I did so it's sound off and two

10 speeds

yes

I'm very happy

to provide a playlist

if anyone wants to

repeat my experience

of the songs

that were happening

in my head

I was trying to think

what the storyline

you would have missed

would have been

I mean I guess

what they've done is

they've thought like

let's have a storyline

and then we'll intercut it

with song and dance numbers

and they're probably

the song and dance bits

are probably

the least bad

bits about it

it's the waffling

nonsensical

not very funny

comedy stuff

in between this

where it all falls apart

you've got these

seasoned pros

turning up

I wonder how much

they get paid

to do their routine

I was thinking

this is Star Wars

this will be huge

and then they're like

it's this

I think they must have had

the main Star Wars actors

in for

at most a day

to shoot their stuff

it was a close up

of Harrison Ford

at one point

I think during the song

at the end

and you can see

I'm just

holy shit

what am I doing

fuck

what the fuck

am I doing here

like that

this is awful

he sounded

bored whenever he was delivering any of the dialogue

which I don't blame him because the dialogue was

fucking mince. He's kind of hiding his eyes

you don't really see his eyes

and he's all sort of looking down and thought if I see my eyes

they'll know. Because they'll see the tears

He's like I'm not that good an actor

I can't pretend this is good

You've got Mark Hamill and

Carrie Fisher just like belting it to the back

of the auditorium like that

and it's just oh god

Even weird stuff like Mark Hamill looks like

he's got like full blown theatrical makeup on

as well. He does

But I think the vague story was Chewie was trying to get home for life day to his family and you meet his family, which is a regret that we all have now.

On the way back, he gets kind of interrupted by Imperial Empire forces and they also come and search his house.

And I think that's the whole story.

And then it just kind of goes off in random joints.

It's like at one point they're watching like Wookie QVC.

I'd forgotten about the fucking, the cooking show, where it's just someone following a recipe.

We can talk about the black face.

The chef.

Yeah, he's white.

He's white.

Well, he plays several roles.

I think a few of them do play several roles at it, don't they?

But I think that's just a different type sort of situation.

78, when did it become massively inappropriate?

Well, politicians were doing it up until like 10 years ago.

Yeah, structurally.

I think by that time it was certainly still around.

I think into the 80s as well.

You would get that now and again.

Yikes.

I'd love to see the script.

Because the first 15 minutes,

it's before someone else comes in and speaks English.

I think he's on the screen

and then it's back to more Wookiee's domestic.

You can't even really follow what's going on, really.

If you watch a film,

or TV show with the sound of,

you can basically get the gist of what's happening.

And with this, I was like, what the hell are they doing now?

You know, there's nothing wrong with the masks or anything like that.

It's Stan Winston that did the Wookiee masks, you know,

before Terminate and all that stuff.

So all that stuff's fine.

It's just this nonsensical thing.

And, you know, despite what everyone says about George Lucas hates it

and thought it was awful and wasn't really involved with it,

non-stop Wookie-ness was his idea and his insistence.

No, I want to do a film that's entirely about Wookiees.

and he wouldn't back down and says,

if you're going to do this, it has to be Wookie-tastic.

And so it's his fault, but then he left it with them

because Empire Strikes Back was going into pre-production

and he's setting up ILM and all that stuff.

So he left it to this company that deal with,

a production team that deal with musical numbers

and shows like that.

I trusted them with it and he saw the end thing

and he ordered every copy burned.

But he's got more to blame for it than anyone else.

It's just, you know, I guess they could have done something

with a Wookiee thing

and made it

much more palatable

you know

I mean there's no

dialogue in the first

30 minutes of Mad Max 2

I think

and that works

you know

I feel like

either you do like

a Wally thing

where it's like

a visual story

or you just give

the Wookiees subtitles

because I generally

find myself

disowning out

because it was just

Wookiees roaring at each other

yeah

if only they'd known

that in the years

decades to come

that because they

didn't put subtitles in

other people will

you know

and so you could really

You could have a lot of fun with it.

That's a good fucking point.

Yeah, I mean, we've all put subtitles on R2-D2.

I don't know what he's really saying.

*Growling*

I feel like they didn't really know what made Star Wars good either.

Because it's like, the characters are there and all that stuff, but there's nothing else, really.

It really feels like it's sci-fi.

It's a Star Wars written by people who don't really know it.

And there's only been one Star Wars film by then as well.

But also it's probably written by people who don't really like sci-fi.

I felt like they didn't really understand sci-fi or science fantasy at all.

And you can hear this sort of random bits of gobbledygook,

Which, to the lay person, is probably what sci-fi actually is.

You know, when it's not really, you know,

it's not good sci-fi.

But this was, it just felt like it was,

oh yes, Star Wars, I've seen it, okay.

And put in this, you know,

we'll have little bits of shit technobabble and whatnot.

Yeah, I think a lot of sci-fi suffers from technobabble,

but in this case it was like particularly strong.

Is it canon, or has it been espunged?

I don't, I mean, I don't think it's canon,

But there's stuff in there that premiered on the holiday special

that became kind of like the look of the Wookiees planet

is that style of architecture is in the prequels.

And it comes from Ralph McQuarrie as well.

So you got that.

Who's Ralph McQuarrie for?

He's a concept artist that was a big factor in getting Star Wars funded.

A lot of his designs end up in the films

and a lot of his map paintings as well.

In those first three films are his work.

He designed the Wookiees treehouse.

I do kind of want to live there.

It'd make a great Airbnb.

be yeah let's find positives yeah can you find any positives in this um very good costumes can't

hold them the last the last appearance of princess leia's ear bun there are buns and she's never had

them again what else um it could have been two hours it was only an hour and a half yeah the

cartoon wasn't terrible that that was already if that was a standalone thing oh it is now disney

Plus release it on its own.

Like we will take this one part

and put it over here

away from the rest of it.

Well that makes sense

because they introduced

Boba Fett in that.

It was easy just to

leave that off as opposed

just to create something

new from Star.

Boba Fett was being developed

for Empire Strikes Back

as a super stormtrooper.

There was various costume tests

and things like that

and there was a Star Wars parade

in George Lucas's hometown.

Or there was Star Wars

characters and costumes

as part of the Loge parade

and they had Darth Vader

someone else

and the Boba Fett

costume

they put that out

for the very first time

and people were like

in this parade

were like

you know the spectators

who's this guy

and he goes

oh he's Boba Fett

like that

and then he shows up

in the cartoon

his storyline trajectory

has been a massive

disappointment

as the films have gone on

I think one of these

he's one of those characters

he's just leave him alone

he's like

he's like Matt Berry

in the IT crowd

he's great

turns up for two minutes

he's great

but to have a whole episode

maybe not

but anyway

I'll think you can see

that did the Clone Wars

It was pretty cool.

It's just that the TV show on him was like,

well, he's now old and probably not fit enough

to be able to do the roles that he wants.

And, you know, the breast-based name

is not really fitting him anymore.

And it's very sad because he's still a perfectly fine actor.

It just gives him something that is more appropriate

for what he can do.

And that's fine.

Did you ever actually see his face in the original one?

No.

I don't think you did.

So there really wasn't any reason to get him to play it,

apart from the voice, I guess.

he's a clone of his father

so naturally

they go with that

I've always meant to watch the prequels again

before the new ones

and every time I went to do it

I couldn't bring myself to do it

it is a hate watch

yeah

the thing is though

they're no longer the worst Star Wars films

I think the last Jedi

what was the last one?

was it the last Jedi?

Rise of the Jedi

Rise of the Jedi.

Somehow, Palpatine returns.

That sums it all up.

Somehow.

I was thinking when David Cameron came back in,

it was like, somehow David Cameron returned.

It was interesting what you were saying, Al,

about how the Wikipedia description of this Star Wars special

actually sounds quite interesting.

I feel the same way about the prequels.

If you read the story on Wikipedia,

it sounds quite interesting.

But it's just when you watch it, you're like, oh, God.

I'd quit them to remake the prequels.

But at least they add story.

The sequels that J.J. Abrams and Catherine Kennedy

add nothing.

There's no imagination there or anything.

It's just lots of cool concept art

that they've hung a script on

and they open it with that horrible line,

this will begin to make things right.

And that's up yours to George Lucas, it seems.

And then George Lucas has sat back

and watched it absolutely implode.

He's like...

Oh yeah, he was crying his billions.

I'm sure he cared.

Yeah.

He goes into his bath full of $100 notes.

Bath of champagne, yeah.

Yeah.

But anyway, the Star Wars holiday special.

At least the prequels didn't have a VR porn section.

That's why no.

That might have been there to the house.

Oh, yeah.

I might put in...

I recorded us watching it yesterday,

so I might put in clips of us.

Who was this for?

I don't know.

He gets like a USB stick off the trader and he's like, this will be pretty good.

I thought you might like this.

One of those, I don't know how you explain it to you.

Wow.

You're watching this going, is this about to be what I think it is?

And it is.

I mean, all that was missing was like the little fucking like twitch, like tip button in the corner.

It's the fact that he's sat down in the living room of the family home,

starts watching this saucy video.

And then it finishes and he's got this fluid all over his chin.

It's like, what the hell?

Baffling.

I do like the imagery.

It's that very 70s kind of stuff.

I like the song and dance numbers.

I do like the look from that year,

where you just get a band and stick them against a black backdrop,

kill all the depth

and put like

I kind of like that

you know

and they've got the

I think they put a backdrop

which is a shot of

just a close up of a diamond

or a jewel

or something like that

and they've put in a starburst

but I kind of like that

it's kind of nostalgic

but yeah

granddad to sit there

and get a boner

in front of the whole family

I mean

I don't want to go back

to the wookie

if that's the kind of

lifestyle they lead

I remember you last night

saying who is this for

like because presumably

this was like

meant to be like

fun for all the family

and you've got this

you've just got

granddad wookie

That's for your creepy uncle who shows up on holiday song.

That must be it.

Yeah, this is one for creepy Uncle Jeff.

It was just strange.

How can we ever lose this minute?

From all my life I choose this minute.

I will give up the old and the new,

sharing with you this minute.

Back to your previous question, where that goes from the timeline,

It's never mentioned again that Chewbacca has a wife and a child.

What happened to that child?

The child is off because it fell off from...

In the first five minutes, he's shown just walking precariously on top of a handrail.

And I was thinking, yeah, that child is going to be dead in five years.

He fell to the bottom of the tree.

But yeah, it's a good point.

They've never mentioned this again.

They do show his village again.

I can't remember which movie.

I think it was in the sequels.

There's nothing.

There's chills.

They might not be.

Like, all things considered,

we don't judge here,

they might be polyamorous.

He might have just gone off

with another female Wookiee.

I don't know.

Him and Han were very close.

Yeah.

He divorced his Wookiee wife

for Han Solo.

Well, they have the thing

where they're tied upside down

in the Millennium Falcon.

It looks like they've interrupted something.

Oh, we've been attacked

and Han Solo's tied upside down.

Yeah, yeah, we had people break in.

Yeah, it's terrible

what they've done to him.

when in fact

it's

Han and Chewbacca's

bondage party

what goes on in the Falcon

stays on in the Falcon

but what was it

the actual reason

it was because

he'd been poisoned

with a sleeping

drug or something

and that was to keep him alive

to have the blood

rushed his head

having him upside down

yeah it's like

interesting

anyway

that's definitely

someone's king

100%

like 100%

the one

one interesting

thought I had

while watching this

was I was like

is this how

like the average

of the Empire live while the heroes are out fighting with lightsabers and saving the world

and stuff? Are they just on Wookiee QVC or Wookiee Home Shopping Network and doing cooking recipes?

Is this just how the rest of the Star Wars universe lives?

Yeah.

I thought they'd be fighting all the time, Wookiees, but it's domestic bliss.

Yeah.

They can be fighting all the time. Someone used to be doing the cooking and masturbating,

I guess, and I'm going with this.

But that was George's idea.

There's no sort of wide shot of him in that chair.

He might actually have had a boner as well.

You just never see.

So, you've got to get the lipstick out.

You're like a dog.

Oh my god.

I mean, considering that they're constantly naked,

and that we've established that Chewbacca has a wife and a child,

presumably either Mursipius or like, or Mammol-like.

I did only eggs.

Yeah.

Chewie is hiding something under that fort.

Yeah, there needs to be some sort of attraction going on.

Oh my gosh.

They're gross, not showers.

Images that are running through my head right now.

Did Grandad do anything after that?

Or was it just none of them?

I think it was kind of last we saw him,

apart from just going...

He died.

Through his home.

That's how he went.

The film Soylent Green has a scene

where there's a guy who's about to die from old age

and they put him in a big screening room

surrounded by cinema screens

it's all these

images of lush

green fields

and valleys and stuff

and so he's sort of

surrounded by nature

and then he dies

and I was thinking

is this

what the

the VR scene

from the holiday special

is this is how he goes

I wanted to steer away

I didn't want to be the one

that keeps us anchored

to the wanking scene

just one more round

friend

then homeward bound

friend

don't forget me

in your dreams

Just one more song, friend

And then so long, friend

The nights get shorter, it seems

Just one more rhyme, friend

Yes, it's a crime, friend

But you know time, friend

Time can fly

So it's goodnight, friend

The only other bit we haven't talked about is the scene in the bar with the Golden Girls.

Oh yeah, Bea Arthur.

She was great.

Another example of a perfectly good actor.

Giving away free drink.

Just constantly giving away free drink.

I wonder the business went down the tubes.

A lot of the masks that were used in the film turn up there.

The film was shot in England, so a lot of the costumes will be in storage in England.

But those Cantina scenes from the original Star Wars film

where you cut away to close-ups of creatures and stuff like that

when you get to Cantina,

that was all shot in America

because they needed to enliven that bar scene up with creatures

so they were just close-ups shot in little mock-up sets.

So that makes sense that they would have those costumes to hand in.

Well, that guy with a hole in the top of his head comes in

and you think that they know each other.

Yeah.

It turns out that he has no idea who he is.

Yeah.

You know, because he's obviously in love with her like that.

And then you think they know each other.

And then it's after we realise that she's no idea who he is.

It's odd.

Because she says the thing she says to everyone who leaves.

Because I know.

Come back soon, I'll be waiting.

And then he takes that to be like, oh, she must be in love with me.

And he basically comes back to stalk her, I guess.

He's so shit.

Yeah.

And then he downs a pint through his head and passes it.

And then at the end, everybody fucks off and he's still there.

And then it cuts away.

So she might be dead.

For all and all.

Is there even a conclusion?

They sing, you know, they have a life day

and they all get together for a song at the end.

Harrison Ford looks like he's going to kill himself.

To be honest, this is just his resting face.

Carrie Fisher does not look entirely with it either.

She's like, yeah, yeah.

A day that takes us through the darkness.

A day that leads us into life.

A day that makes us want to celebrate

The day that makes us want to celebrate

The day that makes us want to celebrate

Tisha, look at show notes for links to Instagram, etc.

Just a note, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Just a note.

We have an active Twitter, but we're not using it anymore

because Twitter is a shithole, so we're looking into that,

so for now it's just Instagram.

links to Instagram and nothing else

because X isn't a real thing.

Also email,

go into forecast at gmail.com

if you have any thoughts or recommendations

for music videos like we usually do.

And if you're enjoying the podcast,

leave us a review on Apple Podcasts,

Spotify or your podcast player of choice.

And that's us.

Thanks, Charlie, for coming along.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you.

I owe you some sort of blood sacrifice

out of your community.

That's okay.

I think I'll just get my payment in.

Reenacting that scene from Misery,

where...

Kathy Bates takes your ankles.

Oh, yeah, I remember.

It's a piece of wood between them and smashes one of them.

And there we go.

That'll be halfway to compensation.

That's it.

Happy Life Day.

Happy Life Day.

Happy Life Day.

Remember the true meaning of Life Day is...

Um, uh, yeah, um.