34: Star Wars Holiday Special

[Subtitles Auto-Generated by MacWhisper]

That's it, I'm turning back.

>> [SOUND]

>> I know your family's waiting.

>> [SOUND]

>> I know it's an important day.

>> [SOUND]

>> I only hope now, so

I'll run that Imperial Garbage Scout.

I'm going to light speed.

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

[MUSIC]

>> Hello and welcome to We Can't Rewind We've Gone Too Far,

a podcast where a Scotsman, an Irishman, and a Bulgarian who's

discussed 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.

>> This makes it sound like I've actually had a mental breakdown.

>> The night he's young.

>> Did you not?

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

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

>> Madness, consumerism, endangerment of children, and heavy acid.

And we also have a guest, it's the Christmas miracle, yay, say hi, Charlie.

>> Hello, he's here to help us talk about this absolute fucking travesty.

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

>> Yeah, yeah.

I saw it was an hour and a half and I was like, I'm gonna need help for this one.

>> I tried to get Scott to watch it.

He just peered over my shoulder and he was like, nope, and walked away.

>> I feel like it's something we had to do though.

You have to watch it once.

>> Do you though?

>> It's really the first sequel.

>> Yeah, 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 the kids all over North America must have been when

this was gonna be on TV.

It must have been a major television event.

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

>> [LAUGH]

>> It wouldn't have been long before kids

were like, mommy, daddy, I'm bored shitless now.

It's confusing, a little bit frightening.

>> [LAUGH]

>> Listening to home, me and Charlie are just sitting in the living room with

a mic from point A 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 and Sue Skylar.

His own solo as Princess Leia, Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca, R2-D2, and

James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader.

Introducing Chewbacca's family, his wife, his father, his son,

and his wife, Blumpy with special guest star, Beatrice Arthur, Mark Carney,

and Carol, the Jefferson Starship.

On the Star Wars Holiday Special.

[MUSIC]

>> It's not so often we get to discuss a creation that has been discussed by

the past, 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.

That 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.

>> Yeah, okay.

>> [LAUGH]

>> Hold that thought.

>> 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 dogs 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 know.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah, he looks like he's a guy who did a lot of music,

like 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.

>> [LAUGH]

>> Clearly, but yeah, so they got this guy.

But it looks like there was another director that got on board first, and

an up and coming filmmaker that was a classmate of George Lucas.

So he got him involved and then he was like, it's too complicated for

him 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, and he's like-

>> He's like 90 years old or

something, which is quite amazing to be honest.

>> He has to work till he dies.

>> That might be 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,

that's as true as people say.

In fact, the opening 15 minutes.

When we talk about the storyline.

>> One storyline.

>> Yeah, I mean, what did you think of it?

>> [LAUGH]

>> 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 the 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.

Could argue if they did it like the start of Wall-E 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 [SOUND] and there's just something so

grating about the way they were doing it as well.

>> Was it lumpy or scratchy or something?

I mean, 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 ten minutes in, which was last night, and I then decided I can't

do this.

So I did watch it this morning, but I didn't actually watch it the way you

watched a normal movie.

So I 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, basically I was having a jolly good time this morning.

>> So you enjoyed watching it?

>> I did.

>> Sound off at two times the speed?

>> 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, let's have a storyline,

and then we'll intercut it with song and dance numbers.

And 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.

These seasoned pros turning up, I wonder how much they get paid.

>> [LAUGH]

>> And to do their routine, obviously 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's a close up of Harrison Ford at one point.

I think during the song at the end, and you can see him just, holy shit,

what am I doing?

Fuck, what the fuck am I doing here?

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 mint.

>> He kind of hiding his, you don't really see his eyes.

>> [LAUGH]

>> And he's also looking down and

thought if I see my eyes they'll know.

>> [LAUGH]

>> Because they'll see the tears.

>> He's like, I'm not that good night or I can't pretend this is good night.

>> I mean, you've got Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher just like belting it to

the back of the auditorium, and they're just,

>> God.

>> But even weird stuff like Mark Hamill looks like he's got full

blown theatrical makeup on as well.

>> He does.

>> But I think the vague story was Chewie was trying to get home for

life date 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.

Like one point they're watching like WikiQVC,

I'd forgotten about the fucking, the cooking show,

where it's just someone following a recipe.

>> While we're stirring, we also whip.

So it's stir, whip, stir, whip, whip, whip, stir.

Stir, whip, stir, whip, whip, whip, stir.

>> We can talk about the black face.

>> The chef.

>> Yeah, he's white, like he's white.

>> Well, he plays several roles.

>> Yeah. >> I think a few of them do play

several roles out, don't they?

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

So- >> 78,

when did it become massively inappropriate?

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

>> Yeah, structurally.

>> I think by that time it was certainly, it was still around.

And I think into the 80s as well, you would get that now and again, but-

>> Yikes.

>> I'd love to see the script, because the first 15 minutes,

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

>> [LAUGH] >> I think he's on the screen and

then it's back to more Wookiees domestic.

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

Yeah, if you watch a film or a TV show with the sound off,

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

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

There's nothing wrong with the masks or anything like that.

It's Stan Winston that did the Wookiee masks before terminating all this stuff.

So that stuff's fine.

It's just this nonsensical thing.

And despite what everyone says about George Lucas hates it and

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

Nonstop Wookiee-ness was his idea and his insistence.

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

He wouldn't back down and says, if you're going to do this, it has to be Wookieetastic.

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 thing and he ordered every copy burned.

He's got more to blame for than anyone else.

It's just, I guess they could have done something with a Wookiee thing and made it much more palatable.

There's no dialogue in the first 30 minutes of Mad Max 2, I think, and that works.

I feel like either you do like a WALL-E thing where it's like a visual storyteller,

or you just give the Wookiee subtitles.

Because I generally found myself disowning out because it was just Wookiees roaring at each other.

Yeah, if only they'd known that in the 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 in one word.

I think that's what he's really saying.

[Wookiee noises]

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

because it's like, they've got the characters are there and all that stuff, but nothing,

there's nothing else, really.

It really feels like sci-fi is 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 they just, you can hear this sort of random bits of gobbledygook,

which to the layperson is probably what sci-fi actually is, you know,

when it's not really, you know, but not good sci-fi.

But this was, it just felt like it was, oh yes, Star Wars, I've seen it, okay.

And putting this, you know, we'll have little bits of shit, techno babble and whatnot.

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

but in this case, it was like particularly strong.

Is it canon or is it being aspunged?

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 canon.

The look of the Wookiees planet is that style of architecture

and is in the prequels and that comes from Ralph McQuarrie as well.

So you've got that.

Who is Ralph McQuarrie for?

He's a concept artist.

It was a big factor in getting Star Wars funded.

A lot of his designs end up in the films and a lot of his matte paintings as well.

And 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.

Yeah.

Let's find positives.

Yeah.

Can you find any positives in this?

Very, very good costumes.

Can't afford them.

The last appearance of Princess Leia's earbun,

there are her buns,

and I just never had them again.

What else?

It could have been two hours, it was only an hour and a half.

Yeah.

The cartoon wasn't terrible.

That was all right.

If that was a standalone thing.

Oh, it is now.

Disney+ released it on its own.

We will take this one part and put it over here, away from the restaurant.

Well, that makes sense because they introduced Boba Fett in that.

It was easy just to leave that off as a boss,

just to create something new from the start.

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' hometown,

or there was Star Wars characters and costumes as part of the low 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 spectator's like, "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.

Yeah.

I think one of his characters, he's just, "Just leave him alone."

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."

All things considered, did the Clone Wars and everything,

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."

You know, the breast-based name may not really fit in him anymore,

and kind of how it...

It's very sad because he's still perfectly fine acting.

Just give 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 ones?

No.

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'm always meant to watch the prequels again

before the new ones give it,

and every time I went to do it, I couldn't bring myself to it.

[LAUGHS]

It is a hate watch.

Yeah.

[LAUGHS]

The thing is, they're no longer the worst Star Wars films.

Well...

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.

[LAUGHS]

That sums it all up.

[LAUGHS]

Somehow...

Oh, yeah.

I was thinking when David Cameron came back in,

it was like, "Somehow David Cameron returns."

It was interesting what you were saying, Ella,

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 was quite little to remake the prequels,

but they're not as bad.

At least they add story.

Yeah.

The sequels that J.J. Abrams and Catherine Kenny did add nothing.

There's no imagination there or anything.

There'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 a abuse 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.

Baths of champagne, yeah.

Yeah.

But, yeah, anyway, the Star Wars holiday special.

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

That we know.

That might have been edited out.

Oh, yeah, I recorded those watching it yesterday,

so I might put in clips of his...

You're the best.

Oh.

Hey!

Who is this for?

I don't know.

He gets a USB stick off the trader,

and he's like, "This'll be pretty good."

Righty.

I thought you might like this.

One of those...

It's a real...

I don't know how you explain it.

It's a...

Wow.

I mean, 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.

What?

Never mind.

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 did like the imagery.

It's very '70s kind of stuff.

I love the song and dance numbers.

I do like the look from that year, you know,

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

kill all the depth and put it like that, you know,

and they've got the...

I think they put a backdrop, which is a shot of...

It's 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, the granddad just sat there and got a boner in front of the whole family.

I mean, I want to go back to the Wookiee.

I don't know if that's the kind of lifestyle they lead.

I remember you last night saying, "Who's 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 Wookiee.

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

That must be it, yeah.

This is one for creepy uncle Jeff.

He was just strange.

Back to your previous question about where that goes with 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...

It is like in the first five minutes, he's shown just walking precariously on top of a handrail.

And obviously, yeah, that child is going to be dead in five years.

Yeah.

He fell to the bottom of the trees.

Yeah.

But, yeah, it's a good point.

They've never mentioned this again.

Yeah.

They do show his village again.

I can't remember which movie.

I think it was in the sequels.

It's nothing.

They just chose.

They might not be...

Like, all things considered, we don't judge here.

They might be polyamorous or 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 is 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...

Burnish party.

What goes on in the Falcon stays on in the Falcon.

But what was 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 in his head, having him upside

down.

Yeah.

It's like, Wookiee.

Interesting.

Anyway.

That's definitely someone's king, 100%.

Like 100%.

The one interesting thought I had while watching this was, I was like, "Is this how the average

public 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 probably the rest of the Star Wars universe lives?"

Yeah.

I thought they'd be fighting all the time, Wookiees, but no, it's domestic bliss.

Yeah.

They can be fighting all the time.

Someone needs to be doing the cooking and masturbating, I guess, and going, "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.

He's never seen that.

So, "We've got to get the lipstick out."

Yeah.

Be like, "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 a moussepus or a like or a mammal-like.

They don't lay eggs.

Yeah.

Chewie is hiding something under that fork.

Yeah.

There needs to be some sort of attraction going on.

Oh, my gosh.

They're growers, not showers.

I'm trying to get these images that are running through my head right now out of the...

Did granddad do anything after that or was it just another...

I think it was last we saw him apart from just going, "Rrrr."

He died.

He died in the film.

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 like a big screening room surrounded by cinema screens.

It's all these images of lush green fields and valleys and stuff.

So, he's sort of surrounded by nature and then he dies and he's thinking, "Is this what

the VR scene from the holiday special is?

This is how he goes."

I wanted to steer away.

I don't want to be the one that keeps us anchored to the wanking scene.

Just one more round, friend, then a 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 midnight, friend.

The only other bit we haven't talked about is the scene in the bar with the golden girls

with the woman in the house.

Oh, yeah.

Be Arthur.

She was great.

Another example of a perfectly good actor is being...

Giving away free drink.

Oh, yeah.

Just constantly giving away free drinks.

No wonder that 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 there was just close-ups shot in little mock-up sets.

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

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 she has no idea who he is.

Yeah.

You know, because obviously, you're in love with her and then you think they know each

other.

Then after all, you realize that she has 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.

And he's still shit.

Yeah.

And then he downs a pint through her 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 we know.

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 isn't just his resting face.

Carrie Fisher does not look entirely with it either.

She's like, "Get me out of here."

A day that takes us through the darkness.

A day that leads us into light.

A day that makes us want to celebrate the night.

She shall look at show notes for links to D&D's video, 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 gontoforcast@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 think I owe you some sort of blood sacrifice.

I'll get you making mistakes.

That's okay.

That's fine.

I think I'll just get my payment in.

Reenacting that scene from Misery where Cathy Bates takes your ankles.

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

And there we go.

That'll be halfway to the competition.

So make sure you watch this.

Happy Live Day.

And remember the true meaning of Life Day as...

Uh...