MovieChat Forums > The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) Discussion > Back in '78 the Star Wars Holiday Specia...

Back in '78 the Star Wars Holiday Special was'nt so bad

posted 12 years ago by cloud7o9
45 replies | jump to latest

Consider this was before you could buy or rent movies and cable tv was in its infancy. Movies were re-released in the theaters and that was the only way of seeing them. From a child's perspective watching anything with Star Wars on your tv would have been gold. Remeber the most channels you most likely had were the three major networks. Maybe two or three UHF and a PBS. They also did a Muppets special that was pretty cheesy.

I found the SWHS here (http:)//www(.)videobb(.)com/video/1vsC31UnxkxZ
*Remove ()

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire...So nanee nanee boo boo.

[–] rogerwatersfan3 12 years ago

At the time, as a seven year old, it wasn't just "not so bad"...it was awesome! It's still not as bad as everyone lets on. I've seen worse.

[–] paul1645 12 years ago

Ok I'm intensely curious...exactly what "worse" have you seen than this?

[–] rogerwatersfan3 12 years ago

Worse than this? "Doctor Gore" (a.k.a. The Body Shop); "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed Up Zombies"; "300"...just to name a few...

[–] TheJoker35 9 years ago

You lost any credibility when naming "300" being worse than this pile of garbage.

[–] rogerwatersfan3 8 years ago

Sorry, I don't like paying to see a feature length slow motion video game commercial. At least the Holiday Special was free. lol.

[–] TheJoker35 8 years ago

Slow motion video game commercial? I don't think we saw the same movie. I think you should try watching it again. You can watch it free on Shush.

[–] tapio_hietamaki 8 years ago

I'd say that was a pretty accurate description of 300, but The Holiday Special is still a million times worse. Just because it was "free" and had the Star Wars title doesn't make it acceptable.

[–] scoops35 8 years ago

THIS WAS GAHHHHHHRBAGE!!!!

[–] triplegrim 7 years ago

I can clearly see why someone would hate '300', even though I liked the film.

Remember that TV was *beep* back then. This might have been interesting for anyone who was 9 years old.

[–] FuzzyWzhe 11 years ago

I was also 7 years old, and it was that bad and probably worse.

I remember how disappointed I was, how much I hated, and I also remember my entire school making fun of it. My entire family tuned in and and I was the youngest, after 30 minutes, even *I* at 7 years old had given up on it.

It was absolutely terrible.

[–] lesterzak 10 years ago

still my favorite star wars movie , its amazing how good star wars is without george lucas!

[–] chiaro_di_luna 12 years ago

You captured it perfectly, Cloud. I still remember that night very well.

Yes, I grew up near a major city, so we had about ten channels total. More than half of these were UHF, sometimes hard to tune in. You could not watch Star Wars, period, so a special, at home, on your TV? It was like Christmas morning.

[–] Tweekums 12 years ago

I watched it on television, I'd have been about eleven at the time, and thought most of it was pretty bad; the cartoon had a decent enough story but too much of it was boring sketches featuring characters I hadn't seen before and didn't care about. As I recall most people in my class at school felt the same way.

I'm only going to say this once: stay out of Camberwick Green - Sam Tyler

[–] dpcole7 12 years ago

Gotta agree.

At the time, it was dazzling and cool.

As an adult, it's obvious that the thing was low-budget, half the actors must have been on drugs (legal or otherwise), and every other conceivable nitpick.

And, back then, it was an age of innocence. Everybody's too self-conscious today...

Then again, maybe that's how it was back then...

[–] Htos_Drol 12 years ago

The OP nailed it, exactly. It was the only way of keeping children connected with the Star Wars universe until Empire Strikes Back came out.

I remember being so disappointed the next Christmas when SWHS did not air.

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] dalbrech 12 years ago

Exactly. Lucas green lighted this when he realised that TESB was not going to be ready until 1980;at the time the conventional wisdom was that sequel that was not out within two years of the original was going to have major problems, and Lucas felt this was a way of keeping Star Wars in the public eye.
Sadly,he took no further interest in it after greenlighting the network to do it,and has bitterly regretted the decision ever since.
As to not that bad, at the time it was blasted by the critics. It was not very good by 1978 standards. Even if you can forgive the low budget and studio setting, you cannot excuse the terrible writing and wretched performances.

I'll Teach You To Laugh At Something's That's Funny
Homer Simpson

[–] DarkATX 11 years ago

I found the 70's commercials surrounding this more enlightening...it serves as a rare window into the late 70's. I recall snippets of when it aired on TV...I was barely in grade school at the time. Looking at it now, I feared a lot worse from it than it really was.
Highlights include:

Carrie Fisher barely being able to navigate around a small table and basically needing Anthony Daniels to hold her upright by leaning on him.

Jefferson Starship had a catchy tune.

Harvey Korman in a skit that would inspire/predate Max Headroom!

Itchy and his nearly softcore porn virtual reality fantasy!

Harrison Ford was still the coolest cat in this special next to....

...the first appearance of Boba Fett ever - (in animated form mind you) but his suit remained pretty much intact when Empire was released. I do also recall them selling the action figure before the movie was released.

The animated sequence being done in Toronto by Nelvana shows early signs of the Droids & Ewoks cartoons shows done by them years later they obviously maintained similar character designs from that very special. Sure it was campy but it's an insightful look on 70's variety television and culture. I still hold a warm place for it in my heart next to Howard the Duck and other perceived 'so bad - it's almost good' flops. Look for the gold nuggets I say - or in this case - enjoy the peanuts in this turd.

[–] Enigmatic-Ocean 11 years ago

I have this on DVD (complete with commecials) and as horrible as it is, the commercials make it great!

What's so crazy about standing toe to toe with someone saying "I am"?

[–] midmich 11 years ago

I was only 3 in '78, so if the swhs was on in my house, I sure don't remember, but I can still make a claim I'm pretty comfortable with that had I been-- let's say 8 years old, I would have still hated it. The reason I think I can get away with it is a simple one: The cartoon 'Droids,' came out when I was around 9 or so, and I didn't like it. Even though that was almost 30 years ago, I still remember why I didn't like it. It gave us Star Wars, but none of the freaking things I thought was cool about Star Wars when I was a kid. No Luke? No Han? No Chewbacca?! No force? No light sabers?! C'mon! What's worse than a cartoon centered around C-3PO? A show around a bunch of damn wookies, that ain't Chewbacca, talking in jibberish. Hence, I know I would have hated that holiday special, and I probably would have conked out before the cartoon.

I can't think of any other examples right now, but I swear TV executives back in the day, whenever they wanted to translate something to small screen, they first insisted ripping out everything cool about said subject, before greenlighting a project. Wait, I just thought of one example. The D&D cartoon. "Hey fellow TV executives. Instead of making some cool character kids will love, who kicks ass, even in mild cartoon standards, let's use children who are bad at everything they do. And for God's sake! Nobody gets a sword! No dammit! You give that guy a shield, but no sword!" It was like everything had to go some sort of Hanna Barbera shenanigan machine no matter what it was, to be fit for child consumption. I remember that unless I was watching Deputy Dawg, I really didn't take much interest in that. Maybe that's why I liked GI Joe, Blackstar, & Transformers cartoons so much. While, it was super mild violence, it still had the conventions I thought were cool about their concepts.

[–] holtom5 11 years ago

The D&D cartoons were awesome. I can't let that go unchallenged.

The heroes may not have had swords but in every other way it was as dark and violent as they could possibly get away with. In fact, they didn't get away with it: first they had to put warnings that the show was supposedly implicated in several RL deaths, then CBS cancelled it outright (despite it being one of the top-rated shows).

[–] utherpend 11 years ago

It was terrible even in the 70's. I was 13 years old when it came out and I remember turning to my Mom while watching it and stating, "If this is what the next movie is going to be like I will pass". I had read in several magazines that the best part of the special was the cartoon and that is what was waiting for and suffering through to see. Needless to say after it went off I never wanted to see it again.

[–] YouKnowMyName68 11 years ago

@ the OP:

It was and is bad, I had seen this in 1978 here in San Francisco, I think it aired on Channel 7. The only segment that I like was the animated segment. Plus, I knew that the animation work was done by Nelvana, which I was a very devoted fan of.

"You know, my name..."