Why The 'Star Wars Holiday Special' Was One Of The Best Things To Happen To The Franchise

Not A Bad Thing After All

By Culture SlatePublished 2 years ago • 3 min read

"I'm not convinced the special wasn't ultimately written and directed by a sentient bag of cocaine."

This quote from Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club is but one of the many reviews written for the Star Wars Holiday Special, the infamous Star Wars TV special that was aired once on November 17, 1978 and then never again. In light of the original film's immense worldwide success, CBS opted to create a full two-hour long special dedicated to the still fledgling franchise. For this special, George Lucas decided to bring back the main cast of the film, along with an appearance from Darth Vader via unused footage from the movie.

Though the special started off decently enough, with Lucas originally wanting a story focused on Han Solo getting Chewbacca back to his family for Life Day, the special would soon escape his control and evolve into the notorious train wreck we know and love. After losing its original director and bringing on more and more writers for the script, the special went from a relatively simply story about the Wookiee and his family to an overlong, overstuffed variety show filled with random tangents, bizarre celebrity cameos, and awkward performances from the entire cast.

While many see this special as one of the franchise's low points, I can't help but feel a bit of appreciation for it all these years later. What I mean is that this special was the first official Star Wars project to utterly flop, and be panned by critics and viewers alike. Without that, I'm not sure if there would've been another low bar for the rest of the franchise to try and avoid. At the time, Lucas and his growing company were at the top of the world. The original Star Wars was still grossing money like mad, and merchandising was off the charts. Though the Holiday Special didn't truly taint the growing franchise in the long run, it certainly had to have been a wake-up call for Lucas and his team that Star Wars wasn't invincible.

Lucas would have a similar experience the following year with More American Graffiti, the sequel to his hit 1973 classic American Graffiti. Despite keeping a close eye on the sequel's production and being quite confident in its success, the film would go on to be panned by critics and make a minimal profit at the box office. Much like how the Holiday Special showed Lucas Star Wars wasn't untouchable, More American Graffiti must have been a similar wake-up call to the fact that a sequel to a popular film may not be a guaranteed success. Along with many other factors, I believe the tanking of both these projects helped push Lucas and company to make The Empire Strikes Back as good as it could possibly be, rather than just coasting on the success of the previous film.

In this regard, I think the Star Wars Holiday Special was a crucial learning point for Lucas, Lucasfilm and the Star Wars franchise as a whole. No project, no matter the property, is guaranteed to succeed critically or financially. The special became a shining example of how not to handle a Star Wars project, making the newfound Lucasfilm acutely aware of how easily things could fall apart for them. Without the knowledge of how far the franchise could fall, The Empire Strikes Back may not have been treated with the same care and diligence as it would have otherwise. In learning from their mistakes with the Holiday Special, Lucas and his associates improved their craft and made sure that their future projects never met a similar fate. In the words of Yoda, "The greatest teacher failure is."

Written By Zach Bernard

Syndicated From Culture Slate

Join The Team

star wars