STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL - REVIEW

Of all the bad movies I managed to acquire this year (Catwoman, The Room, Troll 2) THIS is the one  I was waiting for. The Star Wars film that makes Episode I feel like Goodfellas and those Ewoks movies look like Avatar. A cinematic fail unlike any other, this is one experience you'll never forget.

For one thing the first 20 minutes or so is almost silent except for the ear-raping wails and moans of Chewbacca's ugly-ass family. No subtitles, no words: just noises for 20 loooong minutes. It's unwatchable. Then, we're basically treated to the family's entertainment throughout the evening all displayed on various screens around the house.

Harvey Korman pops up no less than 3 times, one of them in drag (and, um, questionable make-up) and if that's not exciting enough for ya, there's also Wookie porn, green-screened acrobats, Jefferson Starship's soporific music video and a truly ungodly "Life Day" celebration in which Carrie Fisher does her best (and worst) Julie Andrews impression.

The main Star Wars cast pops up fleetingly and the only one leaving the show with any sort of dignity is James Earl Jones who only appears for one or two brief bits as Vader but checks out super early. Everyone else suffers greatly and hearing Han Solo say the words "Look at Lumpy..." is not something I ever wanted to picture, let alone see!

Apart from the clearly dirt-cheap budget, what really kills this "special" is how odd and frankly inept its choices are. Beatrice Arthur? Yeah, because when I think Star Wars I think old man-like lady. The guest stars are just weird and miscast. I mean, I like Harvey Korman and the man can be very funny but he is absolutely excruciating here and about as funny as Chewie's anus. Then there's the fact that we're following screaming Wookies throughout rather than, oh I don't know, ANYONE ELSE!!!

It's like making a Christmas Special centered around Jar Jar Binks' family a year after Episode I's release.

This is mad.

The show even fails resoundingly as a kids' special! The Diahann Carroll segment, besides boasting a decent-enough trippy as f*** tune, is essentially about Chewie's dad watching space porn and getting aroused.

Y'know, for kids!

Then there's the Bea Arthur segment which isn't too awful but far too slow to entertain little kids. Oh and kids surely have no interest in Wookie noises, cooking shows (with no real recipes) and instructional videos (with no real instructions) do they? Yes there's a cartoon and it is by far the best thing in this trippy nightmare but even that is flawed as hell! Every character looks like they're made of gum and there's a dinosaur which looks exactly like a cock. Yay! Merry Life Day!

Seriously: what WERE they thinking with this?

Oh don't get me wrong, if you like bad movies this is gold! But even so you'll find that getting through the whole thing requires great patience and a lot of coffee. A LOT of coffee.

Overall: yes, it is as bad as people say so unless you like epic turkeys I would stay far, far away from this galaxy. Not a hard feat seeing as it's pretty rare.

Ass Wars.