I’m one of those oddball Star Wars fans who enjoys the storied – quite possibly infamous – 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special, but more than that, I try to introduce new people to it. Much like the pre-digital-era Mystery Science Theater 3000 mantra of “keep circulating the tapes!”, I make it a point to share the horrors weird disco-era fun of the Holiday Special with those who haven’t seen it. Am I in violation of copyright? Sure, probably. But this is an instance where I’m proud of it. It’s a tradition to watch it every year – yes, right around Life Day (November 17th) – and rope someone new into the show’s orbit. I am a carrier of fan culture.
Of course, it’s all the more deliciously funny that the Holiday Special has been roundly disowned by almost all involved, has never been repeated, and only exists because at least couple of people in the United States made off-air recordings onto Betamax tape. If not for those pesky (and, it must be said, historically well-circulated) videotapes, the Holiday Special would almost be an urban myth. But those tapes existed. They were ported over to digital formats and circulated. It’s almost as if someone had credible videotape of sasquatch from multiple angles. Except instead of videotape of sasquatch, it’s videotape of Wookiees engaging in their Wookiee domestic lives, speaking Wookiee-speak without a hint that anybody ever thought to subtitle them. And that’s as normal as it gets – it only gets weirder from there. And with those of us who saw the Holiday Special as kids now well into middle age, of course there’s a documentary film on the topic.
The surprise is that, even if you’re not that into the topic at hand, it’s a completely engrossing pop culture history lesson. A hefty portion of A Disturbance In The Force: How The Star Wars Holiday Special Happened is devoted to context – the context of the relationship between film and TV from a promotional standpoint, which, in the 1970s, meant getting the stars of your movie slots not just on talk shows and news interviews, but in variety shows as well, which were an ever-present, still hugely-popular form of entertainment that seems impossibly quaint by modern standards. When CBS expressed an interest in building an entire variety show around Star Wars, with heavy involvement from Lucasfilm, everyone saw dollar signs and high ratings. George Lucas himself floated a fairly comprehensive story outline – and then, after appointing a USC classmate of his, David Acomba, as the show’s director, ducked out of further involvement because of the production demands of The Empire Strikes Back.
But Acomba, a veteran of concert films, was ill-prepared for the demands of variety TV, and was deposed after only a few days of production that also chewed through the majority of the special’s allotted budget. And that’s when everything gets crazy: CBS brought in its own people, who had deep old-school showbiz ties to things such as The Carol Burnett Show which, though still popular at the time, was likely not what the predominantly young Star Wars audience would’ve considered hip. And suddenly Bea Arthur’s singing in the cantina and dancing with Walrus Man. As you do. Disturbance does get around to lambasting the Holiday Special, and lovingly rolling out pop culture clips referencing it, from The Goldbergs to Weird Al music videos to Robot Chicken, but by that point, they’ve very thoroughly (and entertainingly) explained the circumstances in which the special happened, and have absolved all involved. I also liked finding out that some of those interviewed have – as I do – a deep love for the not-quite-fully-formed period between Star Wars and Empire, where the world-building hadn’t set in concrete yet and everything was up for grabs, be it the Holiday Special or Jaxxon.
I can’t even begin to imagine how much of this film’s budget was almost certainly swallowed whole by clearances for these many clips. Highlights from a Star Wars-focused episode of the Donny & Marie Show are shown, with Donny Osmand interviewed at length about it, along with clips of other prime time specials that involve everyone from Raquel Welch to Wayne Newton and Shamu the killer whale (no, I’m not making that up – there’s simply no way that I could). The point is made that there were far worse variety specials in this same era of television, but none of them had the good fortune of being a supposedly official part of Star Wars lore, where the Holiday Special is forever enshrined. While everyone’s taking their potshots at the Holiday Special, it’s disheartening to hear that Donny Osmond roundly regrets the very existence of the show that made him a star. That regret comes from – imagine this – everyone taking decades of potshots at it. The film very slyly drops this contrast into the proceedings for the audience to ponder, without beating them over the head with it.
One of the things that really stuck with me after watching the movie was the discussion of the desperate attempts to keep Star Wars in the pop culture conversation, which led directly to the many bizarre variety and comedy show appearances by elements of the freshly minted franchise. The same week that I watched this movie, David Tennant’s latest exit episode of Doctor Who aired, in which he handed the show off to incoming star Ncuti Gatwa. Russell T. Davies took to social media urging fans to stay off the internet until they’d seen the episode, because the BBC would begin rolling out its social media blitz the moment the show was over – and “the moment the show was over” is no exaggeration. If you didn’t want that episode in real time, and wanted to remain unspoiled, you were screwed the moment you hit social media. Never mind struggling to place your stars or elements of your movie in front of the public months later – now we can scarcely wait one second after the end credits roll to begin that effort, because audience attention is now so fragmented.
Disturbance is also heavily bittersweet. The length of the documentary’s production spanned so much time that some of the prominent interviewees, such as Gilbert Gottfried and J.W. Rinzler (author of The Making Of Star Wars). Archival interviews from sources ranging from cassette tapes to previous television appearances allow Bea Arthur, Carrie Fisher, Charles Lippincott, Ken & Mitzi Welch, and others to be heard. They also give David Acomba a voice in the proceedings from past interviews; though still living, Acomba refused to be interviewed for Disturbance (and his refusal is played back in the film).
But perhaps the most deliciously tantalizing clips of all are from the Holiday Special itself – from what looks like it must be the original master videotape (the entire thing was shot on video) from the Lucasfilm archives. It exists. The footage looks reasonably good for its age (I’d almost like to send it to the group of experts who have lovingly restored classic Doctor Who to ready-for-blu-ray condition). Though some of the celebrity interviewees advocate for allowing the Holiday Special to languish in the allure of a forbidden bootleg copy of a decades-old Betamax tape, I think Disney should clean it up and release it to streaming. Let the Special be seen again. As a portion of the documentary points out, the Life Day lore, Boba Fett, and so many other elements of the franchise, prominent or not, owe their existence to this show. Let’s see it again as it was originally intended – even if it’s missing the New York news anchor who is forever embroiled in his eternal fight with the frizzies. Set the Holiday Special free from the vaults. Let modern eyes see it and judge it anew.
Until then, I give my highest recommendations to A Disturbance In The Force. It’s one of the fairest, most well-thought-out pop culture/entertainment documentaries I’ve ever seen, which is all the more remarkable due to how much of a national pastime it is to mercilessly dogpile the topic it covers.
