A Disturbance in the Force

"A Disturbance in the Force" is quite the eye-opener, especially if you're into Star Wars. It delves deep into the odd and often overlooked 1978 'Star Wars Holiday Special.' As a life long Star Wars fan, I knew the Holiday Special existed, but had no semblance of why and how it was made (or why George Lucas was so embarrassed by it). The mix of interviews, archival clips, and fan takes makes it a fascinating watch. It's a solid 8/10 for me, offering more than just nostalgia for hardcore fans. Even if you're not a Star Wars buff, it's an intriguing look at a quirky piece of TV history. Definitely worth checking out!

You'd think that back when there were only 3 networks and no streaming services, the bar to get something on TV would have been extremely high, but you would be very, very wrong about that, and nothing exemplifies that better than TV "variety shows", with the ultimate being the one-off "variety show specials", like this one.

Young people will have a hard time grasping the magnificent awfulness of these things, but the documentary starts by pointing out - with examples - that by the standards of the time, this was no worse than a lot of others. What made it uniquely terrible was the attempt to make it both a variety show AND semi-serious Star Wars canon.

I honestly don't know if I watched it back in 1978. If I did, I wiped it from my memory. I did watch it a few years ago, after the bootleg showed up on YouTube, and it's is truly horrible. Even if you hate watch it, you need to fast forward to the "good" parts to keep from being bored and/or getting a cringe headache.

The documentary does a good job of breaking down the exact chain of events that led to the Special, and the revelation is that Lucas was far more involved than he admits to now, at least in the beginning. There's lots of entertaining commentary, both by the people involved and by modern celebrities.

I dinged it a little bit for two shortcomings: (1) I would have liked a few more clips from the Special, with direct commentary about them. They did this a few times, but a few more would save you the trouble of ever watching it.

(2) They pulled a punch by making no mention at all of the extreme amount of cocaine that was *definitely* involved in the creation of this. I'm sure they left out some good stories in that department.

Still, fun for Star Wars fans who are also fans of bad television.

You're not a real Star Wars fan if you haven't seen the 1978 Holiday Special. Although, honestly, if you had seen it back in the day, it's more likely that you wouldn't have stayed a fan. A nice documentary film about the so-called worst TV show ever, if we exclude the fact that television in the 70s of the last century was mostly at the level of such and similar achievements.

It's not a question of whether the "Star Wars Holiday Special" was a failure, it certainly was, when George Lucas himself disowned it. After all, the whole franchise has always been more of an industry for the sale of children's toys, than a serious sci-fi, driven by an idea, unlike some other series. But as bad as this incriminated special was by all parameters, it is not worse than the Disney sequels that we got this century.

On the other hand, this year we received an interesting documentary film, decently directed, fairly measured, with interviews and TV clips quite tailored, with the aim of a very realistic description of this kind of disaster. There are also reviews of the animated short and the Jefferson Starship performance, which we may or may not like. It is interesting to mention the missed opportunities for Cher, Robin Williams, and even Raquel Welch(?) to appear in the special.

It is also interesting that the question of the importance of editing was raised, which certainly contributed to the debacle of the special. Allegedly, the original film "Star Wars" was also saved in the edit, about which you can find more information on the subject on blogs and YouTube.

Will such documentaries be made and about all the failures of this serial in Disney's production in the future, I really don't believe, because they are not even worth this much mention.

I went into this documentary with an open mind, knowing that the Holiday Special was a disaster, being quite critical about the prequels and especially the Disney-Star-Wars-movies... well, this is a boring piece of... work. People were interviewed and were paid and for that? This is a boring piece about a true failure. Is this what we have come to in our era?

Also, interviewing Kevin Smith and Patton Oswalt for your documentary is perhaps as bad of a move as making a Holiday Special in itself.

The former is known for his extremely liberal remake of He-Man that flopped - which is great. The latter had every unvaxxed person banned from his comedy shows. How can you even trust the opinions of persons like this?

A Disturbance in the Force was enthusiastically received at its world premiere at SXSW Film Festival. This is a film for all of us who grew up on Star Wars; I saw the first Star Wars film in the theater when I was 7 years old. It examines the mysterious "Making of" the Star Wars Holiday Special (broadcast once in the U. S. on November 17, 1978 on CBS). The film provides the autopsy of a disaster when sci-fi people were working with variety show people in an failed attempt to produce Christmas special for kids (mainly to promote Star Wars merchandise for Xmas). This entertaining documentary, which doesn't take itself too seriously, explains how this well-intended project produced an epic failure. In so many ways, the making of a failure is much more interesting than the making of a success.

The script and acting of the Holiday Special are horrendous. Lucasfilm has refused to make it available so it is only available in the form of Betamax copies of the original broadcast that originally circulated on VHS and DVD and are now available on YouTube. Lucasfilm is too embarrassed to release so that it has become an underground cult classic. Through interviews with the participants, the film tells the hilarious story of the making of this beloved campy failure that centers on Chewbacca trying to get home to his family to celebrate the Wookie Holiday of "Life Day."

This is a fun documentary that all true fans will appreciate. After seeing it I watched the original special on YouTube. It is unwatchable, but good, because it is so bad.