and so it seems, dear reader, that another year shall pass without my dream being made real. that dream, look you see, is of course the release of Christmas with The Stone Roses by The Stone Roses. many, to be sure, believe that the band shall not perform together again; others hope that a third album by them will come along. i am in the latter group, and what better time for them to do a record than at Christmas with a Christmas theme?
no matter. let us not lament, to be sure, the cards we wanted but instead play the cards as they have been dealt. this means turning our attention, perhaps once more on this blog, to the legendary, infamous and distinctly not celebrated Star Wars Holiday Special.
there is every chance that i have covered this curiosity before. certainly, there are absolute acres of articles and what have you all across the internet on the subject. yes, also copies of the actual show, if i may call it such, are fairly easy to access. also on the internet.
what is it, for those unaware? a - get this - "musical special" made for the holidays in America, 1978. ostensibly, with their secular ways to such things, the "holiday" in question would presumably be the Thanksgiving one, although much of the rest of the world took it as being a Christmas one.
yes, it's bad. bad, bad, bad. there is perhaps one redeeming feature of it, what we will get to later, but even then there's nothing to say that the one redeeming feature of it wouldn't have simply happened at a later stage anyhow.
plot? ostensibly, Han Solo and Chewbacca are heading to Chewbacca's home planet, Kashyyyk, or if you like Wookie Planet C (no me neither), so that Chewie (as he is affectionately known) may reunite with his Wookie brethren to celebrate something called Life Day. i would take it as Life Day translates as the Wookie, or if you will Star Wars equivalent of Thanksgiving in America; Christmas to the remainder of the world what doesn't do Thanksgiving.
yes, as the pictures above and below show, interior design and decor on this Wookie planet seems to have been inspired by late 70s American fashions. it's a massive universe, so in many ways it is reassuring to know that lots of things remain the same in different corners of it.
oh, the music? quite a fair bit of late 70s style American disco is performed in it. also, most memorably for most, Princess Leia sings a song along to the Star Wars theme towards the end of it. no, none of the songs are any good or particularly memorable. at all.
the one redeeming aspect of this Star Wars Holiday Special? for some, many, if not all who have seen it, that would be the first appearance proper of the character Boba Fett. he, the bounty hunter, is widely regarded as the third best person ever to appear in Star Wars, just behind Lando and Lobot.
in truth, and in fairness, the cartoon segment out of this Holiday Special is pretty good. on a broad level it shows just how much scope and space there was for loads and loads and loads of good quality stories to happen in the Star Wars universe. this of course has not happened as such as yet, at least not officially. many fans, however, have gone off and created their own stories and adventures set in the created worlds.
now then, Harrison Ford. it is widely known that he didn't really want to be involved in Star Wars by the time of the second film proper, The Empire Strikes Back. he regularly lobbied to have his character, Han Solo, killed off. there's never been much in the way of questions asked as to why he wanted out. perhaps, maybe, it was his experiences with this Holiday Special which told him, or his inner voice, that maybe he should opt out.
presumably, or maybe, then, Harrison Ford either did no drugs at all, or not as many as his illustrious co-stars on the Holiday Special, and could see early days that this wasn't going to go down as well as anyone might have expected or hoped. that, to me, would explain in part why he was so relatively keen to get out of something what had brought worldwide fame and adoration.
the creator of Star Wars and, presumably as a consequence, the Holiday Special? in the rare instances where George Lucas has spoken of it he seems none too thrilled that one or two people at the time thought to video it off the tele and keep the tapes. from what i can recall the most memorable quote off of Mr Lucas about the Holiday Special is the one where he said he'd like to take a hammer and smash every single copy of it. oh.
indeed, in the above one can see Chewbacca wearing a red gown. this is, apparently a big thing for Wookies when they celebrate Life Day. now that i think, i don't recall any reference to Life Day, or Chewbacca wearing a red robe, in any of the other more conventional Star Wars films. perhaps, by chance, they were just all set at a time not near the date.
one of the most remarkable things about the Holiday Special is how many adverts are in it. most uploads to the internet have the entire thing. whilst the running time is just slightly south of two hours, it feels like somewhere north of forty minutes of that is advertisement breaks, maybe more.
if you are a Star Wars fan and for some reason this blog post is your first ever encounter with the Holiday Special, a reasonable question would be whether or not it is worth your time finding it. yes, i suppose. whilst you never ever get the time back you use for anything, this is however an incident where you will regret using said time the way you did. the curiosity factor about it does not sustain across the entire running length of it.
anyway, that will do for that.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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