With [George Lucas]'s attention elsewhere during most of its production, The Star Wars Holiday Special metastasized into a monster. Two directors and much turmoil later, the finished special didn’t so much resemble its namesake as it did another science-fiction film: The Thing with Two Heads. Onto the body of Lucas’s sentimental and irony-free Wookiee plotline, the producers and writers grafted a campy 70s variety show that makes suspension of disbelief impossible. In between minutes-long stretches of guttural, untranslated Wookiee dialogue that could almost pass for avant-garde cinema, Maude’s Bea Arthur sings and dances with the aliens from the movie’s cantina scene; The Honeymooners’ Art Carney consoles Chewbacca’s family with such comedy chestnuts as “Why all the long, hairy faces?”; Harvey Korman mugs shamelessly as a multi-limbed intergalactic Julia Child cooking “Bantha Surprise”; the Jefferson Starship pops up to play a number about U.F.O.’s; and original Star Wars cast members Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill walk around looking cosmically miserable.
"For someone so careful as Lucas, the special was an incomprehensible miscalculation."
-
Off to the great Car Farm up state
I'm now carless, by choice. I've had this 1998 Honda Civic since 2008, when I got it to replace the 1988 Accord I'd gotten in 1997. Like the Accord,…
-
A quick one tonight:
Word. by Christopher Walsh, 2/25/2021 Thank you, words: You let me see What I can do With you. I'll make sure to use you well. © Christopher…
-
Plenty of times, things aren't dramatic. Like now.
A quiet day. A day at home: a bath, a bit of reading, doing a crossword, some time sitting with a cat on my lap, taking time to make a filling dinner…
- Post a new comment
- 3 comments
- Post a new comment
- 3 comments