A Disturbance In The Force Is An Absolute Must Watch

I watched the Star Wars Holiday Special as it aired on that fateful day in mid-November 1978. I'll be honest that my two lasting memories of that viewing have nothing to do with the show itself. First, I remember my father being visible upset with how terrible it was. Star Wars (before it was A New Hope) is what turned my father into something of a film buff. Prior to that, he was never a cinephile. He was every bit the Star Wars fan that his son was, so his disappointment was palpable. The second thing I remember is getting in a fight with a kid down the street because he insisted that airing on November 17th, 1978 was the actual Star Wars movie. The fight wasn't because I was offended. I was far too young for that sort of thing. It was borne out of frustration that an utter untruth was being spoken into the universe and going uncorrected. You know. Like when someone would say something ridiculous, such as Aquaman could beat up Superman, and only a headlock could get them to retract that utter nonsense.

As far as the content of the show, I pretty much blocked it out instantly. I was just short of six years old when it aired, and I think it was too bizarre for me to comprehend. I locked it away in the recesses of my mind. Then I can remember some time in the early nineties when some Star Wars chat with friends turned to the subject of the Holiday Special, and the memories came flooding back. It was like finding out that thing you through you dreamed actually happened. It would become a minor obsession of mine in the following years. A decade or so later, the entire Holiday Special landed on YouTube, complete with commercials. I felt like Quaid in Total Recall finally learning the truth of my suppressed past. I also learned that if you really love your family, you will choose Duncan Hines cake mix over their competitors.

There were two sea-changing companies of my youth: Luscafilm and Atari. Both companies were historically innovative. One revolutionized an industry, and the other invented one. For that reason I think I conflate their stories in my mind. I had long assumed that the Holiday Special resulted from a bunch of LFL creatives imbibing illicit substances while on the clock, and spinning the trippiest yarn possible while under the influence. The documentary, A Disturbance in the Force, makes it clear that I was far from the mark. Like all good historical documentaries, A Disturbance in the Force, knows that in order to cover its subject, a wider understanding of the contemporary culture has to be established. No documentary about the moon landing is worth its salt if it doesn't establish the cultural paranoia over losing the space race to the Soviets. A Disturbance in the Force first makes it clear that the Holiday Special is only notorious because it's Star Wars. The era of the late seventies was replete with other cringeworthy variety shows:


That's Paul Lynde as the captured Imperial Officer. The camp factor is off the charts. Kris Kristofferson as Han Solo buys back a little cool factor, though. The Star Wars Holiday Special is actually unremarkable among a sea of other bad contemporary variety shows.

Another thing the documentary does a great job of establishing is that time between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back was a rare moment in the history of Lucasfilm. After the success, of Empire, LFL became much more button downed. Button downed flannel, but still buttoned down. In that three year window between Star Wars and Empire, LFL was more loose and perhaps even a tad sloppy. After the success of Empire, the Star Wars franchise became an indelible franchise in the pop culture. Prior to that, it was no sure thing. Remember, this was before VCRs and the ability to watch movies at home. Films were fleeting in the public consciousness. After their theatrical run, they faded from public thought until they would be briefly resuscitated as a "movie of the week" on broadcast television.

Wanting stay in the forefront of public consciousness during this in-between time lead LFL to become very liberal when it came to sharing its intellectual property. That is one of the reasons for the "why" of the Holiday Special, but it doesn't explain how it became so foreign to Star Wars fans in its camp and cringe. That is explained by every single Lucasfilm influence eventually departing the project until it was left in the hands of veteran variety television producers. And that is how a kids holiday special ends up being helmed by the likes of Bea Arthur, Art Carney, and Harvey Korman (not to be confused with Harvey Norman).

There are so many more gems in A Disturbance in the Force. I'm only scratching the surface here as this article jumped the shark into "TL;DR" territory three paragraphs ago. I didn't even get into Art Carney's unreliable sobriety after lunchtime, Gus Lopez's ownership of one of the holo-tumbler's costumes, the Chewbacca family prototype Kenner figures, and it has more Bruce Vilanch than two seasons worth of Hollywood Squares. I loved this documentary and will come back to it often.

You can buy the digital version HERE for $10, and the physical media versions HERE. I think it's well worth it.

---

comments powered by Disqus