Star Wars Holiday Special Released on DVD

Crow T. Trollbot writes "LucasFilm has finally released the long-delayed and never-awaited Star Wars Holiday Special (aka A Very Wookiee Christmas) on a special "Platinum Edition" DVD. Long maligned as the worst project ever associated with the Star Wars universe, the LucasFilm DVD includes all the original special (complete with Bea Arthur, Art Carney, Harvey Korman, and The Jefferson Starship), plus a short documentary, The Highway to Life Day: My Search for the Star Wars Holiday Special. The reviewer isn't impressed. "If you want to hang onto any fond childhood memories George Lucas hasn't already managed to destroy, avoid The Star Wars Holiday Special like the Crimson Plague.""

Comments

first post!!!!!

[wildchild978]

YEAH BABY YEAH!!! don't use caps... it's like Yelling

Is it just me

[jam244]

Is it just me or is this the world /. April Fool's Day EVER?

Re:Is it just me

[Wandering Wombat]

It might be you, if that sentence made any sense......

April Fools Jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

/unsubscribe

really hilarious

[jagsy]

I seem to remember 10 full minutes of nothing but Wookies talking, and a rock concert by jefferson starship inside a computer.

Re:really hilarious

[cmburns69]

And who could forget a tone-deaf Princess Leia signing the fabulous Life Day song:

LEIA
(singing)
We celebrate a day of peace. A day of
harmony. A day of joy we can all share
together joyously. A day that takes us
through the darkness. A day that leads us
into might. A day that makes us want to
celebrate the light. A day that brings the
promise that one day, we'll be free to
live, to laugh, to dream, to grow, to
trust, to love, to be.

(Lyrics and complete transcript.)

Re:really hilarious

[neurojab]

I seem to remember 10 full minutes of nothing but Wookies talking, and a rock concert by jefferson starship inside a computer.

No... hilarious is watching someone get hit on the head with a "gong" sound effect.

The star wars holiday special, on the other hand, is sheer pain - only to be enjoyed by Star Wars fans that have a truly masochistic side.

Try, just try, to watch "Itchy" (chewie's elderly father) use a holo-imaging-device to get off to Diahann Carroll.

Then try to watch Mark Hammil with enough make up on to pass for a drag queen, hug a wookie.

I'm sorry, it's not funny. It's just too horrible to watch. I've seen it, but not all at once. I can only take it in small doses.

Something happened 04/01

[PMJ2kx]

Slashdot gets slashdotted! Film at 11!

In other news

[Man in Spandex]

George Lucas is being praised by hardcore Star Wars fans around the world in the Netherlands begging for his autograph on a picture of Jar Jar Binks :X

Re:In other news

[Wandering Wombat]

How can he be priased by hardcore fans around the world only in the Netherlands? Thats like saying I have girlfriends around the world, a few blocks away.

Ebay

[thesupermikey]

I just bought a bootleg on ebay...like 3 days ago. I wonder if i can get out if it.

Re:Ebay

[ackthpt]

I just bought a bootleg on ebay...like 3 days ago. I wonder if i can get out if it.

How much did the seller pay you to take it of their hands?

Re:Ebay

[GeorgeMcBay]

Man, you never have moderator points when you really need 'em.

Mod parent up +10 Funny.

Of course, the fact that every single April 1st day joke I've seen on the net this year has been totally stupid & not at all funny might be altering my standards of funny today.

Re:Ebay

[thesupermikey]

Man i paid like 50$. I figure thats a good deal for a beta-max copy.

Damn

[code shady]

I bet all those Great Slashdot Blackout dorks are sitting in their basements smug as hell right now.

First Post!

[Anonymous Coward]

April fool day sux

There is need for ...

[Tribbin]

There is need for more humor at work.

It increases productivity as you see how much is getting done on april 1st.

Please

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please, God, please speed up time to make April 2 arrive faster.

Help!

[valkraider]

When will it end...

Wow....new stories every 3 minutes now...

[GillBates0]

Even the trolls're having trouble keeping up with the editors today. Looks like every April Fool story submitted is making it through :)

Appreciate their (the editors') special effort today though...had my bellyfool of laughs through the day.

Hope the whiny comment posters would STFU though. Lighten up folks.

Re:Wow....new stories every 3 minutes now...

[ConceptJunkie]

After 6 years or so of the same lame crap I think we have a right to whine. If it were clever, I wouldn't complain. If it were funny, I wouldn't complain. If it involved more than two neurons worth of creativity I wouldn't complain. It's just sad really. A good April Fool's joke looks real at first, until you read it. A good April Fool's joke taker you by surprise. And finally, a good April Fool's joke isn't as dumb as a box of hammers.

Besides, don't tell us not to whine, it's the official pastime of /.

I'm glad I wasn't aware of this Special when I was 12 because it would been really embarrassing to be expecting something really cool (after all the movie was life-alteringly cool for someone my age) and having my parents wonder what kind of childish crap this Star Wars thing was after seeing Itchy and Scratchy and Poochy and Bea Arthur. Actually, my Dad knew the movie was cool, he went with me.

I have this morbid fascination with relentlessly bad kitsch, perhaps from a dozen years of watching MST3K, or maybe it's generic in those of us who grew up in the 70's, and I downloaded (yes, MPAA, come and get me) the SWHS or whatever it was called, and I have to say, even though parts of it were so bad I got cancer and died twice, it wasn't all bad.

As probably noted elsewhere, the Boba Fett cartoon was actually pretty cool, and drawn in a really neat style that is not unlike Genndy Tartakovsky's (however you spell it) work. I was actually impressed at the concept of long scenes acted out with no English dialog (in a suburban American kitchen... it was a cool idea, but not well executed).

The musical numbers were like some kind of nightmare after eating $20 of food at Taco Bell, and after about the first half you realize it's actually more dull than bad (and it's really bad). But still it's a fascinating example of the fact that despite his brilliance in many respects George Lucas could (and still can) be a total hack.

Stir, whip

[ichthus]

Sure, April fools and all that. Was it really that bad? I think I was 7 or so when it was aired. All I remember is Chewie's mom watching a cooking show. On the show, a four-armed woman was cooking and utilizing all of her four arms to mix, pour, sift, etc. Chewie's mom was getting flustered, because she couldn't keep up. The four-armed chef was saying, "Stir... whip... stir... whip...," and mamma wookie was howling or barking, or whatever it is that pissed-off wookies do.

Re:Stir, whip

[neurojab]

Was it really that bad?

It's all relative I suppose. Was the black plague bad?

Re:Stir, whip

[Deosyne]

Yeah, but it sure beat watching the Star Wars Holiday Special.

Seriously, its really that bad.

Uh-huh

[fpp]

This coming from the guy who said if he had a hammer and enough time he'd track down every bootlegged copy of the show and smash it...

Now it's getting really annoying ...

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Jokes stop being funny at some point, where they start being annoying. And This joke was never fun in the same place, since this kind of behavior from the editors is the kind we get everyday in /. (dupes, false historys, etc.), only today they are actually making an effort to do it worse than they do everyday.

Please God Make It Stop.

[Anonymous Coward]

We've only had about 4 real stories today, and most /.ers are staying away.

What happened to April Fool's jokes stopping at 12 midday?
Wouldn't that be a nice tack to take for next year?

Or how about one story next year that is just for people to put all the April Fools jokes in the comments so we don't have to get a load of stories on the front page about them?

Re:Third post!

[wildchild978]

dude! can't you count? 1...2...3...4...5! Fifth post. Mmmkay?

Re:please please please

[charleste]

Although this is *probably* an April 1st post: I *did* see this special as a little kid - I was 10 years old. To me, the cool part was that we finally got to see another Wookie.

Re:Third post!

[BTWR]

I think that instead of trying to subtlely plant a fake April Fool's joke somewhere on the main page, the guys at Slashdot decided to be real toungue-in-cheek and post nothing (or almost nothing) but ridiculously fake/campy stories (SW Christmas Special! Yahoo+Google=YaGoohoo!gle, etc.)

Personally, I don't think there was a possibility of falling for anything today, so I think this idea was the next best idea. Much better than unsucessfully posting one fake story and instantly having the first post prove it as a joke.

Exclusive!

[The-Bus]

Wow, it looks like scans of the cover have already hit the net.

*sigh*

The main problem I have

[muertos]

And it's just like the old debate about if a tree falls in a forest...I have these modpoints, but it's April 1st...

Good grief

[Mascot]

All other sites on the net: Be careful so you don't get caught out by the april fool joke.

Slashdot: No worries. They're all jokes. Go elsewhere for real news.

This is one tradition I could do without.

Re:Filter?

[op12]

Yes, just redirect Slashdot to here.

Re:Seriously

[falxx]

The problem tho', is that this isn't one.

It's just a -very- bad memory, to some.

At one point, Lucas himself was actually trying to buy up all masters, just to stop it from broadcasting ever again. He failed [;

Purists beware

[varmint jerky]

Yes, but I hear that in this edition Diahann Carroll shoots first...

worst project

[HermDog]

Long maligned as the worst project ever associated with the Star Wars universe

Well, that was before Jar-jar and mitocondria came along.

wait a minute...

[SkippyTPE]

Long maligned as the worst project ever associated with the Star Wars universe

I thought that was Episode one??

Fool me

[Richard Allen]

You can fool me once.
You can fool me twice.
You can fool me three times.
You can fool me four times.
You can fool me five times.
You can fool me six times.
You can fool me seven times.
You can fool me eight times.
You can fool me nine times.
You can fool me ten times.
You can fool me eleven times.
You can fool me twelve times.
You can fool me thirteen times.
You can fool me fourteen times.
You can fool me fifteen times.

But you can't fool me sixteen times!!

Re:Fool me

[jon_c]

You must be nearly a 4 bits!

Hollywood won't fool me again!

[rjelks]

There's no way I'm going right out to buy this. Just wait, six months after I purchase it, they'll come out with the Star Wars Holiday Special: Extreme, Director's Cut, Extended Version. I already own like nine versions of the LOTR DVD's.

It's my #1 eMule download...

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Here's the really sick part.

I have an eMule repository with a bunch of documents, legit software, a few cracks, Mame roms and lost videos like the Star Wars Holiday special. No porn, no warez.

The Star Wars Holiday special is *easily* my number one upload... 235MB of cheese in two .avi files.

Bah

[saddino]

Since I already own the way superior LaserDisc edition, why should I care?

P.S. Does anyone know if there's a tube amp powered MP3 player? I want some way of adding back the "warmth" to my ripped ELO LPs. TIA.

Re:Bah

[Student_Tech]

I don't know about a dedicated tube amp mp3 player, but I remember seeing a motherboard a few weeks ago with tubes in the built-in sound card stuff.
Found the product page and there is quite a bit on google from pre-April 1st, so I think that one is real.
So get the motherboard and you could build your own mp3 player, although it probably won't be as portable as you might like.

The real reason why Lucas is not publically...

[SageMadHatter]

...releasing the SWHS footage... he plans of inserting it into the original triology for the next revision that he will be doing to it.

Come on!

[neckdeepinspecialsau]

You guys could at least put a little effort into this!

Re:Third post!

[Karma Farmer]

What, exactly, would a subtle Slashdot April Fools joke look like? Perhaps they'd mispell a word or two? Maybe the writeups wouldn't match the article? The writeup would be a blatant troll? They'd post the same story three times in the same day?

Seriously, what could they do to be "subtle"?

Seriously, Please DONT...

[Valiss]

...give George Lucas any new ideas. I swear he'll take this and run.

If only it were true

[bubkus_jones]

I'd buy it.

This is real! Video Here!

[Mr_J_Bean]

Who knew this really existed! Video linked here

Public Service Messages!

[bitrex]

I want the Star Wars public service message collection on DVD!

C3PO - "R2D2! You're on fire! Why, R2D2 you've found a cigarette. Smoking is terrible for your lungs, and very bad for your heart. I don't think it makes you look grownup at all!"

Episode One

[denissmith]

I saw Episode One, and this can't be worse than that.