The Star Wars Holiday Special/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Mike: Well, it's fairly obvious why Chewbacca volunteers for long tours of duty away from home.

  • Non Sequitur Episode: The special is this, mostly, in the larger context of the Star Wars canon.
    • Also to George Lucas and other cast members, who do their best to pretend this never happened.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: The animated segment served as the introduction of Boba Fett, the biggest ensemble darkhorse of Star Wars in general.
    • Ackmina (Bea Arthur), even more so after Arthur's death.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: One of the few things that isn't hilarious anyway — Itchy's "Holographic Wow" features a "proton pack". Clearly, bustin' isn't the only thing that makes Itchy feel good.
    • The Imperial Guard in Saun Dann's shop looks a lot like Lord Helmet.
  • Memetic Molester: Itchy has been reinterpreted as a Dirty Old Man thanks to that odd porn-esque video he watches.
  • Misblamed: Some fans blame George Lucas for the quality of this, but in reality he had very little involvement due to filming The Empire Strikes Back at the time. In fact, Lucas had one of his trusted former USC classmates installed as the initial director in order to make sure that the special would be at least somewhat faithful to the original film. Unfortunately, CBS proceeded to fire Lucas' favored director and replace him with the guy that would go on to produce Pee-wee's Playhouse. The results speak for themselves.
  • Most Annoying Sound: You will learn to hate Wookie noises by the time this special is over.
  • Narm: The whole thing, but special mention must be given to the actor cameos and the attempt at "warmhearted" holiday cheer at the end.
  • One-Scene Wonder: While the premise was as silly as the rest of it, Bea Arthur's performance as the cantina owner is actually a bit moving. Sadly, it doesn't save the rest of the thing's horribleness.
    • Same can be said about the animated segment.
  • Padding: One theory is that the special was originally to be one hour, but the network wanted to sell more advertising, so they insisted that it be expanded to two hours.
  • Snark Bait: Many, many opportunities for this. Did we mention Bea Arthur is the cantina owner?
  • So Bad It's Good: As long as you are not George Lucas.
  • So Bad It's Horrible: The more-often-stated opinion.
  • Squick: Elderly Wookiee Itchy looks like he's masturbating to holographic alien porn, which is completely wrong and disgusting no matter how far away your galaxy is. He's also watching it in the middle of his living room, in front of his daughter-in-law and grandson. Worse yet, this is apparently a common enough occurrence that they don't even bother commenting on it.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Darth Maude.
  • Took the Bad Film Seriously: Bea Arthur, alone among all the big-name guest stars. To her credit, she's talented enough to elevate her sequence into something watchable and almost poignant. She was also no stranger to 1970's variety shows, so she knew how to adapt her Deadpan Snarker Mode to the role.
  • Woobie: Krelman. Yes, he's a bit weird with his head hole, but he's so sincere and so lonely, he evokes sympathy almost accidentally.
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