“Stir, whip, stir, whip, whip, whip, stir, beat.”

Yep, The Star Wars Holiday Special is quite literally every bit as bad as its reputation would make you think, if not even worse. I decided a little bit ago that I was going to watch all of the Star Wars movies that I hadn’t seen before, which of course, just included the extremely random ones that no one ever talks about (except this one, but for only bad reasons). I thought that I would just get this out of the way first, and I’m so glad that I’m never ever going to watch this hunk of junk ever again.

If you don’t know, the “story” revolves around Han Solo and Chewbacca trying to get back to Chewie’s family for this holiday called Life Day, a holiday that the Wookiees especially celebrate. Yes, you heard that right - Chewbacca has a family in this one. That concept for a TV Christmas special actually doesn’t sound half bad, and especially reminds me of the simplicity of something like The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, but the thing is, Han and Chewbacca are barely in this thing at all. They probably have a combined total of somewhere around two minutes of screen time until we get to the very end, which just makes absolutely no sense. You’d think that they would be the main focus of this just because of what the concept kind of expects you to think, but nope.

Instead, whenever we aren’t doing something completely out of nowhere that feels exactly like a fever dream (don’t worry, I will get to that), we are focusing on Chewbacca’s family doing random shenanigans around their house. First off, they talk to each other like usual Wookiees do, but instead of getting feedback from humans, which is how we are typically able to understand what they are saying, the vast majority of the time, it’s just them talking to each other and each other only, without any subtitles at all. How am I supposed to get any entertainment value out of a bunch of creatures growling at each other with no context whatsoever? On top of that, a little bit of the way through, the Empire invades their house and proceeds to be the least intimidating they have quite literally ever been - less than they were in the original trilogy, and even less than they were in Rebels (I love Rebels by the way). The worst thing they do, I kid you not, is go up to one of Chewbacca’s presumed kid’s rooms and throw everything in it around, including ripping apart a toy, which makes for one of the most hilarious scenes in the entire special.

Now, what I’m going to talk about next is kind of a spoiler, so if you truly care about saving all of the big surprises, because, you know, who would ever want to spoil anything from this for themselves besides watching the thing on their own, I suggest you move onto the next paragraph. However, I want to talk about this more in detail because it is easily the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen in Star Wars, and doesn’t fit the concept of “family entertainment” at all. So basically, there is this guy who is friends with Chewbacca’s family, named Saun Dann, who is apparently a frequent visitor to their household. For being a holiday special, which very clearly suggests that this is something for the whole family, he gives one of the Wookiees this device that quite literally gives him some sort of sensual experience that comes off a bit erotic, and I’m not even kidding. It’s something that will completely go over kids’ heads, but who seriously thought that this was a good idea to put into a TV special centered towards kids and family? I literally had my jaw on the floor when this happened, because I just couldn’t believe what I was witnessing.

That is just one of many incredibly odd and random sequences throughout this just over an hour and a half runtime; thankfully, none of the other ones are “as” weird as that one, however. There are a bunch of segments spread throughout that have absolutely nothing to do with the central plot or anything even remotely close to that. You may have heard this word used to describe The Star Wars Holiday Special before, but almost all of them come off as some sort of experience equivalent to a fever dream, but not a fever dream in the sense of spectacle like in 2001: A Space Odyssey, no, a fever dream that is more of a fever nightmare. I don’t even know how to describe them - just know that there are a bunch of random scenes with extremely weird-looking visuals and editing choices that you will know exactly what I’m talking about if you watch this (which, please don’t). Amongst them are a few music video-esc scenes, with some of the worst songs you will ever hear in your life, and they are unfortunately the kind that will stay in your head.

Now let’s move onto the acting performances, which, on top of everything else, might be the most hilarious thing about The Star Wars Holiday Special. Amongst the Wookiees, there isn’t really anything to talk about because they are literally just groaning and making extremely annoying noises throughout, but for all the human characters, I definitely have some stuff to talk about. Literally everyone, including our main crew from the original movie, very clearly had an absolutely awful time making this, and it’s extremely evident from their performances, or rather lack of performances (except Carrie Fisher - God bless her, she actually seemed somewhat dedicated). Harrison Ford looks like he’s about to lose his mind, Mark Hamill is barely in it but also looks like he is about to lose his mind (and also looks absolutely nothing like he does in the movies), and all of the new characters are portrayed by actors who give the most unenthusiastic performances, which, who could blame anybody here?

Besides the introduction of a new fan favorite character in an incredibly random animated segment, there isn’t anything that I can praise this thing for, and even then, I’m not even going to give this product that because I was already burnt out by the time I got to the animated part. It doesn’t even earn the title of being “so bad that it’s good.” If you’re wondering why this doesn’t get a one out of ten rating for me, it’s because, based on my criteria for rating things, it has to be something that is both absolutely horrible and makes me aggravated. This didn’t make me aggravated, it was just incredibly stupid. Please, do not watch this.