Documentary About 'Star Wars Holiday Special' Gets New Trailer Before SXSW Debut

Star Wars

Mar 6

A Disturbance in the Force: How The Star Wars Holiday Special Happened is an upcoming documentary on the much-maligned 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special and will debut at South by Southwest on March 11. And a new trailer was released online. The Star Wars Holiday Special was aired on CBS on November 17, 1978, and viewed only by 13 million people. The program starred all of the original cast but primarily focused on Han Solo and Chewbacca returning to the Wookie’s home planet to celebrate the local holiday, Life Day.

Lucasfilm never re-aired the special and never released it formally in any format. A year after it aired, George Lucas said of the special, “If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every bootlegged copy of the program and smash it.” However, in recent years Disney has acknowledged the Holiday Special, releasing Life Day merchandise at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and specialty beverage for Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser in honor of the Wookie holiday.

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The upcoming documentary is directed by Jeremy Coon and Steve Kozak. The film will feature a variety of celebrities commenting on their engagement with the unique television program, such as Seth Green, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Paul Scheer, Taran Killam, Donny Osmond, and Bruce Vilanch, who co-wrote the special. When Vilanch spoke with The Hollywood Reporter in 2019 regarding the program saying, “Back then, a network variety special was one of the ways you promoted things….Don’t think George was a watcher of network variety shows. If he had been, he would never have done this.”

A Disturbance in the Force: How the Star Wars Holiday Special Happened will debut on March 11, 2023, at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas. At the time of the writing, there are no plans to release the film for distribution.