Everything in Star Wars has a story.
Every character, every weapon, every planet,
every ship.
It has one of the most involved taxonomies
of any movie universe ever: There are visual
dictionaries, museums, a wiki site — all
dedicated to the origins of the characters.
There are rules for what belongs in this universe.
It has a certain sound, a certain look, a
certain feel.
And it’s easy to feel like this galaxy has
always had this distinct, clear identity.
But if you go back —
“I have a bad feeling about this”
— all the way back, to one of the very first
Star Wars spin-offs?
That really wasn’t the case.
"Come on Mala, let's see a little smile."
There, that's better.
This is the Star Wars Holiday Special, a TV
variety show that aired on CBS on November
17, 1978.
It tells the story of Chewbacca’s journey
home to his family to celebrate a holiday
called Life Day.
The entire cast of the first Star Wars film,
which debuted in 1977, made an appearance.
There is a lot going on here.
Chewbacca’s dad watches virtual reality
softcore porn starring singer Diahann Carroll.
“Oh, oh … We are excited, aren’t we?”
The Golden Girls actress Bea Arthur plays
a cantina bartender.
The American rock band Jefferson Starship
performs in a hologram music video.
And The Carol Burnett Show’s Harvey Korman
plays a crossdressing cooking show host.
It’s bad.
Incomprehensibly bad.
Can we cut tape?
Cut tape now, this is not allowed. You promised.
Nobody is allowed to mention this.
No, you can't, it's not funny — it's so bad—
And I mean this kindly if
George sees i: it's so bad it's not funny
Do you remember making this Christmas
Special?
I think it was 1978.
No you don't remember it?
So it doesn’t exist in your...
No it doesn’t exist.
It doesn't exist.
What if I were to tell you that I had a little piece of tape right now?
But to a large extent, the Star Wars universe
has been shaped and explored through spin-offs
just like this — through novels, comics,
and games outside of the movies.
And the Holiday Special is a fascinating glimpse
into that universe before it became codified,
when we were all still figuring out what Star
Wars was.
When Star Wars first came out, a lot of people expected
it to flop.
At the time, Hollywood was dominated by gritty
dramas with morally ambiguous heroes.
Even the most successful science fiction films
were slow to turn a profit.
Then came Star Wars: a good vs. evil space
opera fantasy film inspired by Flash Gordon
serials and Japanese samurai epics.
It was a hard sell.
Even getting theaters to screen it was a challenge
— Fox Studios had to force theaters that
wanted the highly-anticipated movie The Other
Side of Midnight to screen Star Wars as well.
Then, things went a little differently than
expected.
The movie had an 18-month run in theaters,
ultimately grossing over $460 million.
It became one of the highest-grossing films
in history.
During the 1977 holiday season, the Star Wars
craze caught everyone by surprise -- so much
that toy companies had to sell action figure
IOUs.
So for about 9 dollars, you buy a cardboard
envelope, the recipient mails a certificate
to the manufacturer, who will send the dolls
later.”
As production on the second film, progressed through 1978, director
George Lucas wanted to keep Star Wars on everybody’s
minds through the next holiday season.
So he approved CBS to produce the Holiday
Special with a dream team of variety show
creators and a budget of about $1 million.
But making a song-and-dance version of a visually
stunning space opera was a tricky combination
from the start.
“It is inexplicable to put those two genres
together.”
That’s Lenny Ripps.
He was brought in as a co-writer to work on
the wookiee scenes.
“I suspect that there are a lot of Star Wars fans who hate me.
But you but you see, at the time, I didn't
feel the pressure.
Because it was not where it is now.”
And that led to lines like this:
There simply wasn’t a precedent for what
the expanded world of Star Wars should look
like.
“I think it was early on enough that you
could play with it.
And you can't play with it now.
You were still able to have fun with Star
Wars, to look at it as something that's
not so culturally important, that not
to adhere to every rule makes you a heretic.”
After the special aired — with Lucas’
name nowhere to be seen in the credits — it
was never released again.
Lucas allegedly said that he’d smash every
copy with a sledgehammer if he could.
“He has disavowed and disowned Star Wars
holiday special.
I mean actively.
ACTIVELY.
“It was very very important to him to you
have control of the universe and he lost control
of the universe here.”
This bizarre TV special was a rocky first
foray into what the world of Star Wars looked
like outside of the movies.
But it certainly wasn’t the last.
There have since been hundreds of Star Wars
books, video games, comic books, and TV episodes.
Some of them were critical and commercial
successes, like Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn novels,
or the Shadows of the Empire multimedia project.
And their vision fell in line with the universe
Lucas had created.
Others — like comics with Jaxxon, a green
anthropomorphized rabbit, or straight-to-TV
movies featuring Charal, a shape-shifting
witch — didn’t exactly feel like they
belonged in Star Wars.
All of this material became known as the Expanded
Universe.
It contributed to building out this massive
fictional world in its own way.
But it was messy.
There was a lot of material of varying quality,
and contradicting plot points — like clashing
backstories about Boba Fett’s real name.
So in the early 2000s, Lucasfilm developed
a continuity database called the Holocron.
It divided the canon into a hierarchy, with
the movies at the top, and things like the
Holiday Special on a lower priority level.
Disney’s $4 billion acquisition of Lucasfilm
in 2012 changed all that.
The production company put together a team
responsible for giving the cinematic universe
a simpler, more cohesive continuity.
Only the original films and prequels, plus
the Clone Wars movie and TV show were considered
official storylines.
Everything else in the Expanded Universe was
branded as “Legends” — and deemed non-canon
to the franchise.
For many fans, that felt like losing a richly
detailed world.
Today, the vast majority of the Star Wars
wiki articles are about things that aren’t
considered part of the official Star Wars
world anymore.
But even though these stories aren’t recognized
like they used to be, the impact of the ideas
behind them can be seen today.
The current trilogy is telling new stories,
but many themes — like Han and Leia’s
son turning to the Dark Side, Luke’s Jedi
academy, and a new version of the Empire – all
have their roots in the Expanded Universe.
More than 40 years after the first release, Star Wars hasn't stopped evolving.
And the massive, messy body of work that lives outside the movies
continues to shape the way we perceive that world.
I’m so loyal to George, and I owe him so much, he at one time said, would you consider
playing an Obi-Wan
type character handing Excalibur down to the
next generation?
And I said when would that be?
And at the time he said around, aw around 2011.
