The bootleg thread is getting really unwieldy so for those who may be interested, I'm gonna repost my review of the Holiday Special along with my review of the 1975 Auditions.
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THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL Review: The DVD has selectable menus presenting the Special, the Star Wars episode of the Muppets Show and vintage Kenner toy commercials.
For a 1978 broadcast taped off television, it looks pretty good. Obviously I mean 'good' by 5th generation VHS standards. The picture is blurry, and colours are washed out and smeared, but the video is very smooth with only some distortion, and drop out is at a minimum. The sound is kinda harsh and hollow, but quite 'listenable' and you can jump ahead with chapter stops. Really, I still have tapes from the 80s that don't hold up as well. As for the show itself, anyone familiar with that era's sketch variety shows will be familiar with the structure. The special opens with a live action plot about Chewie's family on Kyshykk waiting for him to arrive so they can celebrate Life Day together. Eventually, Chewie and Han do show up, but not before the imperials and a roster of comedy players including (Golden Girl's) Bea Arthur, Art Karney, (Mel Brook's alum) Harvey Korman, and others get mixed up in their 'wacky' shenanigan's. Needless to say, their antics are embarrassingly bad. I actually like most of the performers, but it’s all very slow and boring, especially the first 15 minutes when nothing happens. Interspersed throughout are bizarre 70's sci-fi dance and musical sequences, with trippy lava-lamp visuals. Aside from an appearance by one of my fav bands, Jefferson Starship the best part by far is the Nelvana cartoon sequence that introduces Boba Fett. Fans of Droids will especially love this. I've never seen this before and was surprised as Boba is already a cool badass character. This is well worth watching, too bad it’s so short. The Leia sing-a-long is a hoot too.
Included on the disc is the Muppet Show episode with Luke and the droids. I'm a huge Muppets fan and I love this episode. There is a sharp visual and audio buzz near the middle, but otherwise it looks and sounds pretty good. Like 1st gen VHS.
The real bonus is the vintage Kenner commercials and these are awesome. I haven't seen these since I was a kid and they bring back a lot of memories. I even still have a few of them! Sure, they're real dark and poor quality, but where else can you see them? Overall, just great stuff.
I got all this for the cost of the disc and shipping, and Rikter even threw in a couple of cool bonuses. Thanks a lot! You are a true fan and anyone in the Star Wars community would appreciate your efforts to preserve all this great memorabilia for Star Wars history!
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STAR WARS: THE 1975 AUDITIONS Review:
The DVD runs an hour and a half with 20 chapter stops and has a menu with play function. First, let’s just realize that this is gonna look bad. Bearing in mind this is something like 5th generation VHS however, and you can see that Rikter has done a respectable job of remastering it, offering black and white video that is fairly smooth, if blurry and fluctuating, but more importantly where most of the actors are still recognizable.
These are audition tapes, not a movie, so the camera almost never moves and the whole thing is all just close ups or 2 shots. But no one is watching this for sheer entertainment value. Instead the material is fascinating all by itself. Obviously an early screenplay of the film was used with familiar dialogue peppered with strange names, Organa Major instead of Alderaan for example. The real thrill is watching such different performers in these famous roles. The potential there was phenomenal. Who knows how different Star Wars might have been?
I’ll admit I don’t recognize most of these faces, but there were a few pleasant surprises. One of the best is Kurt Russell. He reads for both Han and Luke and with several different actors. Considering the number of times he was used, I’m sure Lucas was really considering him for a role. He’s fun to watch and plays well against others. I’m a huge Russell fan, and although I love Harrison of course, Russell would have made for a cool Han as well.
Another surprise was none other than the Greatest American Hero himself, William Katt. He was in a couple of auditions and I think he also read with Kurt Russell. He would have been a pretty different Luke, although they both share goofy blonde locks. I love TGAH so I’m glad he eventually found the right vehicle for himself, although he and Russell were pretty decent together.
They were a lot of actresses that tried out for Princess Leia. Some were okay, some were terrible, but a few stood out. As a Laverne and Shirley fan it was interesting to see Cindy Williams read for the part. Although she’s cute and I like her a lot, I don’t think she would have fit the role very well. Like many of the other actors who probably didn’t get all the weird sci-fi dialogue, she didn’t project the space setting well, although to be fair even Carrie Fisher was a little different in her read.
There are also more of the famous snippets of Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher as seen on ET in the auditions as well, but how much you enjoy the rest of the disc depends on how curious you are and perhaps how many of the other actors and actresses you recognize. Either way, this disc is a significant piece of SW history, and a definite must have for any serious SW collection, but as entertainment it’s strictly for the hardcore.
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So if you're curious about these Star Wars oddities, maybe this'll help you decide if you wanna watch them or not. Thanks for making these available to the fans, Rik!