Preserving the...cringe...Star Wars Holiday Special (Released) — Page 28

Nostalgia Critic applied a few subtitles when it covered the SWHS. They're around the three-minute mark.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/15087-swchr

The subtitles are kind of in the vein of the Phantom Editor when he subtitled the conversation between Greedo and Han Solo, in the special features section of one of his prequel edits. They make you see the story in an entirely new way.

MattMahdi said:

Found it when I searched for star wars holiday special documentary, hoping to see a sign of something that Bruce Vilanch mentioned in an interview. Some people were shooting a documentary... that apparently went nowhere. (The interview was on "Feast of Fun" in July 2010.)

I was just pondering this question: Bruce Vilanch mentioned a documentary that some people were doing, and that their fundamental problem was that the footage they'd need -- the SWHS itself -- wasn't available, so people would be watching a documentary about something that they wouldn't be able to actually sit down and watch.

Does anyone here know anything more about this documentary? That interview is the only mention of it I've heard, and it sounds like a fascinating project and well worth seeing. I know I'd invest to make sure it happened, and probably others here, but I can't find other mention anywhere.

Today's "Sally Forth" has a reflection on the SWHS:

http://www.oregonlive.com/comics-kingdom/?feature_id=Sally_Forth&feature_date=2012-11-23

Best idea of all is the thought that the family could watch the DVD of Ted giving a commentary on the Special while the Special itself played on a TV behind him.

I know that there was one other time the strip referenced the Special. Have there been more?

(Also, I can't find any sites that will allow me to zoom it and then save the image. Anyone see one?)

If you figure it out, let me know. I haven't been able to "hack" ComicsKingdom since they restructured in October (though I haven't had time to try as hard as I'd like to).

You can zoom in a little bit and save the GIF: http://safr.kingfeatures.com/idn/ck/content.php?file=aHR0cDovL3NhZnIua2luZ2ZlYXR1cmVzLmNvbS9TYWxseUZvcnRoLzIwMTIvMTEvU2FsbHlfRm9ydGguMjAxMjExMjNfNzIwLmdpZg==&tok=420061f838dee5950c432468eca2e886

but obviously that URL can't easily be hacked to get to the different sizes, like you could before. It's especially terrible trying to read the Sunday pages of Dick Tracy...it's like they just have everything completely automated and don't check or care if you can actually read the words on the page!

Best I was able to do was zoom and then do a screen capture and crop that. Ugly method, but at least an improvement. (Also, aren't they wonderful, your zoomed URL gives me an insulting error message. Sigh.)

MattMahdi said:

MattMahdi said:

Found it when I searched for star wars holiday special documentary, hoping to see a sign of something that Bruce Vilanch mentioned in an interview. Some people were shooting a documentary... that apparently went nowhere. (The interview was on "Feast of Fun" in July 2010.)

I was just pondering this question: Bruce Vilanch mentioned a documentary that some people were doing, and that their fundamental problem was that the footage they'd need -- the SWHS itself -- wasn't available, so people would be watching a documentary about something that they wouldn't be able to actually sit down and watch.

Does anyone here know anything more about this documentary? That interview is the only mention of it I've heard, and it sounds like a fascinating project and well worth seeing. I know I'd invest to make sure it happened, and probably others here, but I can't find other mention anywhere.

 I'm not sure if it's the same one, but there's a guy named Jacob Adams who has written me occasionally for years about a documentary he's been trying to do.  I haven't seen any footage, but a while back I believe he was supposed to send me a preview of it.  Don't know what happened with that.

MattMahdi said:

Today's "Sally Forth" has a reflection on the SWHS:

http://www.oregonlive.com/comics-kingdom/?feature_id=Sally_Forth&feature_date=2012-11-23

Best idea of all is the thought that the family could watch the DVD of Ted giving a commentary on the Special while the Special itself played on a TV behind him.

 

I know that there was one other time the strip referenced the Special. Have there been more?

(Also, I can't find any sites that will allow me to zoom it and then save the image. Anyone see one?)

 

The only other time I know of that Sally Forth did a reference was the December 3, 2005 strip, where they sit down to watch it after getting all their Christmas preparations done (and sadly, the .gif I have of that one is even smaller than the current one).  The writer must be a big fan of the show!

--SKot

Asaki said:

If you figure it out, let me know. I haven't been able to "hack" ComicsKingdom since they restructured in October (though I haven't had time to try as hard as I'd like to).

You can zoom in a little bit and save the GIF: http://safr.kingfeatures.com/idn/ck/content.php?file=aHR0cDovL3NhZnIua2luZ2ZlYXR1cmVzLmNvbS9TYWxseUZvcnRoLzIwMTIvMTEvU2FsbHlfRm9ydGguMjAxMjExMjNfNzIwLmdpZg==&tok=420061f838dee5950c432468eca2e886

but obviously that URL can't easily be hacked to get to the different sizes, like you could before. It's especially terrible trying to read the Sunday pages of Dick Tracy...it's like they just have everything completely automated and don't check or care if you can actually read the words on the page!

I didn't have much trouble sniffing out the zoomed version, I think this is the link: LINK

If that didn't work I threw it on imgr too: LINK

I just opened the link in a new tab. Boom, there it is.

If that didn't work I threw it on imgr too: LINK

Thank you! the first one didn't, but the second is terrific.

Treadwell said:

The writer of Sally Forth has a blog, and he collected all of his SWHS references in this post:

http://mediumlarge.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/

(the last one is a blog-only joke, not a real Sally Forth. The real 2012 SWHS ref is not in the post.)

 Wow, way more than I'd seen before.  And that didn't even include the one from 2005.  I wonder how far they actually go back?

Apparently Ted Forth is also an honorary OT-er, based on his unhappiness with the 2011 revisions to the trilogy...

--SKot

You guys might find this interesting:

Light the Sky on Fire - Star Wars Music video

Over at fanedit.org, TM2YC has posted "Fear and Loathing in The Star Wars Holiday Special":

http://www.fanedit.org/ifdb/component/content/article/86-fanedit-listings/shorts/921-fear-and-loathing-in-the-star-wars-holiday-special

This edit is only about a quarter of an hour as it features only the cream of the madness from this notorious TV Show. Including Princess Leia singing, avant-garde alien dance, Wookiee pornography, drinking through the top of your head, a cooking lesson from an alien drag-queen in blackface, a bar of drunken aliens and a Stormtrooper rubbing a ceramic penis.

 

I was scanning through the SW holiday special (Never watched it properly before 'cause I couldn't stand it ) for my Workprint project and noticed that some of it comes off like a terifying acid-trip nightmare. Thus the idea of compiling and remixing only the very trippy-est moments into a short film.

18.73 minutes of hilarity. Viewable only on Vimeo due to length and picture quality.

Star Wars Insider issue 144 (October 2013) has the single-page entry:

"YOU'RE BARRED! The Star Wars Holiday Special Cantina's Barflys Revealed" by Leland Y. Chee

It's a landscape picture of the Cantina patrons, nineteen of them numbered and identified. Not necessarily exciting, and certainly not a reason for buying the magazine, but a fun moment nonetheless. Sadly my subscription is digital... the Nook has it as page 28, but it also shows it as a right-hand page. They can't both be right.

[Hypothetically, if someone did a hi-res scan, and happened to send me a PM....]

[Never mind... discovered a decent image.]

MattMahdi said:

Star Wars Insider issue 144 (October 2013) has the single-page entry:

"YOU'RE BARRED! The Star Wars Holiday Special Cantina's Barflys Revealed" by Leland Y. Chee

It's a landscape picture of the Cantina patrons, nineteen of them numbered and identified. Not necessarily exciting, and certainly not a reason for buying the magazine, but a fun moment nonetheless. Sadly my subscription is digital... the Nook has it as page 28, but it also shows it as a right-hand page. They can't both be right.

[Hypothetically, if someone did a hi-res scan, and happened to send me a PM....]

Hmm, interesting...I will have to check this issue out!

One of the first things I had to do when creating the SWHS website was identify all of the Ackmena Cantina aliens and put names to them.  I made an entry for every single one in the Characters section, with any backstory or details I could give:

http://www.starwarsholidayspecial.com/characters.htm

I tried to use only established information, and write the details based on that, without making additional things up. If the creature didn't have a name, I tried to give it one of the early crew names.  It will be interesting to see if any of that stuck.

A shame they didn't contact me when they wrote the article.  I could probably have given some input.

--SKot

What's the appropriate response to finding the Special at a DVD booth at the State Fair? The insert could use a little editing, but it looks reasonably professional.

It doesn't say how long it is or what bonus materials there are. So no idea which transfer, and I didn't feel compelled to spend twenty dollars to find out.

They're also selling "Song of the South" on DVD, and what I'm fairly sure are bogus copies of the [legitimately released] Ewok film double-feature.

Hmm...I still see this kind of stuff at sci-fi conventions, although it's hard to believe anyone actually shells out 20 bucks for these things nowadays.

At least they weren't selling any copies of Deleted Magic, Return of the Ewok or any of the Jambe Davdar documentaries, right?

--SKot

Slightly off-topic, but I saw 2/3 of the 97 SE Trilogy (the five star) at a thrift once =)

I was tempted to get it just for funsies, but alas, there it stayed.

Just the Holiday Special.

I was almost tempted to buy "Song of the South", but only because it's something that *Disney* will never release. (And they might not release the SWHS, but at least it's available all over the place.)

MattMahdi said:

Just the Holiday Special.

I was almost tempted to buy "Song of the South", but only because it's something that *Disney* will never release. (And they might not release the SWHS, but at least it's available all over the place.)

There's a thread over in the non-Star Wars preservations for "Song of the South" you might want to check out if you haven't.  There's been at least a couple different fan preservations from laserdisc, and people have been doing some work here to create the best possible version.  It's been a while since I checked, so I'm not sure where they are at with that.

--SKot

MattMahdi said:

What's the appropriate response to finding the Special at a DVD booth at the State Fair?

Offer to buy it for a dollar. Or two, if you feel generous.

Latin Spanish... it soundeth interesting. Do you know if it is a genuine preservation in its own right, or a much later reworking of one of the DVDs that are floating around?

I have seen clips of both a legitimately dubbed Spanish version as well as a much-later-subtitled Spanish version.  But I have been looking for a copy of the full Spanish dubbed version for some time now.  I know it was at least shown in Mexico.

--SKot