MattMahdi

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The 2000 SE I’ve got was nice for the time on a 4:3 display but it lied when the cover claimed to be enhanced for widescreen TVs. I didn’t realize just how old it was until I went searching for a copyright date and finally found one on the special features disc.

There hasn’t been another release, has there?

Exciting. I’ll look forward to seeing this!

Sighted over on a torrent site called M_S_l_e_ (and it’s taking genuine effort to avoid correcting the typo in the fifth line):

The Star Wars Holiday Special Bonus Disc 2.1

The first version of this disc was a single-layer DVD in 2012. Thw update is
a dual-layer Blu-ray just to be able to fit in all the material.

Version 2.0 had such a limited release that it almost doesn’t count. There was
just enough space to add one more item without removing anything which brings
us to 2.1.

The disc was created with Nero Video. Everything has been upconverted to HD –
even if it was standard definition or below – because I found two instances
where YouTube-sourced videos would lock up my LG player when encoded at their
original resolution. (Thanks, Nero.)

Material new to this disc is marked with an asterisk (*) and reprise material
with a dash (-).

ANIMATION

• EditDroid transfer

• HD version from 2011
• Animatic reel

• Interview with Boba Fett animator John Celestri
• Boba Fett animation roughs
• “Bucket Head” from 2002

• Boba Fett costume test (post-dates the SWHS but fits thematically)

MUSIC

• Christmas 2008 and 2009 (animated from Star Wars Galaxies)
• “Christmas Tauntauns”

• Saturday Night Live

• Spike TV commercial

• Weird Al’s “White and Nerdy”

INTERVIEWS

• Bea Arthur (The Archive of American Television)
• Anthony Daniels (Digital Spy)

• Carrie Fisher (Dragon*Con)
• Carrie Fisher (Celebration VI)
• Carrie Fisher (a Time interview)

• Harrison Ford (Conan O’Brien)

• Harrison Ford (“Cowboys and Aliens” junket)
• Mark Hamill (FanExpo Dallas)

• Peter Mayhew (a MURKY convention panel)
• Peter Mayhew (“Bring Back Star Wars”)

• Bruce Vilanch (The Archive of American Television)

REFERENCES & ALLUSIONS

• The Colbert Report (2012.01.10)
• Community (S03E10)

• The Goldbergs (S04E10)

• The Richard Pryor Show
• Robot Chicken
• Transylvania TV (2009)

• Transylvania TV (2012)

ANALYSIS & COLLECTING

• Honest Trailer
• Star Geek: The 40 Greatest SWHS Moments
• Star Geek: The History of Life Day (seems to be sourced from Wookiepedia)
• Vox: The SWHS Explained
• FanX Salt Lake City Comic Con: Forty Years of the Holiday Special
• Star Wars Celebration 2019: Special Collections: 40 Years of SWHS Collecting

WORDS & PICTURES

• Blue Milk Special (first of forty strips)
• The Kashyyyk Depths (Russ Manning’s nine-part newspaper strip from 1979)
• Star Wars Galaxy (three trading cards + one)
• Story Treatment
• Trading Cards
• Twisted Toyfare Theatre
• The Wookiee Storybook
• Wookiee Tree (cutaway view from Complete Locations)

• xkcd: So Bad It’s Worse

• You’re Barred!

MATERIAL NOT DUPLICATED FROM THE DVD

• Media coverage: Fox News, TV Land, Nightline, TV Guide
• SciFi Department
• The People vs. George Lucas (excerpt)
• I Grew Up Star Wars
• Nostalgia Critic
• Anthony Daniels on Captain Cosmic
• Carrie Fisher on Opie and Anthony [audio]
• Bruce Vilanch on Feast of Fun [audio]
• Remastered KCCI animation
• Unused animation commercial placeholder
• DLD Conference: Trans Media
• Two scenes cut from Star Wars and recycled
• “Hey, CBS, what’s coming on?”
• Animated introduction to the RiffTrax commentary
• “Chewie Chewie” by Ohio Express
• Fighting the Frizzies
• South Park: Fighting the Frizzies
• Venture Brothers: Very Venture Christmas
• The TRON Holiday Special
• The Glee Holiday Spectacular (excerpt)

FINAL THOUGHTS

The scans of “The Kashyyyk Depths” were done by an anonymous person years ago.
For those intrigued by the story, IDW has published a three-volume set
compiling the entire five-year newspaper strip as part of The Library of
American Comics. HIGHLY recommended, and these nine pages appear in volume one
in much better quality.

Blue Milk Special has published parody strips for the entire original trilogy,
Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, Shadows of the Empire, The Star Wars Holiday
Special, and are currently working through Heir to the Empire. Reproduced here
is just the first of forty SWHS strips, and they skewer every aspect of the
Special. Hilarious and also highly recommended.

Matt Busch’s painting “Encounter on Panna Prime” (background for the animation
screen) still had a few copies left in his online store when last checked.
It’s even more gorgeous in real life.

Tantalizing! How’s it look on a TV?

For those interested in the animated segment, I came across two videos that address it.

An interview with John Celestri; SWHS mention at about 39 minutes:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WUdivyH3E0Q&t=69s

And his Boba Fett animation roughs:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WUdivyH3E0Q&t=69s

(From the URLs, I guess it’s obvious that I’m on my phone.)

Stang! I had not heard and cannot find! I don’t suppose you can find a URL?

Need a bit of help.

I’m trying to collect a few more video interview clips if I can find them.

There are lots related to Star Wars – but few about the SWHS.

Here’s what I have:

Bea Arthur on Archive of American TV

Anthony Daniels on Captain Cosmic

Anthony Daniels on Digital Spy

Carrie Fisher from Dragon*Con

Carrie Fisher from Celebration VI

Carrie Fisher from Time’s 10 Questions

Mark Hamill at FanExpo in Dallas

Harrison Ford on Conan O’Brien

Harrison Ford on Digital Spy

Peter Mayhew MURKY convention Q&A

Bruce Vilanch on Archive of American TV

Anyone have a treasured bit that I’ve missed? Thanks

THANK YOU.

I will be wary!

The States. Near Seattle.

Is the 4K re-release available individually yet?

I’m planning to buy it when it is, just to have this track, but I haven’t seen it in stores.

Got a question about Beauty and the Beast.

In the special edition, the castle gets massively cleaned to the song “Human Again”.

And I’ve read that the cleaning of the castle affected much of the artwork after that point as well so that when I choose to watch the original version from the Blu-ray I’m not really seeing it. It’s post-cleaning.

Has anyone ever done a video comparison of a few choice moments, to show the changes, or have some time codes to compare?

Just curious.

Thanks,

Interesting. I assume you’re talking colour-correction and not his complete Revisited.

I dearly wish I could help you out.

From what I understand you’ve done some great preservation work yourself. Wish that I had some of these that I could share.

MTFBWY.

I don’t for a moment believe the complaint, and at the same time this back-and-forth has me curious about what IS in the forums. I’ve enjoyed TSWT as a web presence and soon I’ll be a little deeper into the site.

Not actually in search of the downloads but curious what’s there.

(My favourite find on the TSWT website was the Ralph McQuarrie paintings, especially the backdrop for The Star Wars Holiday Special. That’s the thread on OT that I frequent.)

Thank you again, none.

768x432 (CC website) isn’t much, but it is an improvement over 624x352.

I had NO idea. Thanks – will investigate!

Thank you, none!

It’s good to see that clip of Colbert and I’m amazed that before it was posted today I couldn’t find anything Colbert-related on Usenet.

It won’t look great blown up all the way to 1080p, but on the other hand better to have it than not!

This request is a bit of a reach.

I’ve got a LOW resolution copy of The Colbert Report from January 10th 2012?

It’s the one where he discusses the Star Wars Holiday Special and, well, I’d just love to have it even in 480p. The copy that I’ve got is THAT bad.

Thanks,

I hate jumping on bandwagons, but one of my issues is with streaming-only bonus features.

There’s no reason why I should be required to watch a highly compressed 1080p streamed source just to get it with an isolated score. Could easily have been part of the discs.

Grumble!

Exciting. Looking forward to hearing more about the ultimate edition of this travesty.

(Note: Using “travesty” in the loving sense. Same as I’d use for the Ewok films, and MANY steps above the Prequels.)

Anyone “out there” able to do scanning? I’d gladly pursue the film but don’t know what I could do with it if I won.

That said, they say there’s no sign of opening credits in the opening of the film and they don’t guarantee completeness.

It’s a DVD I’ve given to my former students who pursue teaching maths.

Do you need more support to engage?

It looks nice on my 4K TV.

However, since it’s been years since I saw the film, and then it was the non-anamorphic DVD release, I don’t really have any basis for comparison.

That WOULD be exciting!

I don’t know anything about getting stuff scanned, but would gladly contribute to an effort!