SKot

none said:

The Holiday Special documentary “A Disturbance in the Force”:
https://www.disturbanceintheforce.com/
Is being show in some theaters soon. See if it is in your neighborhood.

Got a ticket to one of the Q&A shows so if you have a question to ask, post it up.

Wish I could be at that one! I’ll be doing the Q&A at the Kiggins Theatre showing in Vancouver, WA on the 29th.

The film should be available for streaming as well soon, for those of you who don’t have a showing in your area.

–SKot

Perseverant said:

Would someone please PM me a URL for the best version that includes the commercials?

Thanks to everyone who has invested their time and energy preserving this!

The best version without commercials is the Editdroid version, since it is sourced from a master copy. It does not have commercials, however, because it’s a pre-broadcast version.

The best version with commercials is probably a hybrid like Zion’s version, which is sourced from the Editdroid version but includes commercials from one of the better broadcast sources.

There are no URLs for this, however, and no websites to go to - any such hosting would get taken down pretty quickly. Your best bet is to search places like Usenet and torrent sites.

–SKot

Sthunderrocker said:

I purchased this reel. It appears to be reel 1 as it starts with the gorn. I don’t have a film scanner unfortunately.
Stephen

Would you be willing to get it to someone who does? There are people on this forum who do.

–SKot

Thought I might mention that this documentary grew legs and is having its world premiere at SXSW 2023 in Austin this Saturday. I actually connected with Steve via this thread and became a co-producer on the film, working with him mostly remotely over the next 5-6 years on this. It’s become the definitive documentary on the subject, with interviews conducted with nearly every living person who had anything to do with the Holiday Special, as well as a few who didn’t.

Here’s a link to the SXSW site for the film:

https://schedule.sxsw.com/2023/films/2079025

–SKot

MattMahdi said:

Is there any mention of the SWHS in Taschen’s The Star Wars Archives, 1977-1983?

It would make the book that much easier a purchase, especially at the 40th anniversary price which can almost fit my budget.

There is, in fact - there’s a section for it that’s 5 pages long with some great text and photos.

Of course, there are two versions of the book now: the giant landscape-oriented coffee table book, and the much smaller portrait-oriented version that came out after. The large one is huge and a bit unwieldy, but the photos are gorgeous at that size. I have the large version, but I am tempted to get the smaller one just for ease of reading and photo scanning.

It’s actually the reason that I kept the copy of Star Wars Year by Year that I was gifted years ago.

I never picked that up. I think I was disappointed by the skimming over of the SWHS in that, but I can’t remember…what was actually in it?

–SKot

digitalfreaknyc said:

The Paley Center here in NYC has a copy in their archives from KNXT in CA. Is that copy in the wild?

https://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=&p=1&item=T:87211

It is in the wild, although not widely distributed.

I’ve looked at the copies of the KNXT at both the NYC Paley Center and the L.A. one. This version is okay but not a great recording - it has a lot of noise on the screen with heavy ghosting issues. I don’t think it would be very valuable as a preservation other than for historic value, and possibly for the commercials, some of which will be local.

–SKot

nobodybutjarjar42 said:

is this the best quality WCBS broadcast copy with commercials?
Star Wars Holiday Special - WCBS w/o/c “Frizzies” on myspleen

It might be. I think it’s the best one I’ve got. There are a ton of low-quality copies of WCBS out there from way back; that one got a lot of mileage. But I have seen very few decent quality copies. Someone out there is probably sitting on the original broadcast recording all these came from.

–SKot

MattMahdi said:

Not an idiot.

It’s one of the earliest DVD transfers IIRC. Rikter distributed two versions: WMAR (that was the one with the commercials, right?) and another whose callsign I forget. I think it was too early for KCCI, but even if it wasn’t the video quality is definitely surpassed by more recent transfers.

(KCCI was seen as the gold standard for many years and it was distributed in a variety of forms. Seemed like everyone had their own menuing over the KCCI content. That was the second and last version I purchased, that one from OCP Movie. I then learned about this community and started zealously turning in sellers on eBay (whence came my first version).)

I really shouldn’t be answering a technical question without checking my information at home but I’m at a Super Bowl party and kinda bored…

I know Rikter distributed the KCMO (Kansas City) version, without commercials, as well. Not sure if he did a version of the WMAR broadcast; I don’t seem to have one with his menus on it. But for sure he did KCCI (Des Moines) and KCMO.

The other probably most common broadcast that made the rounds was the WCBS (New York) broadcast. That’s the one with the famous bumper with the newscaster saying “Fighting the Frizzies at eleven!” that South Park parodied.

–SKot

oojason said:

I wish I had them mate - love watching the old commercials for old Star Wars toys and the like.

This Droids & Ewoks site http://droidsandewoks.weebly.com may be of some help and worth asking the people who run it. They seem pretty knowledgeable and good people - perhaps they know of someone who may have them?

That’s a possibility, if I could reach them. Love that site, but unfortunately it seems to suffer from what nearly every modern site suffers from: no way to contact the owner(s)! I really miss the old days when people actually contacted each other through websites and shared information.

It maybe worth reaching out to the people who wrote the old article on the official site - Pete Vilmur, Gus Lopez, Duncan Jenkins - see if they are on social media, and are contactable?

I think Pete Vilmur is still at Lucasfilm - it maybe worth asking them to include the videos again on any future Ewoks and Droids articles and content up on the official site or social media pages?
 

Good luck with it SKot - hope you find them. 👍
 

Thanks! I’ve been in touch with Pete about it, and unfortunately he thinks the material on the old server was probably never saved/archived.

–SKot

It came to my attention recently that a once-live web page on on StarWars.com had posted two Kenner commercials in apparent good quality back in 2010. Unfortunately, because StarWars.com revamped the whole site around 2012 and threw out pretty much everything from the old site, the content is long gone. It can’t even be accessed through the WayBack machine at Internet Archive (the page is there but the commercials are not!), though here is the link so you can see what I’m talking about:

https://web.archive.org/web/20110617035821/http://www.starwars.com/vault/collecting/droids_ewoks_25th_anniversary/index.html

There were two commercials on the page: one for the DROIDS line, and one for the Power Of The Force/Ewoks Ewok Battle Wagon. The DROIDS commercial I have in low quality with RetroJunk watermark, and that’s the only copy that’s ever surfaced to my knowledge. I never even knew about the Ewok Battle Wagon commercial, and it has not shown up anywhere else. They really need a preservation.

Did anyone manage to save these two commercials before they disappeared into the ether?

–SKot

Yes - that is an excellent site, and one of the best arguments for archiving old sites that have fallen off the internet.

Some of the incorrectly-named films I’ve found were named that way because they are shorter excerpts of the original films that were made available for the home market. So they would change the name, usually to match the main skit featured in the film excerpt.

Definitely interested in seeing what could turn up from the Japan connection there. I know that Japan has a particular affinity for Felix, and there have been Felix releases there that were available nowhere else.

–SKot

SilverWook said:

Good question! It’s been murky if Fox/Lucasfilm ever had the film elements or Nelvana had them. They lost some stuff in a vault fire some years ago, and the workprint of Rock & Rule was a casualty.

The sound and film elements are apparently in the Lucasfilm archives…there was a photo of a pile of that material posted once on StarWars.com in 2008.

The Story Of The Faithful Wookiee? I have never heard the animated segment called that before…
https://twitter.com/CBR/status/1371966955305963522

Yep - it’s what the title card says at the beginning of the cartoon, and you can almost kind of read it if you squint.

–SKot

Well, sounds like we could have the best preservation of part of the Holiday Special yet: apparently the cartoon is coming to Disney+…

The Ewok movies, Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars, and part of the Holiday Special are coming to Disney Plus

If they actually HD scanned the original film elements for the animation (and they were the only part of the Holiday Special that was shot on film), then we could be in for a real treat here!

–SKot

Well now…there we go. And apparently a piece of the Holiday Special as well - that I did not expect! 2021 is already shaping up to be not such a bad year.

Now here’s the real question: did they go back and hi-def scan the Holiday Special cartoon from the original film elements (as it is the only part of the Special that was on film)? If so, this is gonna be great!

–SKot

Mocata said:

Putting a few disclaimers up on something that will get them more subscribers? That’s one thing. Putting up terrible Ewok movies they’d rather deny exist in their current Saga? That’s something else.

That may be the very reasoning behind their non-action. But, I expect we’ll see them pop up on there eventually. The Holiday Special…not so much.

–SKot

SilverWook said:

It’s only going to cost Disney the price of a new film scan and Lucasfilm may have done it already in the past decade.

Chances are good that they have. I’m not even sure what the hold-up would be, other than hesitation about the two TV movies not being considered good enough. They’re certainly better than a lot of the, say, B-grade 70s-80s Disney movies they’ve put up there (which I’m still happy to see made available!).

Dare I even ask what could be in The Muppet Show Disney feels they have to slap a disclaimer on?

Well, there are apparently some skits containing racial and/or cultural stereotypes that could be considered problematic. That was kind of standard fare for the time period, but as far as I know (I’ve only watched 2-3 episodes so far) there isn’t anything extremely bad - Marty Feldman in drag playing an Arabian Nights harem girl isn’t particularly culturally sensitive by today’s standards, but it’s not exactly blackface either. I think they’ve handled it the right way for today’s critical eye by not censoring the episodes and instead offering the disclaimer. I’m totally fine with that.

Disney did opt to leave particular episodes out: in particular, one episode featuring Chris Langham is missing. When you Google what he was convicted for in 2007, you will see that it was probably wise not to make it currently available for children to watch. I have to agree with this decision, despite my general feelings about censorship and desire for completeness of material. I believe the episode is/was available on DVD, so that satisfies the completeness aspect - but Disney+ is a more “living” sort of medium, and kids might tune in unsupervised. Again, I think they made the right call.

I guess copyright clearances are preventing other missing episodes from showing up, but they are working on that, and I expect they will show up eventually. That’s good news.

Overall, I think Disney has done well on this. It would be easier I’m sure to just say no to having The Muppet Show on there at all, so I applaud them for taking the more difficult road.

–SKot

Rodney-2187 said:

What are the chances these will ever be available again on disc or streaming? Zero?

I would have to think they are pretty good. The Ewok movies may not be the brightest points in the Star Wars galaxy, but they aren’t the Holiday Special, either. The fact that they finally put all of The Muppet Show up on Disney+ (with a disclaimer against stereotyping, even) is a good sign that they are finding ways to make this older content available.

They’d better do them in fully remastered hi-def, though. I’ve seen the Ewok movie fan-sourced upscales, and I am absolutely floored at how good they look. I have never seen any upconverted SD material look so sharp and clear before in my life, and my hat’s off to the guy responsible for those. Makes me wonder what else is possible.

–SKot

huemulin said:

I understand that Sullivan’s material was kept by his Australian relatives. there is a museum there … maybe they have information. I don’t think it all went to waste when Sullivan died

I do really hope this is true…although of course they aren’t too keen on the modern day feeling that the credit behind Felix the Cat is largely due to Otto Messmer, not Pat Sullivan.

In the meantime, wonderful news in the form of a new Blu-ray in the Cartoon Roots series that has just come out, with some very rare beautifully restored early Felix cartoons. These were mastered from Tommy Stathes’ own film collection, and they look absolutely fantastic: painstakingly restored, sometimes from just fragments, for the most complete version and best image quality. This is the closest thing to a restored Felix collection we have yet. I’m hoping Tommy will release some more Felix collections in this series while we wait for Steve Stanchfield’s definitive collection to come out…due to rights issues because he wants to do it right and include everything from the early days and not just the public domain material, it’s been delayed indefinitely. I really hope it does go forward eventually.

–SKot

ReleaseTheImaxCut said:

Thank you for this! I had a hard time watching the holiday special but it’s necessary.

Indeed; it’s not only necessary, it’s mandatory.

Every true Star Wars fan must endure the trials!

–SKot

SilverWook said:

Maybe it’s time to bribe Warwick Davis? 😉

Are there any action figures he’s missing?

–SKot

none said:
Seems like there were a bunch of others from the same time period:

http://threads.rebelscum.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=3348477&page=0&view=collpased&sb=5&o=all&fpart=1#3348477

Meccano to Tri-Logo by Stephane Faucort
Irwin Toys: The Canadian Star Wars Connection by James McCallum
Kenner Star Wars Commercials DVD by Chris Georgoulias
The Vintage Glasslite Commercial Collection DVD by Shane Turgeon

I was able to get my hands on the Kenner DVD at the time, luckily due to some people I knew that were more connected in the collecting hobby than I was. I found the quality to be superb on most of the commercials, and I still watch the DVD any time I get the itch to travel back in time. It’s a treasure.

However, I have never seen hide nor hair of any of the foreign commercial collection DVDs. Have these been shared anywhere? They deserve to have as widespread a release as the Kenner one.

–SKot

Ya know…

I can’t believe after all these years (we did this project in 2005!), no other camcorder copies of Return of the Ewok have turned up.

I mean, I saw in person myself two separate people recording it at Celebration II. One guy even had a tripod! I talked to both of them afterwards, but neither of them responded back to me when I wrote them. What did they do with their footage?!

We really hoped that we’d eventually be able to redo this project with a better copy of the footage than what we had at the time, which was artificially “cropped” in pseudo-widescreen due to the film being projected in full screen on a wide projection screen, thus cutting off the top and bottom. OCP is still out there, and I’m sure he would revisit this project in a moment’s notice if I gave him better footage. But no other copy has ever surfaced. And so, 15 years later, it looks like this is still the only complete version out there.

Sorry, guys. At least we gave you something!

–SKot

Mocata said:

They probably wont. Releasing a new series called Ewok Adventures is more in line with their model.

Given how great The Mandalorian has turned out to be, I would be totally on board with this if they followed the same model. As far as I’m concerned they can keep making Mandalorian episodes like they have been until the end of time.

I just hope they don’t kill the golden goose (again) with all these planned projects at once.

–SKot

bttfbrasilfan said:

Does anyone know if a good 1080p 60fps (deinterlaced) upscale of the EditDroid version is available anywhere?
A good BD compatible h264 encode like this one would be great: https://youtu.be/KxtSX1lg8rE

I’d sure like to know who did that upscale and YouTube upload, to get hold of the source. It really does a great thing for the material.

Also: happy belated Life Day! We may not thrive, friends, but we survive, friends.

–SKot

I was pretty sure when I posted this that there would be few, if any, who knew about the character Iznogoud…and few to none who knew anything about the animated series. Oh well, it was worth a shot!

–SKot