EDITORIAL
My 2 wupiuipis

 

The Star Wars Holiday Special - Fanboy Edition


By Alex Newborn


Following the mountains of positive feedback Lucasfilm received for the changes to the recent release of the Classic Star Wars Trilogy on DVD, an insider spills the beans on a very special project he’s been hired to work on…

 

Hi all,

 

I just wanted to let everyone know about the top-secret work I've been hired to do on an upcoming LFL DVD...

 

The Star Wars Holiday Special: Special Edition Edition. (otherwise known as SWHSSEE)

 

Now, I don't know where the quote came from which says that Uncle George would like to track down every copy and destroy it, but in truth he never said it. In fact, in a recent interview created especially for this DVD's documentary content, he speaks for the first time of his master vision for the Holiday Special, the limitations of technology at the time, and the upgrades capable with modern movie wizardry.

 

Some of the improvements to watch for...

 

Kashyyk exteriors are no longer poorly-aligned blue-screened matte paintings, but now fully 3-D-rendered environments, to match the reenvisioning of the planet for Revenge of the Sith. Warwick Davis donned the Lumpy costume from the Archives to perform the porch-rail stunt against green-screen.

 

Several of the aliens in the cantina number have been replaced. Surprisingly, the giant rat which chats with Bea Arthur is still in there. Apparently George liked the rat, and wanted it in ANH, but ran out of time and budget. Lucas: "When you are producing a vaudeville-style variety show for television, some of the things you include are there to further the plot, some things are there due to the guest stars' contractual obligations, and some things are put there from whimsy. The giant rat was put there out of whimsy."

 

In fact, Lucas now plans to do yet one more version of ANH, with the giant rat replacing the "lamproid". The level of puppet technology available in 1976 was just not up to the level of puppet technology available in 1978.

 

All of the space shots of the Falcon, Star Destroyers, etc. have been redone. Actually, it's still footage lifted from ANH. But now it's the shots as redone for the 2004 DVD releases.

 

Temuera "Jango Fett/Commander Cody" Morrison's voice has been dubbed onto Boba Fett for the original Nelvana cartoon segment. There was even some talk of green-screening in the actual Boba Fett costume. Don Bies was all set to wear it for the reshoot, until someone explained that the cartoon was NOT an embarassing animatic that needed to be replaced. Some frames were tweaked anyway, though, to make Boba look directly at the camera more often.

 

James Earl Jones was also brought in for new voiceover work for this scene, as George took advantage of the lack of lip synch for either character in order to tinker with the dialogue... After Vader calls Boba the 'best bounty hunter in the galaxy', Boba says "You should have seen my father Jango, he was the best. He died when some stinking Jedi ambushed us on Geonosis, all to rescue this one Padawan named Anakin Skywalker, you ever heard of him?"

 

Vader now coughs discretely, stammers, whistles nonchalantly, and changes the subject. Easter egg fans, take note... if you step-frame through this scene, one frame of Vader is actually a cartoon likeness of Hayden Christensen.

 

Subtitles have been added to the first twenty minutes of no-English Wookiee interaction, a change that made the original scene's butt-busting sound designer Ben Burtt so upset that he sat quietly in his office for an hour.

 

There was talk of putting Anthony Daniels as C-3PO in a picture-in-picture translation box in the lower left-hand corner, like sign language inserts on religious programming. But George felt that subtitles would encourage kids to learn to read, and promote bonding with the parents who must read subtitles to them. Plus, apparently he's just really sick of Tony always begging him for work.

 

Everyone admitted that something needed to be done to 'punch up' the comedy level of the Harvey Korman scenes. George suggested replacing him with Jar Jar Binks, but for once even Rick McCallum found the conviction to tell him no. In the end, Tim Conway was brought in to do a reshoot with Harvey, and was directed to keep improvising and upstaging Korman.

 

The hope was that Harvey would crack up, like on the old Carol Burnett show. Alas, Harvey just kept glaring daggers at Tim. Apparently the two have just spent too much time together in recent years, because Harvey finally snapped, called Tim a "no-talent piss-ant", asked archly "Do I weasel in on your Dorf tapes?", and walked off the set.

 

Several changes have been made to the musical numbers in the original SWHS, due to copyright reasons. Jefferson Starship is completely gone, replaced by a music video of 'N Sync dressed as Old Republic Jedi, culled from their unused cameos from the Geonosis battle in AOTC. George Lucas' daughters oversaw the editing on this one. No one thinks it will help the boy band's flagging careers, but at least it was cost-effective.

 

Carrie Fisher's wall-eyed warbling in the finale has also been redone with a newly recorded song, from the producers of Jedi Rocks. Since Ms. Fisher can no longer fit into the costume, a CGI Carrie was built to match the new lip-synch. The number is now up-tempo, with a CGI backup band and scantily clad dancers. Some questioned the continuity error of having her strip out of the white senatorial dress, revealing the slave outfit gold bikini beneath... but Rick McCallum "really f*cking loved" the idea, so it got approved.

 

And, lastly, the awkward 'dodge stunt' with the stormtrooper falling through the rail has been digitally enhanced for the SWHSSEE. Now, the trooper fires at Han first, causing Harrison Ford to duck. Then, in a newly shot sequence, Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca appears in the doorway, rips out the stormtrooper's arms, and beats him to death.

 

George said of the change, "[The bad guy] was always supposed to fire first, because no matter how clealy lethal a villain's intentions are to the audience, they have to fire their gun at Han in order for me to justify their deserved death. Hmmm... Hey, you know what? It wasn't really right of the Rebels to blow up the Death Star before it fired. Maybe it should fire at the Falcon first, and miss... can I borrow your pen? This is good stuff!"

 

 


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