A few months ago I wrote a diary about movie novelizations.
I discussed two adaptations that night - William Howard's awful version of an even worse film, Gore Vidal's Caligula, and Alan Dean Foster's colorless adaptation of the 2009 Star Trek reboot - but of course that was only two lousy movie tie-ins. There are literally thousands of such books moldering in paperback swap shops and gathering dust at tag sales. A fraction are collectible as literature, usually those by an author who later makes it big for writing something else, but most are as forgettable as the films they adapt.
Where these books have value is as souvenirs of particular movies, and it's all the fault of George Lucas and Star Wars.
Oh, there were books and cereals and toys and Shake-A-Puddings based on films before the first adventure of Luke Skywalker reached the screen; the execrable 1973 version of Lost Horizon, the one with a miscast Liv Ullman leading talentless moppets in uncoordinated production numbers, was notorious for the sheer volume of tie-ins marketed by producers desperate to make back this bomb's production costs. However, Star Wars was the first film to become as famous for its merchandising as for its plot, and the sheer volume of tie-ins, from fast food meals to toys to books to costumes, paved the way for the current marketing model for adventure and science fiction film tchotchkes.
Part of this was due to the unexpected popularity of the film; Star Wars had been turned down by every studio in town before 20 Century-Fox agreed to finance it, and no one expected it to do more much more than make back its $11 million production cost. Of course it made far more than $11 million in first run - it was second only to Gone With The Wind for many years, and is still among the highest grossing movies of all time - so children clamored for Star Wars-themed games and toys. Adults, including toy collectors, SF and fantasy fans, and movie mavens, also eagerly snapped up as much Star Wars memorabilia as they could. Even today, thirty-five years after its initial release, Star Wars books, toys, games, and posters still fly briskly off the shelves at the local Barnes & Noble, long after similar movie tie-ins have been remaindered and sent to the Hell Plaza Ecologically Sensitive Landfill.
All of this made George Lucas a very, very rich man. He'd been so desperate to get the movie made that he'd accepted a comparatively modest $175,000 to direct and write the original film, on the condition that his newly formed Star Wars Corporation receive 40% of the merchandising revenues. As foolish as this seemed when Star Wars was but a disposable summer trifle, it proved to be the smartest decision Lucas had made since the day he cast Harrison Ford as Han Solo. To date, the six Star Wars films have grossed over $4 billion at the box office and approximately twice that in merchandising sales, meaning that George Lucas could very likely finance his very own Death Star if he felt like it.
Books, records, toys (dear God, toys!), posters, costumes, special editions, china plates, Scotch tape dispensers shaped like C3PO, Jar Jar Binks Wacky Wall Walkers, Jar Jar Binks Candy Tongues (yes, really), light sabers, Jar Jar Binks Must Die! fan merchandise from Cafe Press - the list of products is as endless as the end credits crawl for The Phantom Menace.
Some of this has sold better than others, of course. But of all the Star Wars tie-ins ever made, only one has ever been so bad that George Lucas has turned down the opportunity to profit from it has done everything short of chucking the master tapes into a New Year's bonfire at Skywalker Ranch.
Tonight's diary will vary a little bit from the usual in that I won't be discussing a book. Oh, a book is involved - see below - but my primary focus will be on George Lucas's worst nightmare.
The book: The Wookiee Storybook, yet another Star Wars tie-in.
The worst nightmare: The Star Wars Holiday Special
Those of you who were around in 1978 may remember this startlingly hideous piece of junk original piece of television. For those too young, or not yet existing, The Star Wars Holiday Special was exactly what it said: a two hour television program intended to join all the other festive holiday specials that have enriched the lives of baby boomers and their children, from A Charlie Brown Christmas to the annual Mormon Tabernacle Choir productions to Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve from Times Square (now hosted by Dick Clark's reanimated corpse Ryan Seacrest).
Alas, The Star Wars Holiday Special failed in its purpose. It aired once, on November 17, 1978, and then vanished from the airwaves. There is no DVD, no Blu-Ray, no official VHS or Betamax version, and the only book tie-in was the aforesaid Wookiee Storybook, a 40 page children's book that put the main characters in a new plot. The only way to savor the glory of this groundbreaking combination of blockbuster movie and 1970s variety show is either to buy a bootleg VHS tape or watch it on Youtube, as in the link I've thoughtfully provided. The actors cringe when it's mentioned (especially poor Harrison Ford, who had to endure being teased about it on Conan O'Brien in 2008 when he was attempting to promote a new film), while George Lucas reportedly said, "If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every copy of that show and smash it."
Yes. The man who created the shambling wreck that is Jar Jar Binks, who cast the instantly hateable Jake Lloyd as the young Anakin Skywalker, who penned dialogue so awful that actors of the caliber of Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, James Earl Jones, and Samuel L. Jackson all but choked on it, who devoted hours to the creation of battle droids who wander about saying "Roger-Roger," hates The Star Wars Holiday Special so much he wants to destroy every last bootlegged videotape, preferably by smashing them violently with a mallet.
That's some righteous hating, boys and girls.
I'm sure most of you are now thinking, "Surely it can't be that bad. It's Star Wars, after all. Even better, it's Star Wars before Lucas decided to retcon his own canon and have Greedo shoot first! It can't be that bad!" And if the plot (Chewbacca tries to get home to his family in time for the important Wookiee holiday Life Day, which seems to involve eating, drinking, walking about in red robes against a star field, and joining one's friends and relatives around the Tree of Life) sounds a bit, well, thin, the prominent role played by Chewbacca's young son seals it. But aren't the holidays for children? How bad could this possibly be?
Let me assure you that, horrid as it sounds, George Lucas (and Harrison Ford, and Anthony Daniels, and Carrie Fisher, and everyone else associated with the production) is correct: The Star Wars Holiday Special is bad. Really bad. Really, really, really bad. It's not quite Gore Vidal's Caligula, which is so bad that one questions whether the human race should be immediately destroyed, preferably with fire, and every hominid killed to prevent the re-evolution of the species capable of producing such a piece of unmitigated trash, but it's bad.
Those don't believe me are invited to click on the link to a complete Youtube version, complete with vintage 1978 commercials. Here are just a few of the delights you'll experience:
- Long scenes involving Chewie's father Itchy (yes, that's really his name), wife Malla, and son Lumpy (no, I am not making this up, I swear!) fussing about and waiting for Chewie's return. All dialogue is in Shyriiwook, the Wookiee language, and the scene lacks subtitles, voiceovers, or any way for a non-Wookiee to understand what is going on.
- A tree house that looks like it was decorated by someone whose mother had been frightened by the complete run of Sunset magazine from 1958 to 1978, inclusive. There are at least three or four badly concealed "secret" comm links to the Millennium Falcon, Luke Skywalker, and Princess Leia, showing the usefulness of those carpentry lessons Sunset always offers so one can live the California casual lifestyle.
- Luke Skywalker in a flattering Peter Pan haircut, photographed through so many layers of gauze that he looks like he's ready to decamp for Castro Street. Yes, I know that Mark Hamill was recovering from a bad accident, but seriously, was that really an excuse for making his eyes out-twinkle Dumbledore's?
- Bea Arthur as the bartender and owner of the cantina at Mos Eisley. She sings a song that's basically a very slow version of the lively cantina band song, flirts with someone who appears to be Greedo's clone (or possibly Greedo, it's never made clear), and doesn't flinch when one of the aliens (played by Harvey Korman) enjoys a drink by pouring it into the top of his head.
- Art Carney as a Rebel Alliance trader named Saun Dann, who seems to function as a sort of Santa figure, especially when he brings Malla a video projector that looks amazingly like a sewing machine and plays Jefferson Starship videos.
- The aforesaid Jefferson Starship video, from the period when Grace Slick was too drunk to perform and Mickey Thomas and Paul Kantner were soldiering on without her. Worse, it's not even one of their good non-Slick songs, like "Jane" or "Lightning Rose."
- Harvey Korman in another role as a four-armed Julia Child type, who cooks bantha loin so quickly that poor Malla can't follow along.
- Cutting edge computer graphics that look like rejects from either Tron or an early Atari video game.
- A virtual reality helmet for Itchy, who is revealed as a dirty old man Wookiee when he starts groovin' to what appear to be the June Taylor Dancers in Wookiee costumes, and then an interspecies kink when Diahann Carroll, decked out in feathers, appears, claims to be "your fantasy," and sings an incomprehensible song that sounds like a lame imitation of Gladys Knight's theme for License to Kill.
- Strangely unmenacing Stormtroopers, who only chase Lumpy upstairs instead of defenestrating the annoying little SOB.
- A defenestrated Stormtrooper, whose squad leader accepts the Lamest Excuse of All Time ("He stole all the food and then disappeared!") and leaves the Wookiees alone.
- A holiday treat called "Wookiee Ookies," and no, I swear on my father's grave that I am NOT making this up.
- Harrison Ford, as the cynical, ruthless anti-hero Han Solo, calling Lumpy "sweetheart" and telling Chewie and his relatives "You're like - family - to me" in a line reading that seems to Ford's homage to William Shatner's brilliant interpretation of Rocket Man.
- The aforesaid Life Day celebration, which ends with Princess Leia suddenly appearing at the Tree of Life and singing a song that's nothing more than the Star Wars theme played verrrrry verrrry slowly.
- A tender embrace between Chewie and Malla that ends in a passionate, desperate, longing session of face-sniffing that seems to be the Wookiee equivalent of tonsil hockey - and in front of Itchy and Lumpy, no less!
- A cartoon of Luke, Han, and Chewie encountering Boba Fett that is one of only two parts of the production that's even halfway entertaining in the way it was intended (the other is a charming little hologram of acrobats that dances across a tabletop while a rapt Lumpy looks on). Even this is marred by being watched by Lumpy, who doesn't seem surprised that his father's "secret" missions are now animated, or that the Stormtroopers searching his house seem oblivious to clear proof that Chewie is a war criminal, traitor, and saboteur, and maybe they should hang around a little longer in case he shows up.
There's more, so much more, that I can't even begin to force myself describe, but after watching this I'm sure you'll agree with George Lucas about the quality of this fine family entertainment. If ever two hours of children's television deserved to be smashed with a mallet and obliterated from the collective unconscious of humankind, it's this.
Fortunately enterprising folk with early VHS machines recorded it for posterity, so those of us who love the imperfect and the ridiculous as much as the glorious and the eternal can laugh, scream, and throw Wookiee-Ookies spit wads while quaffing tranya - whoops, wrong universe! your holiday tipple of choice. I guarantee that once you've seen The Star Wars Holiday Special, you will never criticize The Phantom Menace again forget it.
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So, gentle readers and viewers - what are your plans for this last night of 2011? Are you going to a party? Reading a good book? A bad one? Watching the ball drop in Times Square, or celebrating with friends and family? Whatever you do, be safe, be well, and be kind to each other. The year ahead should be one to remember!
Peace, love, and prosperity to you all -
Ellid
(and the Triple Felinoid: Gil-Galad Leofa, Diamond Minerva, and Hunter Moon Malfoy-the-cat)
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