‘Star Wars’ Fans Have Finally Found Something ‘Worse Than the Holiday Special’
In the world of Star Wars fandom, few things unite fans like their hatred of the saga’s lowest moments. Although George Lucas’s brainchild has seen several low moments ranging from Jar Jar Binks to the much-maligned remasterings of the original trilogy, all of them pale to the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special.
However, after recent pictures of Mark Hamill wearing a golden suit that looked straight from a disco, perhaps there’s a new low point in the Star Wars saga.
‘Star Wars’ highs and lows
As beloved as the Star Wars franchise is, its fan base is infamous for hating certain aspects of it just as much as they love the others. Whether they were complaining about the Ewoks in the ’80s or the prequels and remasters in the 90s and early 00s, Star Wars fans are a passionate and opinionated bunch. It is a testament to both the strength of the fandom and the contradictory nature.
Nothing best encapsulates this like the infamous Holiday Special. Despite Star Wars existing in a universe where no earthly holidays appear to exist, LucasFilm decided to capitalize on the trend of popular holiday specials and release a short special that featured Chewbacca and his family celebrating a festival on the Wookie planet of Kashyyk.
While this could have been an entertaining distraction from the series’s intergalactic warfare, it turned into a strange cross between low budget rip-off, variety show, music showcase, and sitcom.
A slew of celebrity cameos took the saga away from the galaxy far, far away and put it solely into the realm of 1980s pop culture.
The special was so maligned that Lucas attempted to take it away forever. However, bootleg copies of it frequently appear online. As a result, strange event lives in infamy to this day.
However, with these new set photos, fans might have a new thing to poke fun of, pay homage to, or turn into a cult classic.
Luke Skywalker’s new look?
The original Star Wars movies exist in a plane independent of the culture and fashion of the 1970s and ’80s. Although remnants of this can be found in the hair and style, it does a wonderful job preserving this timeless quality.
However, if Luke Skywalker took the screen wearing the costume from some leaked photos, this might not have been the case.
Reddit users dug up old pictures of a young Mark Hamill dressed in a strange gold intergalactic disco suit with puffed out sleeves and a fair amount of skin in the chest area. The thread was posted with the headline: “I found something worse than the holiday special…”
Skywalker, who is portrayed as a humble farm boy at the beginning of the saga, seems less like a Jedi and more like a disco performer in the suit.
Fans had a field day mocking the 1970s attire. However, while the costume didn’t get into the film, Hamill confirmed that this costume was never meant to see the light of day on screen.
Luke Skywalker: The Golden child
Hamill had fun with the dug up pictures via ComicBook.com, comparing himself to the members of the flamboyant pop group, ABBA, and explaining that the digs were just one of several bizarre suits that he had to wear to promote around the world.
The Star Wars fandom of the ’70s and ’80s existed at a time when actors had to do more than tweet and interview to get their names out, and this was a prime example.
At the end of the day, the costume is a hilarious and inoffensive time capsule that reminds us of the time when the original trilogy was released. Now in the 21st-century, this is a bizarre departure from what the franchise has become.
Gold suits, holiday specials, and talking Gungans might live in infamy among the franchise’s biggest fans. Still, the strangeness of Star Wars’ biggest blunders help add charm to a property that is ripe with strange and memorable failures.
