Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

A Disturbance in the Force: How the Star Wars Holiday Special Happened Blu-ray Movie Review

A whopping 100% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes can't be wrong

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown December 8, 2023

Whispers in the hallways. Rumors of a bootleg copy floating around school. Horror stories from the few, the proud, the infected... those who had seen the Holy Grail of Star Wars cinema: The Star Wars Christmas Special. Disavowed, yanked from re-airing and all but eradicated from film and TV history, George Lucas's 1979 holiday fever dream was never meant to be seen again. Lucas hoped beyond hope it would fade from memory and never, ever resurface. But even before the internet, as technology advanced and the era of series and films that could be lost to time began to close, such things were becoming increasingly impossible. By some bizzaro miracle, copies of The Star Wars Christmas Special survived Lucas's personal Order 66 and began to circulate, replicate and find the masses. And God bless us every one, it's as demented and horrible a holiday special as you could possibly hope for or cringe at. An undelightfully wretched relic of a bygone age, it remains the strangest, most maligned Star Wars production to date. And that's precisely why some of us absolutely love it. Among its fandom? Jeremy Coon and Steve Kozak, whose A Disturbance in the Force at long last documents the genesis and revelation of Lucas's most infamous misstep.

A long time ago, in a TV studio far, far away...

From the filmmakers behind 'Napolean Dynamite' and 'Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made, comes a documentary about the infamous 'Star Wars Holiday Special'. The year was 1977. 'Star Wars' had almost instantly become a cultural phenomenon, one that single-handedly revitalized a stagnant film industry and forever changed how films were sold, made and marketed. In 1978, filmmaker George Lucas was convinced by some unscrupulous fellows to cash in on the 'Star Wars' craze and produce a holiday variety TV special. What could possibly go wrong? Answer: Everything. CBS aired the two-hour 'Star Wars Holiday Special' one night, on the week of Thanksgiving 1978. It was watched by 13 million people. It never re-aired. While some fans of the franchise today are acutely aware of Lucas's dark secret, this bizarre two hours of television still remains relatively unknown among the general public. Featuring interviews with Seth Green, Kevin Smith, Patton Oswalt, Paul Scheer, Weird Al Yankovic, Donny Osmond, Bruce Vilanch, Jason Lenzi, Jonathan Rinzler and many more, co-directors Jeremy Coon and Steve Kozak's 'A Disturbance in the Force' aims to answer how and why the 'Holiday Special' came to be.

From Brian Orndorf's review: It aired only once, on November 17th, 1978, but its legacy has managed to last for 45 years. The Star Wars Holiday Special has been called many things, including unwatchable, but the show means something to the fanbase, who’ve managed to extend the life of the endeavor beyond its original intent, transforming an effort Star Wars creator George Lucas deemed a complete failure into a cult-ready offering of pure 1970s goofiness, changing those who’ve managed to sit through the entire thing. A Disturbance in the Force is a look at the making of the special, with directors Jeremy Coon and Steve Kozak questing to understand how something this wild ever made it through the development system. Armed with a community of commentators and a sense of good-natured fun, the helmers strike gold with this documentary, which supplies a necessary overview of creative decisions and hirings that led what was meant to celebrate all things Star Wars to the television hall of shame.

A Disturbance in the Force identifies The Star Wars Holiday Special as a rare find back in the day, before bootlegging really took command of the effort, allowing anyone who wanted to see it a chance to do so. In the 1980s and ‘90s, such viewing opportunities were rare, with VHS copies passed around in secret, with those in the know hunting for a glimpse of something they’ve only heard of. These were prime years of Star Wars fandom, with the special something of a secret handshake among the faithful, and this piece of largely unseen media was treasured by some, loathed by most.

However, before tales from the shoot are shared, the story of Star Wars is recalled, with focus on its initial promotion. Charley Lippincott is the person credited as the force behind the Force, working to create awareness of Star Wars long before the feature was due for release. He visited sci-fi conventions, established novel and comic book deals, and shaped initial marketing efforts, aiming to generate a familiarity with the brand to help get ticket-buyers into theaters. The plan paid off in a major way, giving genre fans a new thing to obsess over, while the success of the 1977 picture took everyone by surprise, creating a new pop culture titan to deal with. Lippencott’s work is directly tied to The Star Wars Holiday Special, with A Disturbance in the Force identifying its origin as a way for Lucas to keep the fans interested in the franchise before it officially became a franchise in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back. Coon and Kozak explore a fascinating reality to moneymaking maintenance, spotlighting a wild west period when anyone could really do anything with Star Wars while Lucasfilm began to shape their business goals.

Enter the TV variety show, where anyone with a passable voice, working legs, and an exploitable image was handed their own series, and Star Wars was no exception. A Disturbance in the Force reveals that song and dance wasn’t the early plan for the special, examining Lucas’s original treatment for the program, including artist renderings and casting suggestions (Raquel Welch was specifically requested). The Star Wars Holiday Special was created to make sure fans didn’t forget about Star Wars before Empire reached theaters, and the documentary makes a point that, early on in the development process, Lucas was perfectly comfortable with certain ideas, including the creation of a Wookie family for Chewbacca. There was a vision of sorts, but that was quickly turned over to producers trained in the way of variety television, almost identifying the exact moment when the project went from fantasy fun for kids to something made for older viewers, with a cast including Harvey Korman, Bea Arthur, and Art Carney (and his alcoholism).

A Disturbance in the Force approaches the whole event with a sense of humor, gathering interviews with fans such as Kevin Smith, Taran Killam, and Weird Al Yankovic, and it hopes to provide insight from a number of professionals involved in the creation of The Star Wars Holiday Special, including co-writer Bruce Vilanch, who comes armed with memories and anecdotes about the experience. Coon and Kozak walk through every section of the show, helping to understand choices made and budgetary limitations, and they deliver an enjoyable overview of the process, generating an appreciation for what really happened. They elect to close the picture with philosophical musings on the ways of art and failure, which ends the documentary with a weird wave of defensive behavior, but a fumbled conclusion doesn’t dilute the enjoyable and informative viewing experience. Perhaps there isn’t true closure when it comes to the odd subject matter, but A Disturbance in the Force is certainly educational and a wonderfully lively sit.

A Disturbance in the Force: How the Star Wars Holiday Special Happened Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

No surprises under the tree with Allied V's 1080p/AVC-encoded video presentation, and that's a very good thing. While the quality of archive footage is solely dependent upon the condition of the original elements and inherent limitations (clips from The Star Wars Holiday Special look suitably awful in all their standard definition made-for-TV glory), the documentary's interview segments fare beautifully, without anything in the way of low-fi distractions. Colors are bold, natural and true to life. Contrast is dialed in consistently, in spite of the many, many different environments the interviews have been filmed in. Overlays and graphics are crisp, popping nicely. (And thankfully briefly.) Moreover, detail is terrific, with every hair, stubbly stubble, wrinkle and grin-born creases are refined and well resolved. Compared to other similar documentaries, A Disturbance in the Force stands a full head and shoulders above, and without any banding, macroblocking or anomalies (other than those inherent to the vintage footage elements). Enjoy without disruption!

A Disturbance in the Force: How the Star Wars Holiday Special Happened Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Blu-ray edition of A Disturbance in the Force features a decent DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track; "decent" not because it suffers from any issues or disappointments, nor because it falters or fails. The documentary is rife with interviews and talking heads, and such productions are almost always front-heavy, conversational affairs. To that end, voices are clean and clear, neatly prioritized, and never overwhelmed by music or other audio elements. That doesn't mean the other channels are silent, though. Rear speaker activity is light, nimble and engaging, and low-end output injects just enough weight into the experience to give things welcome weight, roundness and depth. Neither is aggressive or all that assertive, but neither phones it in.

A Disturbance in the Force: How the Star Wars Holiday Special Happened Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The only disappointment to be had with the Blu-ray release of A Disturbance in the Force is that it doesn't include any special features. Even a few extended interviews would've been appreciated. Certainly there are hours of cut interview footage that could have created a value-packed supplemental suite. Ah well.

A Disturbance in the Force: How the Star Wars Holiday Special Happened Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you love Star Wars, you've certainly heard tales of horror and delight surrounding its fabled Holiday Special. While the special itself can only be obtained via bootleg internet streams (and is worth watching, believe me, if only to understand the depths to which it sinks), A Disturbance in the Force works around such issues and offers a lineup of entertaining, surprisingly insightful celebrities, filmmakers who worked on the special, and other guests to muse and dig into Lucas's strangest production to date. It's an excellent doc, and one fans should be eager to seek out. It also boasts a strong AV presentation, which only helps. There aren't any special features and, of course, the original Star Wars Holiday Special isn't available on the disc -- that would have been a real boon -- but this Blu-ray is still worth a purchase. And it's Christmas! What perfect timing.