A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE | ©2023 September Films/Giant Pictures

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Bruce Vilanch, Kevin Smith, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Mick Garris, Donny Osmond, Patton Oswalt, Seth Green, Steve Binder, Lenny Ripps, Kyle Newman
Directors: Jeremy Koon & Steve Kozak
Distributor: September Films/Giant Pictures
Release Date: December 5, 2023 (digital)

The 1978 STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL became an immediate legend for how horrified its viewers were. People who tuned in expecting a follow-up to George Lucas’s 1977 hit movie instead got two hours of something that made fans and civilians alike wonder, “How did this happen?”

It’s taken forty-five years, but A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE, subtitled “How the Star Wars Holiday Special Happened,” is here to finally unravel the mystery.

We get several things out of the documentary. One is that nobody with both authority and vision was in charge of the special, which caused no small amount of chaos and explains a lot. Another is that, despite this, THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL doesn’t live down to its hype.

While Lucas came up with the original premise for the special, which was meant to tell us more about Chewbacca and his fellow Wookiees, the actual making of the show was given over to people with experience in variety shows rather than science fiction or filmmaking.

Despite playing to thirteen million viewers on its original November 17, 1978 airing on CBS, the special was never repeated, and is not available on home video. For decades, it could only be found on successively worse generations of VHS bootleg tapes. (Per IMDB, it is now available on streaming.)

We immediately get that A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE is made by people who love STAR WARS with an unquenchable passion. Directed by Jeremy Koon & Steve Kozak and executive-produced by Adam F. Goldberg (creator of THE GOLDBERGS), there are interview clips at every opportunity praising the film and what it wrought. Apart from some amusing reaction footage from talk shows, we don’t really get to the special until about twenty minutes into the documentary.

What we see of the HOLIDAY SPECIAL is certainly weird and largely not STAR WARS-esque, but as many of the interviewees point out, it was hardly the worst thing ever put on television. Viewers (like this one) who have never known before that DONNY & MARIE had a STAR WARS segment (with Kris Kristofferson, no less) are given enough footage to compare, and the HOLIDAY SPECIAL does not come off as the worse of the two. It’s undeniably bizarre, but its real sin seems to be disappointing those who didn’t know they would be getting THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK in two years, or just couldn’t wait that long.

A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE | ©2023 September Films/Giant Pictures

The filmmakers have assembled a good mixture of people to talk about the HOLIDAY SPECIAL, from its second director (after the first one was fired), Steve Binder, and two of its five writers, Bruce Vilanch and Lenny Ripps, to others involved in the project, such as publicist Craig Miller, Lucasfilm liaison Miki Herman, costume designer Bob Mackie, and R2-D2 operator Mick Garris, to those who did later STAR WARS tribute/parodies, including ROBOT CHICKEN and STAR DETOURS WARS co-creator Seth Green and “Weird Al” Yankovich, to other filmmakers like Kevin Smith and Bobcat Goldthwait, and articulate fans such as Patton Oswalt. We also see archival bits with Lucas and stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher commenting on the show.

They’re all entertaining to hear, and we do get an education on the enormous difference between now and then in how films were promoted and expected to stay in (or fall from) public consciousness.

The tone is jovial and enormously affectionate. This is fine. It’s just that the build-up is such that we’re expecting something a little darker than what’s stated in a multitude of ways, which is that, without Lucas’s firm guidance, the project was simply handed off to people whose style clashed with the subject matter. It’s a shame, but not a novelty.

The eventual effect of A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE is like being at a party with a bunch of comrades reminiscing over the good old/bad old days. It’s fun, we like everybody, and we learn some new facts, but it’s not as shocking as we might have imagined it would be at the outset.

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