By In 1978, the world was shown the first true follow up to Star Wars. It became known as George Lucas’ biggest mistake The Star Wars Holiday Special. It was a variety hour of television centered around Chewbacca’s family. It is legendary for being truly awful. However, accomplished director (and creator of The Mandalorian) Jon Favreau believes it has some redeeming qualities. Not only did he take inspiration from the special when making his own show, he actually wants to make another one.
Variety caught up with him to ask about the special and who would perform in his hypothetical take on the concept. This is what he had to say:
“Oh I would definitely be interested in doing a holiday special. And I’m not going to say who I would be interested in. But one of the people is the member of the cast in an upcoming episode of the show. So we’ll leave it at that for now. I’ve been thinking about it. It’s ready, the ideas are ready. I think it could be really fun. Not as part of this, but there’s an excitement around it because it was so fun and weird, and off and not connected to what Star Wars was in the theater. The Mandalorian cartoon, the Boba Fett cartoon, from the holiday special was definitely a point of inspiration for what we did in the show.”
The special is truly something to behold, and it can be found around the internet if you look for it. It features performances from Beatrice Arthur, Art Carney, Diahann Carroll, and Jefferson Starship. This is all in addition to returning performances from the main cast of Star Wars. It’s not very good. Frankly, it’s rather boring for most of its run-time. It did feature a short animated sequence that introduced Boba Fett to the world, so it wasn’t all bad.
Personally, I hope Favreau is able to make a new one. It might even be heart-warming. He did direct Elf, after all.
Jon Favreau Already Has a Star Picked for His ‘Star Wars’ Holiday Special [Variety]