I am a big Star Wars fan, but I only know the original Star Wars Holiday Special by reputation only. I know it centers around Han Solo trying to get Chewbacca home for Life Day with Chewy’s family, there some odd comedy and musical numbers, one from Carrie Fisher, and an animated segment saw the first appearance of Boba Fett. It’s so bad George Lucas tried to destroy all copies, and none of the actors involved seem all that proud of being in it. It’s possible to get a bootleg or even see it off YouTube, I’m sure, but that doesn’t mean I particularly want to see it. As much of a Star Wars fan as I am, that doesn’t mean I want to see the stuff that maybe isn’t that good.
However, Disney+ dropped a newer version, the Lego Star Wars Holiday Special, and that, well, it can’t be worse than the reputation for the original.
Set sometime after the events of Rise of Skywalker, the special opens with Lego Rey trying to teach Lego Finn how to use the Force. It isn’t working, but an ugly-sweater-clad Poe Dameron is setting the Falcon up for Chewy’s family for Life Day. Along with Rose and various droids, Poe wants to make this the best Life Day party ever, and he needs some help from Rey. However, Rey, along with BB-8, decides to look into some Jedi legend on another world that leads to some time travel. Rey can then travel through time and space and witness various Lego-refined moments of Jedi masters teaching their apprentices from all of the previous movies with the requisite light Lego-based humor. And while that goes wrong when Rey is spotted by Emeperor Palpatine and Darth Vader onboard the second Death Star, leading to a lot of Vader and Rey leaping through time and space to different movies and Star Wars stories, Poe is still back on the Millennium Falcon trying to get the Life Day party just right.
So, despite the title, I wouldn’t say this is much of a holiday special. There’s a shout-out to Life Day here and there, and what we see of Life Day sure does look a lot like Christmas, but most of the special is devoted to the time travel escapades of Rey, Vader, and a growing host of characters accidentally along for the ride. The animation is about standard for Lego (at least, small screen Lego). The voice cast, aside from a few holdovers from the movies, are decent but mostly not fooling anyone, and the actors who do reprise a role from the movies don’t actually seem to say all that much. And the humor is gentle and child friendly, but I can’t say I laughed out loud for any of it. As holiday specials go, it’s not very holiday specific. As Star Wars stories go, there is much better and much worse out there. I probably won’t be checking out any more Lego Star Wars in the future. For me, it just didn’t work.
Grade: C
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