1978's The Star Wars Holiday Special remains one of the most perplexing 2 hours of television ever produced. Why in the world did its producers think that fans of the action-orientated space opera would want to see Bea Arthur singing, or Harvey Korman play not one, not two, but three different wacky aliens, or spend ten minutes listening to Wookies grunt at each other? George Lucas, who had very little involvement in the production, was so embarrassed that, after its single airing the week before Thanksgiving, had the show locked away, presumably to never see the light of day again.
But a funny thing happened on the way to oblivion. The Internet came into being, and suddenly the long-forgotten special, which had largely been passed around to a very tiny audience via bootleg recordings from the one airing, became a hot commodity. These days, its available to watch in all its glory on YouTube, and Disney and LucasFilm are in no rush to take it down.
Indeed, while there likely won't be a pristine print on Disney+ anytime soon, the studio is clearly fine with people watching it, to the point that they created an entirely new special whose title piggybacks onto that trainwreck.
To be fair, other than the title and the celebration of Life Day, the Christmas stand-in the 1978 special introduced, there's not much connection between it and The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special. Unlike its predecessor, which actually tried to tell a serious story when it wasn't indulging in 70s variety weirdness, Lego Star Wars is a comedy through and through.
Apparently taking place after the events of The Rise of Skywalker, Lego Star Wars opens on Life Day, which Rey, the scavenger-turned-Jedi who was the primary protagonist of the new trilogy, seems intent on ignoring in order to train Finn, the Stormtrooper-turned-rebel, in the ways of the Jedi. However, she quickly gets distracted by the discovery that there is an ancient Jedi artifact that only works on Life Day. She quickly takes off to find it, and soon discovers it allows her to visit pivotal moments from the first six movies via portal. Things get complicated when after visiting the Emperor's throne room during Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader follows her through the portal, intent on capturing it himself.
While Star Wars is not really known for having a much of a sense of humor, doing the special in Lego form allows for all sorts of jokes at the expense of the franchise, from a Phantom Menace-era Obi-Wan complaining about how boring settling a trade dispute was to a Force Awakens-era General Hux becoming tongue-tied at a shirtless Kylo Ren (the Lego version's abs aren't quite as spectacular as Adam Driver's, but they're still pretty impressive for an animated block). There's even a moment for cross-promotion as they briefly fall past The Madalorian and Baby Yoda, for which Vader and Ren have to pause their light-sabre battle to coo at The Child.
All this is pretty amusing, though its not super deep. Indeed, jokes rarely get more complicated than early-in-A New Hope-era Luke constantly ending up with a blue milk moustache. And for those worried about canon, given that all the characters are being played by Legos, the fact that New Hope Luke, Rey, and Kylo were all in the Emperor's throne room during the climax of Return of the Jedi probably won't affect the "official" history too much.
While the animation looks nice, don't expect much in the way of celebrity voices. While a few of the movie actors (Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, Kelly Marie Tran) show up, most of the characters are voiced by unknowns, though to be fair, most of them have voiced their characters in video games and other animated media before.
The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special is quite fun, and far better than The Star Wars Holiday Special. However, it's not particularly memorable. That might be the advantage of being a legendary train wreck. It's unlikely that, in 42 years, too many people will still be thinking about the Lego version.
Next time: Christmas in the Happiest Place on Earth
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