The 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special is pretty infamous.
Aside from being the piece of Star Wars media that introduced Boba Fett in a cartoon segment, the special is notorious for being unwatchable. Indeed, the special can best be described as a cocaine-fueled fantasy story that has little to do with Star Wars, featuring appearances by several actors who merely wanted to be associated with the film that exploded in popularity the year before.
Forty-two years since that disaster, Disney has released another holiday special for Star Wars, this time in Lego form. The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special premiered on Disney+ on November 17. This new special takes place sometime after The Rise of Skywalker and takes place on Life Day, the same celebration day that was the focus for the original special.
In the special, Rey (voiced by Helen Sadler) is training Finn (voiced by Omar Benson Miller) to become a Jedi. But they reach a snag in Finn’s training with Rey’s lightsaber, and Rey begins to doubt her abilities to pass on what she’s learned.
Meanwhile, the rest of the gang, including Poe (voiced by Jake Green), Rose (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran), Chewie & his family, Lando (Billy Dee Williams) and C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) are preparing for a Life Day party onboard The Millennium Falcon. Poe is determined to make the celebration perfect and goes to comedic lengths to make it happen.
Rey consults the Jedi Texts to look for a different method of training. She learns of a sacred Jedi Temple on another planet and she ventures there with BB-8. At the Temple, Rey finds a time key, which allows her to travel to different moments in time throughout the Star Wars Saga. She first travels to the time of The Empire Strikes Back and sees her own master, Luke, training under Yoda.
Eventually, Rey travels to the second Death Star and her departure catches the attention of Emperor Palpatine (voiced by Trevor Devall), who dispatches Darth Vader (voiced by Matt Sloan) to get the time key.
Vader arrives in Rey’s time and the two duel before they end up traveling through time again, picking up characters from every era of the saga along the way. They even travel briefly to the time of The Mandalorian, and encounter The Mandalorian and IG unit defending Grogu (aka The Child aka Baby Yoda) in the pilot episode. Rey and Vader briefly pause their battle to admire Grogu’s cuteness before they continue traveling.
Soon Vader is able to take the time key from Rey and present it to his master, who decides to time travel to the future to see how he fares. Naturally, he decides to travel ahead just 30 years and meets Kylo Ren (voiced by Matthew Wood) and the story continues from there.
True to the style of the Lego Star Wars video games, the special is full of slapstick humor that pays plenty of tribute to various moments of time in the Star Wars saga.
Easily the most iconic moment was when the three Obi-Wans of the prequel films walked up to each other and greeted one another with the infamous, “Hello there” from Revenge of the Sith.
The three Obi-Wans of the prequel trilogy greeting each other with the infamous “Hello there” during a scene of The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special.
While the Lego special pokes fun at the original, it stands well on its own as a heartwarming story that, like other holiday-themed movies and specials, shows us the meaning of family and spending time with one another as the most important part of the holidays.
The special runs about 45 minutes in length and there is plenty for all Star Wars fans to enjoy while watching it. You can stream the special now, exclusively on Disney+.
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