Admittedly, discussion of the "Holiday Special" doesn't often happen through official channels -- aside from a bit of play in Star Wars Insider and 1995's Star Wars Chronicles book, the "Holiday Special" has pretty much been hidden away from the bright center of the Star Wars universe. But, on the occasion of the special's 30th birthday, we decided it was high time to acknowledge the contributions of the "Holiday Special" -- yes, contributions -- and slate a whole week's worth of November content to the Star Wars special fans love to hate.
Anchoring the week's worth of coverage was a selection of comprehensive articles written by Ross Plesset, who happily agreed to let us reprint some pieces he'd written for Filmfax and SFX magazines a few years ago. These included interviews with the director, script writer, actors, concept illustrator Ralph McQuarrie, and even the co-founder of the animation studio that created the short Boba Fett animated segment seen in the special. We added some never-before-published imagery throughout the stories, including some wonderful concept illustrations by McQuarrie that have rarely been seen -- the artwork alone is worth the stop, so check it out.
In addition to the interviews, we served up a selection of collectibles associated with the "Holiday Special" (believe it or not, the "Holiday Special" has been merchandised), as well as a run-down of items from the special that survive in the Lucasfilm Archives. The search for "Holiday Special" artifacts led us all over the company, from the prop archives to the film and image archives, and even the Skywalker Ranch library. We were happy to find that several items still remain intact, most notably pieces related to the Fett animated segment, considered by most to be the best part of the special.
Speaking of the animated segment, one of the coolest pieces we were able to dig out of the archives was an early animatic, or "leica reel", of the animated portion from the special, which featured early line drawings of the scenes and temporary voice-over acting (on a related note, we just posted the very first Boba Fett "screen test" as well, which can be found here).
Rounding out the "Holiday Special" content was a drawing tutorial on how to render Chewie's Wookiee family, and an interview with fansite starwarsholidayspecial.com's SKot Kirkwood -- yes, there's actually a site dedicated soley to the Star Wars galaxy's most notorious 90 minutes.
And in case virtual content alone isn't enough to satisfy your "Holiday Special" fix, StarWarsShop continues to offer an exclusive series of 11 free Topps cards with purchase while supplies last (one card per order).
If nothing else, the week's worth of "Holiday Special" content won it an official tag on StarWars.com, which is saying something -- not even Jar Jar's earned one of those.
Yet.
