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  • Base-Breaking Character: While Ackmena is considered to be one of the few standouts of the Special, she still has a big portion of screentime in what's arguably one of the most infamous cases of Bile Fascination and some fans won't forgive her for that. The division arises over whether she's just the least awful part of the special but still bad, or a legitimate and enjoyable character in a segment of what's otherwise the worst piece of Star Wars media ever made.
  • Bile Fascination: Infamously so, thanks in no small part to its underground status and the hatred it has received from George Lucas himself and some of those involved. Those who've seen it no doubt consider it a miracle that the franchise survived this train wreck.
  • Bizarro Episode: The special is this in the larger context of the Star Wars canon. Also to Lucas and certain other cast members, who do their best to pretend it never happened. On the bright side, it's not canon anymore since Disney's ruling on the Expanded Universe, but it's still this in the context of the Star Wars Legends continuity.
  • Common Knowledge: Although almost universally considered such, this was not a Christmas Special, and is not and has never been called the Star Wars Christmas Special. It actually first (and last) aired the week before American Thanksgiving, more than six weeks before Christmas. Life Day does have some similar elements to Christmas and a few later international broadcasts did apparently air the special on Christmas, so this may have resulted in the association.
  • Critical Backlash: While the special is still universally seen as pretty much the worst Star Wars story ever and has never even once been challenged for that position, as the years have gone by, any outright hatred of it among the fandom has pretty much disappeared. It's now generally regarded with bemusement as a quaint, amusing relic of the franchise's early days, with many of its very basic ideas still being considered canon (in a Broad Strokes way), plus fans and creators alike always being happy to make affectionate jabs at it in later material. The special is generally helped by being terrible but also easily ignorable; its Bizarro Episode nature means that it has basically zero serious impact on anything, and absolutely nothing else in the series requires you to know about it, even stories that directly lift elements from it. Thus, it's relegated to being a harmless oddity rather than Canon Defilement. It helps that the landscape it was produced made variety specials that were not only more pointless, but with some much worse than this.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • The animated segment served as the introduction of Boba Fett, the biggest ensemble darkhorse of Star Wars in general. In fact, despite Lucasfilm wanting to forget about the special, the cartoon found its way onto one of the Complete Saga Blu-Ray discs as an Easter Egg.
    • Ackmena, even more so since Bea Arthur's death. People who work on the Star Wars franchise loved her so much that they added her to the Expanded Universe, wherein she's stated to have gone on to join a group dedicated to freeing Tatooine slaves. She even made the transition to existing in the new canon after appearing in the Complete Locations reference book, and appears as a supporting character in the short story anthology From a Certain Point of View.
    • Chewie's family was brought into Legends proper and later into the new Disney canon, probably because everybody found that Chewie now actually had a reason to fight for the Rebellion besides following Han.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: If there's one thing all fans and creators of Star Wars can agree on, it's that this thing never happened. Of all the things that Lucas himself declared non-canon, well before Disney purchased Lucasfilm, the special was the only one that didn't contradict the Original Trilogy. note  It was also very deliberately excluded from the Disney canon, with the apparent exception of Chewie's family according to Aftermath: Empire's End. Chef Gormaanda, the four-armed chef woman played by Harvey Korman is also mentioned in Star Wars: The Life Day Cookbook.
  • Fan Nickname: The Imperial guard who takes a groomer away from Saun Dann is known as "Lord Helmet" due to their similar outfits.
  • Genius Bonus: In case you haven't already noticed, Chewbacca's family members are all named after symptoms of a mosquito bite.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Go here.
  • Just Here for Godzilla: People who watch the special unironically tend to watch it for the animated sequence and/or Ackmena.
  • Memetic Molester: Itchy has been reinterpreted as a particularly disturbing Dirty Old Man thanks to that odd softcore porn video he watches.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • From a WCBS news teaser in the New York City recording: "Fighting the frizzies, at 11."
    • Boba Fett's continuous use of "friend" — which continues with Ackmena calling everyone a friend as well.
    • The whole special is memetic in how awful it is. George Lucas' seething hatred of it is also rather memetic.
  • Mis-blamed: Some fans blame Lucas for the quality of this, but in reality he had very little involvement due to working on The Empire Strikes Back at the time. Whether he still deserves some of the blame, however, is hotly debated. According to writer Bruce Vilanch, the idea of the special focusing on Chewie's family, and not including subtitles, was all on Lucas. Lucas had one of his trusted former USC classmates, David Acomba, installed as director to make sure that the special would be at least somewhat faithful to the original film. Unfortunately, Acomba didn't really have much experience with multicam video production, and quit after disagreements with the producers. They replaced him with Steve Binder, whose specialty was light entertainment (his big career highlights were the 1968 Elvis (NBC TV Special) and, later, Pee-wee's Playhouse). Binder says Lucas never really communicated with him about the show. On the other hand, writer Pat Proft says Lucas signed off on everything, which is believable due to Lucas being a Control Freak. But evidence suggests that the utter failure of this special was a big reason why Lucas became a control freak.
  • Narm: The whole special is a veritable goldmine of unintentional comedy, but special mention must be given to the musical number at the end. Han, Luke, Chewie, R2-D2 and C-3PO are supposed to be moved by Leia's song of hope, but the attempt at "warmhearted" holiday cheer fails spectacularly due to all of them (yes, even the droids!) looking alternately bored out of their minds or deeply ashamed to be involved in all of this. The only person who seems to be enjoying herself is Carrie Fisher, who by her own admission was whacked off her skull on drugs while making this special, and it really shows in this scene.
  • Narm Charm: Ackmena's song feels a bit random and out of place in Star Wars, but it's a competent and moving song that most fans actually like.
  • One-Scene Wonder:
    • While the premise was as silly as the rest of it, Bea Arthur's performance as Ackmena is actually somewhat moving. Sadly, it doesn't save the rest of the special's horribleness.
    • The animated segment as a whole — looking at you, Boba Fett.
    • The random Stormtrooper who fights Han and (due to the way the scene is shot) apparently trips over his own gun note , thus nailing a perfect Railing Kill. The Wilhelm Scream he makes is the cherry on the parfait.
  • Retroactive Recognition:
    • The special was Don Francks' voice acting debut, being the first voice of Boba Fett in the animated segment, who would go on to be better known as the voice actor behind Sabretooth in X-Men: The Animated Series and Mok Swagger in Rock and Rule.
    • The special was one of the first efforts by makeup artist Stan Winston, who designed the masks for Chewie's family.
    • According to writer Bruce Vilanch, the holographic circus acrobats later became Cirque du Soleil.
  • So Bad, It's Good: As long as you aren't George Lucas.
  • Squick: Elderly Wookiee Itchy looks like he's masturbating to holographic alien porn in the middle of his living room, in front of his daughter-in-law and grandson. Worse yet, this is apparently a common enough occurrence that they don't even bother commenting on it. Even worse still... this is exactly how the writers and producer wanted it to come across. Happy Thanksgiving, children! And they would've made it more explicit if not for one of the few necessary instances of Executive Meddling.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Ackmena, Bea Arthur's character, is considered to be the most interesting character created for the special. While she doesn't appear for very long and Bea never reprised the role prior to her death in 2009, the Expanded Universe (both before and after Disney acquired Lucasfilm) took her along for the ride.
  • Took the Bad Film Seriously: Bea Arthur, alone among all the big-name guest stars. To her credit, she's talented enough to elevate her sequence into something watchable and almost poignant. She was also no stranger to variety shows of the era, so she knew how to adapt her Deadpan Snarker mode to the role. Her own comment on the special years later was that she hadn't been keeping up with Star Wars and its massive cultural impact at the time, thinking of the gig as just singing a musical number to "a bunch of people with funny heads."
  • Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
    • Han Solo's cartoon representation. He almost looks like Mick Jagger. Melting Mick Jagger, to be exact.
    • Mark Hamill was still scratched up and bruised from a car accident, so he ends up a rare live-action human actor example. The makeup needed to cover up his injuries made him look like a Ken doll.
    • Harvey Korman crossdressing as Chef Gormaanda. His layers of makeup and very fake-looking hair make him look like an Eldritch Abomination.
  • Unfortunate Character Design: Chef Gormaanda looks like an overweight Lady Tremaine wearing blackface.
  • The Woobie: Krelman, Harvey Korman's character in the Cantina scene. Yes, he's a bit weird with his head hole, but he's so sincere and so lonely, he evokes sympathy almost accidentally. Cantina barmaid Ackmena and her customers as a whole also fit the bill.
  • WTH, Costuming Department?: Plenty of this to go around, which is especially jarring for Star Wars.
    • The Wookiees congregating to celebrate Life Day all wear bright red nightgowns that make it look like they're all wearing Snuggies. Or like members of a cult. Didn't stop BioWare from putting them into Star Wars: The Old Republic years later.
    • Harvey Korman's outfit as Chef Gormaanda is quite the unholy abomination.
    • The costumes for Chewie's family on Kashyyyk. Any time they smile or stare directly at the camera can be very unnerving.
    • The makeup on Luke Skywalker was justifiable since it was covering up scars Mark Hamill had gotten from a then-recent car accident and subsequent surgery. Less justifiable is his hair, which makes him resemble a Ken doll.
    • Just about every dancer in every sequence they appear, as they all look like Las Vegas showgirls.

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