The General Star Wars Thread

Am I allowed to watch the Riff Trax version of the Holiday Special?

If you really need to. Otherwise, you need to sit down and raw dog the full experience. No booze. No weed. No drugs. You gotta take it all in and exclaim “WTF?!?” as you try to understand what anyone was thinking.

But Mike, Bill and Kevin are such delightful company…

Is there any easy official way to access The Holiday Special?

As far as I can tell, the answer is "no".

The movie's creators view it, unironically, as an embarrassment and have done everything they can to avoid acknowledging its existence. Disney seems to have a softer policy, as they at least reference its existence. However, I don't think they intend on rereleasing it in any format.

If you do manage to get a chance to see it, though, I will warn you that it's a bad movie. I've tried to watch it but couldn't really sit through it myself (to be fair though I have a short attention span and whatnot, so don't take that as a strong condemnation)

To be more specific: If you're looking for a So Bad, It's Good movie, The Star Wars Holiday Special is still hit-or-miss. While the movie is very surreal in many ways, it also can be pretty dull at times which for some can severely undermine even ironic enjoyment of it.

@ M84: Original Saga Palpatine is a classic case of Victory disease

I’ve found that with some movies that I KNOW aren’t that great (and are not being made fun of by a janitor and robots), watching them in small doses (say, 15-20 minutes at a time) makes it easier.

It took me two days to sit through the Holiday Special. I couldn’t do it all in one sitting.

That would be the real challenge.

I managed it!

The half hour of un-subtitled Wookiee-speak was... rough.

I legit found Art Carney and Bea Arthur's characters pretty interesting though.

I've read a lot of bad ones, but I've mostly blocked them out.

I think the worst one I bumped into that I can think of as being bad for largely non-gross reasons was one that was basically "what if Anakin turned into Vader, raided the temple and killed the Separatists, then turned against Palpatine so he could go off and do whatever he wants with his hot wife as a cool, edgy darkside badass, all while making the remaining Jedi back off because he's such a cool, edgy darkside badass."

It was the pinnacle of "edgy, teenage power fantasy," and it was laughably terrible.

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 2nd 2024 at 6:21:05 AM

For May 4th I think that I am just going to find some cool comic or book to buy that interests me.

Oh man, reminds me of all those DARK super powered Harry Potter edgelord fanfics that are laughably bad.

Darth Vader as an unironic power fantasy is boring AF, but as a tragic power fantasy that highlights just what a terrible fate it is to be Vader while also delivering the cool parts of the dark side as a balancing act is great.

That's why the Darth Vader comics are hauntingly beautiful as one youtuber put it quite nicely.

Even stories starring DOCTOR DOOM have emphasis on his cruelty, ego, and evil to make him more human in addition to his noble traits.

Edited by RedHunter543 on May 3rd 2024 at 12:14:52 AM

My Hero Academia fanfics are rife with similar edgelord fantasies.

I can tell. I like villains, but there needs to be a certain humanity at their core for them to work.

Edelgard has her friendships and bonds with the Eagles and desire to do good, and Vader has the tragedy of being a fallen hero who made. A deal with the devil and lost.

Vader’s humanity and evil are front and center in his series, I feel like that’s a major reason why that series resonates with people.

It just can’t be a power fantasy, there needs to be a character for it to work.

Maybe I will do a quick playthrough to Swtor.

Just the original Consular class story.

Weak, join the Sith.

Then make a heroic light side Sith Inquisitor to confuse your enemies.

My Consular will defeat the Inquisitor if the two ever met .

This is an oxymoron.

See? It's working, you're confused at how Light Side Sith work when they are helping the weak and needy while shunning the self righteous Jedi who abandon their loved ones at a wedding ceremony and only care about sex to breed more Jedi.

(Seriously, only attachmentless sex being allowed for Jedi is a WTF part of Jedi lore.)

Darth Oxymoronus, The Light Sith. The other Sith mostly just ignore him at the Sith get-togethers, and the Jedi won’t let him inside the temple.

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 3rd 2024 at 8:02:20 AM

There is no confusion whatsoever; I am firmly convinced that such a thing does not exist .

If a Sith becomes a lightsider, he will cease to be a Sith, and if a lightsider become a Sith, he will no longer be a lightsider.

It is like a "democratic dictatorship," the two simply can't coeexist at the same time.

Edited by jawal on May 3rd 2024 at 4:08:23 PM

> a lightsaber becomes a Sith

...what?

I feel like the biggest sign of the franchise's age is an Internet or analogue generally aren't a big part of the setting.

Else you'd get things like Sith trying to discredit the Jedi by posting really garbled versions of their doctrine on Space Geocities or having a bunch of boys making anti-Jedi posts on Space Twitter.

And you'd probably get a lot of people trying to start their own Jedi or Sith orders, but screwing up because they're going off what they learned on Space Reddit.

Edited by MisterTambourineMan on May 3rd 2024 at 10:14:23 AM

Then explain Darth Imperius actually doing charity work and helping out the sick in Nar Shadaa? That's so un Sith.

Well, considering the Old Republic MMO setting does have a lot of Sith and Jedi running around AND the internet equivalent in the holonet, I can see Sith just spreading fake news about the Jedi.

Palpatine did it too.

If a drug lord donates some money to charity, will he be a good man? Will that make for the countless people he killed and ruined?

The Sith Inquisitor (as does the Warrior) is serving an evil tyrannical empire, and his efforts help that regime conquers innocent planets (like Balmora) and condemn countless peacfull species to either slavery or genocide.

He himself will kill countless civilians, Jedi and Republic soldiers, to advance his own personal ambitions or those of his rotten empire.

.........................

A true lightsider, will not under any circumstances serve the empire; he will either defect to the Jedi, or abandon the conflict completly and start a new life elsewhere.

The Inquisitor in particular has no loved ones, no family or relatives in the Empire, he was a slave, he does not own anything to the Sith, except for suffering.

All of the above, can't be hand-waved by a couple nice gestures towards strangers.

........................

And honestly Nar Shadaa is a bad example, because he was there to deceive people and create a cult among the poor and downtrodden, that worship him personally as a prophet.

The fact that he use carrots instead of sticks, does not make him a hero, his goal and methods are still villainous.

.........................

Personally, I still enjoy the Inquisitor story (my favorite Imperial class), and I generally like the Sith as villains.

But that is what they are: villains.

They are not secretly good, they are not misunderstood, they don't have valid points; they are not a face of the same coin that depict the Jedi.

I enjoy watching Palpatine being evil, but I will not think that his victory is a good thing for the galaxy, and will consider any story when he does, to be a Downer Ending.

Edited by jawal on May 3rd 2024 at 4:46:44 PM

Yeah, I like being a Dark Sider Sith Inquisitor.

It makes being called a hero post Knights of the fallen empire funny because in order to topple the Eternal Empire, I did a shit ton of war crimes like mass murdering civilians and killing a Zakuulian pop star out of spite.

Zakuul was a bigger mistake than Light Side Sith, so I'm happy to genocide it and erase it from history.