The Star Wars Holiday Special teaches us to hate Christmas, life

Another Christmas has come and gone, so I've once again decided to cross-post my traditional yearly post on The Star Wars Holiday Special from my other blog, Pointless Side Quest. Please to enjoy, for a certain value of "enjoy."

It's the Christmas season once again. To celebrate, this is the time of year when this blog make a foray beyond the world of video games into the larger world of holiday entertainment. Sadly, there is a dark side to Christmas. I'm not talking about the weather, or the parents rending each other apart like rabid beasts at Toys R Us, or the built-up resentment that can explode at family gatherings, or those horrific modernized versions of Christmas carols that every place of business in the state of Illinois is apparently required by law to defile my eardrums with for the entire month of December. No, I speak of something much worse...

The Star Wars Holiday Special has appeared on American television once, in 1978, and oozed into various foreign markets to make similarly brief appearances over the next few years. It has never been rebroadcast in the US and has never been released on home video in any format. George Lucas, who would probably release a boxed set of the prequel trilogy with an added bonus DVD containing 90 minutes of footage from the parking lot security cameras of Skywalker Ranch and call it the "Star Wars Ultimate Edition" if he thought anyone would buy it, disavows it and has refused to make it available.

Scorned by legitimate society, it exists only in the form of unauthorized copies made from VCR recordings of the original. Like so many other blasphemous tomes of daemonic horror bearing unspeakable eldritch knowledge never meant for the eyes of Man- Friedrich von Junzt's Unaussprechlichen Kulten, Abdul Alhazred's Necronomicon, Kevin J. Anderson's Jedi Academy Trilogy- it circulates covertly in the dark corners of the world (I think that's an entirely fair description of most file-sharing networks) where students of the grotesque and unnatural risk their very sanity to seek it out.

It was in 2006 that I acquired a copy of The Star Wars Holiday Special, complete with the original 1978 commercials. It should have been a fine year: Neal Asher, David Drake, and Stephen Baxter all had multiple new books rolling off the presses. Ace Combat Zero came out for the PlayStation 2, and the release of the PlayStation 3 paved the way for me to actually buy one three years later. Iron Maiden, Evergrey, In Flames, Norther, Strapping Young Lad,  Tool, Motorhead, Blind Guardian,  and Týr released new albums. Instead, there would be only the taste of ashes.

Now, one thing I share with several of my friends is the ability to enjoy crap. From 1950's skiffy schlock, to watching a near-comatose Richard Burton mumble his way through the uncut version of The Exorcist II, to Sylvester Stallone's arm wrestling epic Over the Top, to the climactic scene of The Satanic Rites of Dracula where Christopher Lee is killed by running into a small shrubbery, to Oscar-winning actor George Kennedy and a bunch of stupid teenagers trapped on a boat where they are picked off one by one by an evil hybrid cat/rat/godawful puppet in The Uninvited, to a seemingly endless horde of Godfrey Ho "ninja" "movies" created by buying the rights to various Asian films, redubbing them, splicing them together with new footage of white guys in brightly colored and sometimes rhinestone-studded pajamas running around and doing flips in what appears to a small municipal park, and feebly attempting to tie them together and pretend that the resulting Frankensteinian abomination was a coherent story, we've seen it all. We take that sort of thing in stride.

I want you to have that context in mind when I say that my first two attempts to watch this had to be aborted within the first half hour because the guys I was watching it with couldn't stand it any longer.

The plot, such as it is, is that Chewbacca is returning to his home and family on the Wookie homeworld of Kashyyyk to celebrate "Life Day," one of those vague holidays characters in kids' fantasy shows would celebrate when it was snowing and they wanted to do something festively nonsectarian. But the system is in the grip of an Imperial blockade fleet commanded by recycled movie footage of Darth Vader, and... Well, basically, there's a string of largely unrelated, godawful variety showesque events set in something that resembles the Star Wars universe featuring various C-list celebrities until things finally shudder to a halt what seems like several geological epochs later.

It's got all of the heroes from the movie making their return, plus James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader. The only major actors from Star Wars not present- unless one also counts David Prowse, who appears only in the form of reused movie footage, or Carrie Fisher, whose soul appears to have departed her body and wandered off for much of her screen time- are Alec Guinness as Ben Kenobi and Peter Cushing as Tarkin, whose characters were saved from appearances here by the sweet, merciful embrace of death.(Which makes it suddenly seem very suspicious that Kenobi and Tarkin both met their ends because they conspicuously chose not to protect themselves from imminent danger, and either possessed supernatural powers that included the ability to sense horrible, cataclysmic events or hung out with people who did.) What could possibly have gone wrong?

There are some things the human mind cannot explain, only try to describe. Some of the thrilling spectacles we're treated to include:

Over ten minutes of Chewbacca's family screaming at each in Wookie, sans subtiitles! This is what the show leads off with. Little-known fact: Lucas actually wanted the first 20 minutes of the original Star Wars to focus on R2-D2 making random beep-bloop noises while doing routine maintenance on the Tantive IV's cafeteria vending machines, but was forced to start the movie with an exciting space battle instead when the studio said that his original cut of the film was too long.

Chewbacca's elderly father Itchy groaning in ecstasy while watching virtual reality porn! You have no idea how badly I wish I was making that up. NO idea.

Ever wondered what an elderly Wookie having an orgasm looks like? Of course not, but now you know anyway.

Reused footage from the movie!

Reused footage from the movie tinted bright green, so that a shot of the Millennium Falcon approaching Yavin can double as a shot of a bright green Millennium Falcon approaching Kashyyyk! Alternately, if you're a die-hard Star Wars fan desperately trying to escape from the implications of this monstrosity actually being a canonical part of the Star Wars universe, it could be interpreted to mean that the entire special is actually taking  place inside the Matrix. In which case it's arguably a better Matrix film than Matrix Revolutions.

Several minutes of Chewbacca's repulsive son Lumpy watching miniature holographic acrobats! That's right, Chewbacca's immediate kin consists of two guys named "Itchy" and "Lumpy." Presumably, the name "Chewbacca" is a human-pronounceable approximation of the Wookie word for "Scabby" or "Oozing."

Lumpy! I've already mentioned his role in the Special's events, but the very existence of this... this thing appalls me so much that it warrants its own entry. With the possible exception of that loathsome, soulless homunculus wrought in obscene parody of a human child from Son of the Mask (the CGI baby, not Jamie Kennedy), nothing has ever filled with such instinctive horror.

JEFFERSON STARSHIP!

Harvey Korman in a dress! And in two other separate parts, as an amorous Tatooine cantina patron and a cyborg instructional video announcer (a cyborg who announces in an instructional video, that is, not an announcer in an instructional video about cyborgs) who appears to be suffering from some sort of degenerative motor neuron disorder. Not since Peter Sellers in Dr. Stranglove has there been such a multi-role tour de force!

The musical stylings of Bea Arthur! This is actually the closest we get to a high point.

Harvey Korman trying to get into Bea Arthur's pants! Though anyone hoping for some actual on-screen Hedley-on-Maude action will be disappointed, sadly.

An animated segment featuring the  most repellently butt-ugly animation in human history! It does have the first-ever appearance of Boba Fett, which some people may be interested in. Frankly, I've always considered Fett one of the most overrated characters in fiction. It's a damning indictment of how low our society's standards of masculinity have fallen when possessing some basic tracking abilities, dressing like the Rocketeer, flying around in a big metal shoe, and being killed by a blind man is enough of a résumé to be declared Biggest Badass Ever.

One odd thing is that the cartoon, like a number of other segments, is actually introduced as something being watched by Lumpy. Which implies that this segment depicts events that are fictional not only to us but to the characters, and that the cartoon itself actually exists within the Star Wars universe.

Which, I just realized, means that Jefferson Starship does, too.

A brief appearance by an incredibly bored-looking Harrison Ford, who doesn't even try to conceal his utter contempt for the proceedings!

Mark Hamill wearing more makeup than Queen Amidala, Bozo the Clown, and Dick Clark combined! Usually I'd be reluctant to say something nasty about this, since it's probably to conceal the injuries Hamill had suffered in a car crash the previous year, but The Star Wars Holiday Special exists on a plane where human concepts of morality and decency are not merely absent, but meaningless. If you gaze into the bellowing unsubtitled Wookie abyss, the bellowing unsubtitled Wookie abyss gazes also into you.

Carrie Fisher singing a festive Life Day carol set to the tune of the classic Star Wars theme while clearly stoned out of her mind! But you don't have to take my word for it:


She's no Bea Arthur, I'll tell you that much.

Eventually, Chewbacca makes it home for the holidays with his repellent family. To the best of my recollection, no one learns a valuable lesson about The True Meaning of Life Day, if in fact it has one.

I really can't do justice to how teeth-gratingly bad it is. I have no strong personal stake in Star Wars. I liked the original movies and a few of the tie-in books, but I've never had the strong emotional attachment to Star Wars that some people do. I didn't like the prequel trilogy but never had the sort of "I have sworn a Sicilian blood oath of vengeance upon George Lucas' and his entire family line because he murdered my family, burned down my village, and deflowered my house pets" response that is often seen on the Internet. The idea of crap with the name Star Wars on it is not some sort of personal affront to me. Given that sitting through this made me want to gouge out my own eyes and just run through the streets of Chicago gibbering like a lunatic until my heart and/or lungs burst, I can only imagine how devoted Star Wars fans feel about it.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Science fiction and the space program

Not long ago, at least by this blog’s glacial standards, SF Signal and its weekly mind meld feature featured the question of whether or not science fiction has held back the real-life exploration of space, as recently claimed by astronaut Buzz Aldrin. The idea is that science fiction and unrealistic portrayals of space travel make the real thing seem boring and disappointing by comparison, diminishing the public’s interest in real space travel.

I find this implausible for a few reasons. The biggest is that I don’t think science fiction has enough influence on the public consciousness to be a serious factor in the way Aldrin suggests. Everyone has heard of Star Trek and Star Wars, but I don’t think the average person compares what they hear about real space travel to science fiction, even subconsciously. The people who are sufficiently immersed in science fiction to seriously make that sort of comparison seem if anything to be more likely than average to be in favor of space travel, in my experience, so if science fiction has any effect it seems more likely to be the opposite of what Aldrin suggests.

Another problem is that unrealistic or fanciful portrayals of other forms of technology don’t seem to have retarded their development or diminished public interest. The portrayal of computers and the Internet in movies is frequently ridiculous, but that doesn’t seem to have harmed the development of computers or the public’s interest in them; people don’t turn their noses up to real PCs because they don’t act like the ones in movies. The same could be said of weapons, surveillance technology, or forensic science, to name a few.

More generally, exaggerated or idealized depictions of a thing usually make people more interested in that thing, not less. I’d be shocked, for instance, if the movie Top Gun made viewers less interested in military aviation, or if movies about idealistic political crusaders and reformers made viewers less interested in real politics, or if Kill Bill made people less interested in katanas. In my experience, seeing an idealized fantasy version of something is what strengthens interest, both because it initially draws attention and because it makes people want to make the fantasy reality.

A personal example: I know plenty of long-time students at the martial arts school I go to who first became interested because of martial arts movies. Martial arts movies are seldom very realistic; even the relatively down-to-earth ones are often a lot smoother and prettier than the real thing. The movies also usually fail to convey what being on the receiving end of a punch to the gut or a triangle choke feels like, and leave out things like watching someone vomit because they got kicked in the groin on the day they forgot to wear their cup. Nevertheless, there is no doubt in my mind that martial arts movies have increased public interest in the martial arts and the number of practitioners. To give another personal example, I cover local government for a small newspaper. I see the nuts-and-bolts of real politics on a regular basis, and I can assure you that seeing it up close is a lot less likely to inspire enthusiasm about politics than watching The West Wing.

If anything, I think more realistic science fiction is less likely to inspire interest in real space travel than more fanciful SF. I love hard science fiction, but I think that most people- and especially impressionable kids- are more likely to say, "Wow, space is really cool!" from watching Star Trek then from watching a realistic portrayal of space flight, with all its limitations. This is by no means a criticism of hard SF; it’s not science fiction’s job as a genre to push any particular viewpoint.

If SF does hurt public appreciation for science, it would be not by presenting unrealistic science and technology that leads to disappointment with the real thing, but through the heavy reliance of media SF on "science gone wrong/tampering in God’s domain" type stories. This sort of plot and theme is far more common in movies and television then in science fiction books, I think due to a combination of who produces written SF vs. media SF and the constraints imposed by the different forms. However, this trope never involves space flight, as far as I’m aware. (I suppose the movie Event Horizon could be considered an exception, but I doubt anyone watched that movie and thought, "We should abandon all research into spacecraft propulsion to make sure nobody accidentally opens a gateway into Hell.") It’s almost always applied to biological science and technology, or to robots and computers.

There are several factors leading to lack of public enthusiasm for space travel, I think, but science fiction is not among them. I have my own ideas on that front, but this post is long enough already.

Yes, I actually sit and think about stuff like this

John Scalzi recently had a post on an interesting subject: What sets off your urge to nitpick ?

Here’s mine, and it’s a weird one. One of my “gateway drugs” into science fiction was Star Trek: The Next Generation. Unfortunately, I now find Star Trek somewhat bothersome due to the fact that, as it is usually portrayed and described in the show, the transporter doesn’t actually move your body from one point in space to another- it destroys your body and assembles a new one at the target site. It doesn’t even have to be the same matter- remember the episode where it turned out that Commander Riker had a clone produced by a transporter mishap? No one on the show ever acknowledges the disturbing implications of this: Taking the explanation for the transporter at face value, most of the characters are killed several times a season, sometimes several times an episode, and replaced by a newly created doppelganger with the same memories as the original.

In fact, we’ve never actually seen the real Jean-Luc Picard- he was killed years before the series began. Perhaps his constituent atoms were absorbed into the ship’s replicator system- which is said to incorporate transporter technology- and turned into the very cup of Earl Grey tea that his replacement unwittingly consumed later that day.

Damn it, why couldn’t Gene Roddenberry just bite the bullet during the original series and pay for a few seconds of shuttle landing footage when the crew goes to a planet, instead of throwing the transporter in at the last minute? I ought to be able to relax and ogle Marina Sirtis in the comfort of my own home without having to deal with the sort of unspeakable metaphysical horror built into the very foundations of the Star Trek universe.

Asimov, State, and Utopia

I’d like to start by apologizing for the title of this post. I just had to somehow cram the Nozick reference in, no matter the cost.

A while back, Alex Zalben, writing at SciFi Scanner, posted the following:

Find me a sci-fi movie where there is a Utopia, and I will point out the worm in the apple. Every single time we are presented with a Utopian society on film, there is also a corrupt diplomat that's running the show, or it's a dream world, or it's built on a city of good-hearted underground dwellers... You know what I'm saying because you've all seen such movies before.

So I'm going to make a broad statement and say: There is no such thing as Utopia in science fiction.

Zalben goes on to cite some examples from both film and books. He suggests that the lack of conflict inherent to a utopia makes drama effectively impossible.

You can include an actual utopia and still have conflict, either by having it threatened by outside forces, or by having characters from the utopian society venturing outside of it for some reason. In television, Star Trek: The Next Generation would be an example of both approaches, for instance. The portrayal of the Federation got “dirtied up” a bit by Deep Space Nine, and perhaps even a few of the later Next Generation episodes, but it was pretty explicitly utopian early on- all the talk about how humanity has evolved beyond this or that. Venturing into written science fiction, John C. Wright’s “Golden Age” trilogy is an example of the “outside threat” method, while several of Iain M. Banks’ Culture books use the latter method.

Zalben started out by talking about movies, though, and it’s possible that this method is poorly suited to feature films. It requires a lot of world-building, and that takes time: you need time to establish the utopia, and you need time to set up the non-utopian outside, and then you need time for the actual conflict, and if you want to actually explore the idea of the utopia in detail and still have a good conflict you end up with a movie that’s six hours long. The lack of actual utopias in cinema may be more a limitation of the medium than anything else.

It also depends on how strict your definition of “Utopia” is. If it requires absolute perfection and goodness, than conflict within the utopia is impossible. If it merely means a society that is vastly better than ours, you can still have internal conflict. There can still be bad people with bad intentions, they’re just not the ones running the show.

You can also have a utopian society where the conflict is not in the form of some sinister evil, but between good guys. For instance, much of the conflict in John C. Wright’s “Golden Age” Trilogy is not between heroes and villains, but between humane and well-intentioned people who disagree about cultural values and the future direction of their social evolution. An interesting wrinkle is that Wright’s utopia is libertarian, and both the protagonist and most of the antagonists firmly accept libertarian principles of justice, resulting in a conflict for the fate of their society where most of the combatants would never dream of using force, violence, or state coercion against each other. (Though some of the players don’t play quite so nicely…)

One problem is that if you actually portray the utopia in any detail, axe-grinding is all but impossible to avoid, which risks alienating potential readers. This can be overcome- I love Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels, even though the Culture itself has a great deal of leftist wish fulfillment built into it- but it does have risks. If a society is portrayed as ideal or nearly so, everything makes a potential statement. Does religion still exist? What kind of government do they have, if any? How do they deal with criminals? (If they don’t have any, that too betrays certain assumptions.) What things are illegal, taboo, or disapproved of? How does the utopia remain in existence? Do they have a market economy and private ownership? What are their attitudes and practices regarding sex? Do they have marriage?

People differ on both what kind of society is desirable in theory (Most of the societies conceived by 19^th century utopians would be horrifying to me even if they worked as advertised) and on how societies work, and which ones are possible, in practice. Most portrayals of the future express ideological assumptions, whether or not they are explicit or even intentional, but utopia pushes the issue front and center by proclaiming what it portrays to be ideal. If you don’t think it’s ideal, or think it’s outright bad, than 1. you may enjoy the story less, and 2. you may like the author less, as a person. Different people have different limits in this regard. If John C. Wright had a radical political change of heart and decided to write about noble Communists colonizing the moon, building a perfect society there through the power of scientific socialism and mass terror, and then going to war against the plutocrats of Earth and heroically killing the entire reactionary population through man-made famine, my love of Wright’s previous work probably wouldn’t be enough to make me buy it.

One possible final problem is that so much science fiction is about change. Often the fictional changes took place between now and whenever the story happens, but quite often science fiction portrays societies in flux and transition. Most visions of utopia, on the other hand, are static- if you’ve attained the best possible society, change is degeneration. That can work fine for a story- a tale of a collapsing utopia could be very interesting- but that’s not really utopian fiction in the usual sense of the term. It’s ironic- science fiction is in one sense the only form of fiction that works for portraying a utopia, since no perfect societies exist circa 2008, and yet the idea of utopia clashes with one of science fiction’s principal themes and strong points.

I’d be curious to hear about you thoughts, or your favorite and least favorite utopian stories.