The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen for Star Wars. And it's exactly the sort of thing that we need right now. It's funny, it's ridiculous and it's easily the coolest thing I've seen in a while. There will be a few minor spoilers in this review, so if you haven't watched the special yet, go do so before reading further. For those of you who have watched it already, let's get into it.
Unlike The Star Wars Holiday Special, which aired on CBS on November 17th, 1978, this Star Wars holiday special wasn't meant to be taken seriously. As I mentioned before, this was made for fun, to pay homage to classic Christmas specials like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman while doing something fun in the style of previous LEGO Star Wars, and LEGO DC direct-to-DVD releases that have come out over the years. It also puts more content on Disney+.
Basically this story is a tale as old as time, with the main character, in this case Rey, needing to be reminded of the importance of family and goes through some crazy things in order to get to that point. It's something Community did in it's second season, and The O.C. did it in it's fourth season, not to mention Glee did it in it's fourth season as well. So it's really not anything we haven't seen before. It's just has the Star Wars twist to it.
I know I give my favourite franchises grief for intentionally being fan servicy a lot. But, in this case it works. Watching Kylo Ren hanging out with Darth Vader and the Emperor from Return of the Jedi, watching Luke Skywalker from A New Hope interact with Rey and the Luke from Return of the Jedi, the Child, the Mandalorian and IG-11 from season 1 of The Mandalorian on screen with Rey, Luke, Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader from different time periods, and watching Greedo get shot by both Han Solo from A New Hope and Han Solo from The Force Awakens was oh so satisfying. As was watching The Empire Strikes Back Vader duel Return of the Jedi Vader when he and Rey drop in on Echo Base during the Battle of Hoth.
My favourite interaction was probably when everyone is in the throne room on the Death Star II and Palpatine thinks he's prevented Vader from throwing him down into the reactor shaft, but Vader does it anyway, because he was just fed up with Palpatine's stupidity. I kind of feel like this sort of thing would've appeared as a sketch in one of the Robot Chicken Star Wars specials, but got cut for whatever reason. In fact that's kind of what this special reminded me of. An unmade Robot Chicken Star Wars special. Mainly because Palpatine's sounds like the person who voiced the character in the Robot Chicken specials.
Speaking of the voice cast, it's kind of sad that the only cast member from the sequel trilogy, Anthony Daniels and Billy Dee Williams aside, to return to reprise their role is Kelly Marie Tran. Rey, Poe, Finn and Kylo are voiced by other people. Though we do get Dee Bradley Baker, Matt Lanter, James Arnold Taylor, and Tom Kane from The Clone Wars back, reprising their roles as Clone Troopers, Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Yoda respectively. But, it's still sad that the main cast from the Sequel Trilogy didn't come back. I understand why they didn't, but it would've been cool for at least Oscar Isaac and/or Daisy Ridley to return.
The only problem that I had with this special is that there was a certain point where it felt like we were watching kids playing with their Star Wars LEGO sets rather than an animated TV special and that part felt kind of unnecessary. The scene I'm talking about is the Battle of Geonosis (Attack of the Clones) style battle on Tatooine between Clone Troopers, Anakin Skywalker (Phantom Menace kid version), Mace Windu, Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Phantom Menace Padawan version), Obi-Wan Kenobi (Attack of the Clones Jedi Master version), Obi-Wan Kenobi (Revenge of the Sith Mustafar version), Anakin Skywalker (Attack of the Clones Padawan version), the two Han Solos, Stormtroopers, Greedo, Anakin Skywalker (Revenge of the Sith Dark Side version), First Order Firetroopers, Snoke's red Stormtroopers and Darth Maul (minus legs). We got it anyway, but it felt pointless since we don't actually see any of those characters again in this special. I mean it's exactly the kind of scenario I would've come up with when I was a kid, playing with my Star Wars LEGOs, but again, most of that scene could've been trimmed a little bit, or cut entirely, except for the sequence of the two Han Solos shooting Greedo, and it wouldn't've affected the plot very much.
Final Thoughts, Rating and Recommendation: Overall I thought that The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special was fantastic. It was funny, it was a visual feast, and it was just a fun 47 minutes spent with the Star Wars characters without doing anything too serious or anything pointless. As I said at the beginning of this review, I think this is something that we need more of on TV. Especially now when it's gloomy and cold outside. Not every TV show and movie has to be thought provoking or deep. Sometimes we need to have fun watching TV or a movie. Sometimes we need Batman '66 or Mighty Morphin Power Rangers or The LEGO Batman Movie to entertain us. And sometimes we just need our favourite Star Wars characters teaming up to make us laugh. I definitely recommend you check it out as it's on Disney+ now. I'm giving The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special 8.5/10 stars though it would've been 9/10 if it hadn't been for that sequence that went on too long.
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