Holiday stuff is still technically relevant until Sunday. Or if that doesn’t convince you, just pretend I’m Russian Orthodox…
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), in which an interesting experiment in franchise theory goes careening off the rails…
Horror Express (1972), in which what sounds like an Agatha Christie riff is actually a fair approximation of “Who Goes There?”…
Murder by the Clock (1931), in which the “clock,” for the record, is the methodical operation of the villainess’s mind…
and…
The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978), in which I still don’t entirely believe what I saw.
El Santo rules the wasteland-- and also 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.
#1 by Alaric on January 3, 2019 - 9:35 am
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Okay, I haven’t actually read the reviews yet, but… You… actually deliberately watched the Star Wars Holiday Special?! Did you… KNOW what you were getting yourself into?! (And, yes, I know what sorts of movies you’ve inflicted on yourself in the past. My question stands.) (For the record, I saw the SWHS when it first aired.)
#2 by El Santo on January 3, 2019 - 9:59 am
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“Did you… KNOW what you were getting yourself into?!”
I had been warned, of course. But as I’m sure you realize, The Star Wars Holiday Special is one of those things that one simply cannot know without experiencing it directly. I decided last November that it was finally time for me to do so. Incidentally, one factor in that decision was that I honestly couldn’t remember whether or not I saw the thing in its original broadcast– and weirdly enough, I’m still not sure. Certain things felt familiar, like Luke and R2-D2 working on… whatever that thing was supposed to be. But other parts that I’m sure would have stuck in my brain had I seen them (most especially the Nelvana cartoon) stirred no latent memories at all.
#3 by Richard on January 3, 2019 - 1:15 pm
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I would hope that knowing what The Star Wars Holiday Special is (and how it got made) would be sufficient immunization against the worst of its horrors.
#4 by El Santo on January 3, 2019 - 3:43 pm
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Juniper described the expression on my face by the end of the thing as “numb bafflement.”
#5 by AcademicLurker on January 3, 2019 - 1:39 pm
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I did see the Holiday Special back when it originally aired. The only thing I can clearly recall is Bea Arthur singing in a cantina (something about “one more round”). I also vaguely remember how uncomfortable Harrison Ford seemed in the opening scene.
Horror Express is a favorite of mine. I keep imagining how the writing process went. “We’ll have a prehistoric monster on a train. No, wait! We’ll have a prehistoric monster with psychic powers! Hold on! We’ll have a prehistoric monster with psychic powers from outer space! And let’s have a spy subplot. And a mad Rasputin-style monk. And Telly Savalas, and…”.
#6 by Fuzzy on January 4, 2019 - 3:23 pm
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Halloween III seems to me like a good case of a movie that could benefit from a well-thought-out remake… much like George Romero’s movie of the same (sub)title. I’d imagine some video distributor would try to downplay its ostensible connection to Michael Myers by just calling it Season of the Witch on the cover art, but as there are far too many movies of that title already, it might not have the desired effect.
I once saw Horror Express in a dollar-store DVD package, but never imagined what the actual plot would be. It seems Telly Savalas was everywhere in the 60s and 70s, and one could almost make a career out of reviewing movies and TV shows he appeared in.
Considering the sheer volume of spin-off cartoons, novels, comic books, and video games exploring every facet of Star Wars (The Force Unleashed is basically the origin story for the Rebel Alliance’s logo), as well as the publication of at least one book on the languages of the setting, it’s a bit surprising that no one has attempted an entire story in Shryiwook. If the Trekkies have their Klingon full-text translations of Shakespeare, why don’t we have an all-fuzzball rendition of Pride and Prejudice yet?
#7 by supersonic man on January 6, 2019 - 12:11 pm
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Nigel Kneale?? holy…
#8 by El Santo on January 7, 2019 - 9:11 am
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Yeah. I was astonished when I got to which ever making-of thing that was, and Tommy Lee Wallace started talking about him and Joe Dante. “But their names weren’t in the credits anywhere… Oh. Okay. That’s why.”
#9 by Tom on January 7, 2019 - 10:21 am
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Comment…
#10 by Jared on January 15, 2019 - 10:35 am
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“I’ve always been a little unsure how to pronounce “Kashyyyk,” the name of the Wookie homeworld, but I would never, ever have guessed “Kazook.””
Huh. I remember it being pronounced “Kasheek” in Revenge of the Sith. Of the two pronunciations, I think I’ll go with the latter. (Also, turns out “Wookiee” has a second “e” at the end. Go figure.)
Meanwhile, adding Horror Express to my watchlist…
#11 by El Santo on January 15, 2019 - 6:12 pm
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My suspicion is that it’s similar to the “Solarmanite” situation in Plan 9 from Outer Space. Chances are nobody actually told the actors in the holiday special how they were supposed to pronounce any of these godawful outer space names, and they each individually did the best they could with wildly varying results.
#12 by maggiesmith on May 5, 2023 - 10:36 am
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I think the genesis of Horror Express was when the producers bought the miniature train from NIcholas and Alexandria, then said “Okay, we need a plot concerning a train, set in Siberia.” Then they started throwing ideas around : “A prehistoric monster … with psychic powers – from outer space ! And Rasputin, or at least a guy who looks like him . “