Wow, as if the Star Wars Holiday Special wasn’t bad enough - it was followed by the 1980 release of “Christmas In The Stars” - The Star Wars Christmas music album!

I could go on and on about who had the idea that C3PO and R2D2 singing Christmas music as a good idea - but instead I will just let you enjoy these classic songs for yourself.

Since the writers’ strike has dried up the flow of information about the 2009 live-action Star Wars television series that is in early development, I thought we would take a look at what we know about the show’s time setting to see if we can deduce some story lines.

According to George Lucas the series is going to be set between the last prequel Episode III: “Revenge of the Sith” and the original masterpiece Episode IV: “A New Hope”. This period between the founding of the Empire to the enlistment of Luke Skywalker into the Rebel Alliance were referred to as “the dark times” by Obi-Wan Kenobi in the latter film.

So what do we know of these dark times?
There are four over-arching story lines that we know must take place based on the movies:

1. The last of the Jedi will be hunted down. According to the Evasive Action: Prey web comics an unknown number of Jedi escape Order 66 and are hunted by Darth Vader for some time. But eventually, Emperor Palpatine orders his Sith Lord to focus on building the Empire, and leave the remaining Jedi for others to hunt down. It is my guess that this will be a large part of the series - and Boba Fett may be one of the “others” that takes over the role of hunting Jedi. I have already written about how Boba Fett was likely to play a significant role in the series, with Daniel Logan reprising his role from Episode II: Attack of the Clones.

The two most famous Jedi survivors are of course, Yoda and Obi-Wan. Yoda presumably in the swamps of Dagobah, while Obi-Wan becomes a hermit on Tatooine after taking baby Luke Skywalker to live with Owen and Beru Lars. “The Last of the Jedi: The Desperate Mission” reveals that Obi-Wan stays on Tatooine watching over Luke from a distance, except for one off-planet mission surrounding Anakin’s one time rival, Ferus Olin. Unfortunately, Yoda and Obi-Wan will most likely only make small appearances or mentions in the television show unless Lucas changes his mind at some point about focusing primarily on “minor” characters only.

2. The newly-formed Galactic Empire will rise to power throughout the galaxy. Vader and the Emperor bring most of the planets under their iron-fist. Lots of freedom for story telling here - although most of the compelling material would lend more toward the stories of rebellion against the empire, which brings us to the next likely plotline.

3. The Rebel Alliance will be formed. We know that a rag-tag group of dissenters (including at least one key senator princess - see bottom of article for more on possible leia plots) will gradually form into a full resistance against the Empire and eventually form a military structure as the Rebel Alliance. We know that the Alliance will ultimately win its first major battle against the Empire as mentioned in the opening crawl of Star Wars. But I am guessing there will be lots of minor battles building up to that “major battle” and could last for the entire run of the series. This material would lend itself perfectly to the type of story telling in the Star Wars original trilogy as well as the Battlestar Galactica television series which Lucas and Producer Rick McCallum will be modeling their “darker” approach after.

4. The first Death Star will be constructed. We know that Count Dooku received the Death Star plans from the Geonosians in Attack of the Clones so the construction must began shortly after the last film. This would be fascinating series material - I know from one of the novels that the Empire enslaved Wookies to work on the Death Star once the construction began falling behind.

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So those four story lines are fertile ground for the series - even if it does end up running the predicted 400 episodes they shouldn’t run out of good material. As they are already discussing spin-offs one could likely be based on Princess Leia Organa, based on author A.C. Crispin’s comment that her proposed book on Leia’s life between Episode III and IV was rejected: “Lucasfilm didn’t approve the idea of a Leia backstory because they want to keep that era of the Star Wars continuity untouched for the television series they’re considering.”

So I say bring on “the dark times” - they could make for some gritty sci-fi action worth watching!

A college roommate of mine sent me a link today to a video called “The Star Wars Holiday Special” I expected a goofy parody but instead it was an actual made-for-tv movie that aired on November 17th, 1978. I never knew of this special - of course I was 4-years-old when it aired - but you’d think I would have heard of it by now.

The “holiday Special” is an amazing artifact of the Star Wars legacy - amazingly this includes all the original cast of characters (except Sir Alec Guinness of course) and yet it is so campy and goofy with a wandering plotline that seems like a 70’s variety show gone bad.

I would go into more detail about how Diahann Carol and Jefferson Starship perform or how Art Carney, Harvey Korman, and Bea Arthur all play ‘guest star’ roles in this bazaar 2-hour special that focuses around Han solo trying to get Chewbacca home in time for the Wookie’s Day of Life holiday. The highlight for me was the animated short in the middle that introduces Boba Fett for the first time - oddly enough though he is a good guy that helps out Luke and Han, huh?

But what more is there to say - just watch the thing for yourself:

View the entire 1978 television special including great commercials!

And if that is still not enough here is a site dedicated to the Holiday Special and all its glory.