Longtime MCC readers may not be surprised to find this very special miniseries found a path toward Star Wars. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

Unfortunately this also led to the worst theatrical experience we’ve had in years. For the record, this was not the filmmakers’ fault, but this entry was unwritable without being candid about that part.

Speaking of unfortunate viewing experiences…

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Since 1992 Indianapolis has held its own celebration of cinema with the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater marathon every October of documentaries, shorts, narrative features, and animated works made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience, usually with an emphasis on uplift and positivity. Ever since the “International” modifier was added in recent years, their acquisition team steadily escalated their game as they’ve recruited higher-profile projects into their lineups. For years my wife Anne and I have talked about getting into the spirit of the festivities. This year we will do better. The festival’s 32nd edition will run October 5-15. I’ve committed to at least five different Heartland showings — one of them virtual in-home, while the others will screen at four different theaters throughout central Indiana…

Once upon a time in November 1978, someone convinced George Lucas The Star Wars Holiday Special was a good idea. Humankind has regretted it ever since. Many are the Lucasfilm fans who’ve let curiosity get the best of them and watched a bootleg copy of it, only to spend the rest of their lives screaming toward the heavens, “WHY, GOD? WHY? SERIOUSLY, THOUGH, JUST WHY? AND DON’T GIVE ME THAT ‘EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON’ CRAP!” One group of hardy filmmakers refused to settle for merely shaking their fists at the skies and wouldn’t accept that cosmic futility. The new documentary A Disturbance in the Force dares to seek answers, because we survivors and future generations need to understand what went wrong so this can never happen again.

That complicated history is told through a series of interviews, new and archival, from talking-head geeks and from principals who were directly involved in misbegetting this infamous pop-culture travesty. The smartest move made here is educating youngsters about the nature of variety specials themselves. That particular prime-time creature has largely gone extinct, but we Gen-Xers were raised on them. (The last one I saw was Bill Murray’s 2015 Netflix one-shot A Very Murray Christmas, which was exactly as awful as such things got.) That format packed random assortments of musical numbers, standup routines, and comedy sketches into mostly hour-long TV blocks. As commentator Jason Lenzi aptly puts it, the contents were so disparate that it was the one kind of TV show guaranteed to satisfy not a single member of the family. Sample clips are provided for better or worse from some variety shows of the time — Bob Hope’s numerous recurring specials, The Richard Pryor Show, Donny and Marie, Raquel!, a Paul Lynde Halloween special, and more. The critical truth that no one wants to admit: The Star Wars Holiday Special could’ve been much worse. Yes, it could’ve. Yes, really. Search your feelings, etc.

The Star Wars galaxy had in fact already done the variety-show rounds by then. Donny and Marie Osmond hosted an entire lengthy segment in which they sang dressed as Luke and Leia and frolicked with Artoo and Threepio while their brothers danced in the background dressed as Stormtroopers and special guest Paul Lynde played a quasi-fabulous Imperial officer. Donny is among our interviewees and perfectly game to talk about it. Love ’em or hate ’em, this stuff could draw big Nielsen ratings. We didn’t have a lot of channels back then, and the olds in charge of TV programming had bizarre ideas of what everyone ought to watch. “Hate-watching” wasn’t a conscious free-time choice; it was just…”watching”.

It’s in those twisted late-’70s that Lucas found himself worrying the Star Wars zeitgeist might fade away before he could finish The Empire Strikes Back. He became convinced the Holiday Special would keep his IP in the public discussion while work continued on his next “real” film. He fully intended it as canon decades before “canon” became a geek buzzword; the Wookiee family’s celebration of Life Day was his own enthusiastic, straight-faced idea. He couldn’t work on both ESB and the special, so he delegated to TV people and sauntered off. What could possibly go wrong?

A Disturbance in the Force is a meticulous forensic analysis of the persons of interest and who wrought what when. The writing team included comedy writer Bruce Vilanch, who steps forward possibly as part of a plea agreement and admits the writing team dreamed greedily of the annual royalties they’d receive upon every single Christmas airing, just like Rudolph or Charlie Brown. Original director David Acomba, whose lone response is a wiretapped refusal to talk about it, was fired after blowing nearly the entire budget to film just four scenes. Replacement director Steve Binder (played last year by Dacre Montgomery in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis) testifies as to how he did the best he could given the limited funds remaining and the stunted tastes of the two old-fashioned writers who ended up running the show. How old-fashioned? They refused to consider hiring any up-and-coming whippersnappers like, say, Robin Williams. They envisioned “big names”, which is how they wound up with an over-the-hill Art Carney, whom Binder realized was best to film in the morning before he came back from lunch besotted every day.

And so on goes the litany of missteps, poor choices, desperate situations, and lamentable compromises, like how Bea Arthur insisted on singing as a condition of coming aboard. Same allegedly went for Carrie Fisher, which apparently taught her a lesson not to do that again. Sure, some fans may be fond of the first appearance of Boba Fett, whose cartoon segment (animated by Nelvana, who later did Ewoks and Droids) is still the only part legally viewable on Disney+. That singular curio is vastly outnumbered by the fatally cringey moments — Harvey Korman’s alien drag queen, the long stretches of growly Wookiee pantomime, the musical number by Jefferson Starship (absent Grace Slick, who was in rehab at the time), and, in one of the documentary’s most hilariously painful recounts, Diahann Carroll’s extreme misuse as a singing object of Wookiee peep-show porn.

If you haven’t seen the Holiday Special, your Star Wars fandom does not mandate you have to see it for yourself. That triple-dog-dare is blowhard gatekeeper talk from victims who’re just trying to perpetuate the cycle of pain to make themselves feel better at your expense. If you’re a loose cannon who doesn’t care what’s good for you and you’re compelled to hunt it down anyway, A Disturbance in the Force can be an important part of your recovery process. Every single sin it committed was done so for a reason. They were largely terrible reasons, but it’s useful to understand the full context, and those who’re truly penitent for what they did may benefit from your grace in forgiving them.

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Speaking of which: as I said above, this was not our best time at the movies. We’d already started off behind the 8-ball when I bought our tickets, by which time the only remaining seats were front row. Nobody needs to see The Star Wars Holiday Special writ that large, which far exceeds the Surgeon General’s recommended maximum dosage of The Star Wars Holiday Special. The recommended dose is zero minutes at any size. We proceeded nonetheless to sign up for what soon became a totally sold-out showing.

Then came the end of the film. Or rather, what didn’t come: roughly six minutes from the end, as Donny Osmond was answering one last question, the film seized up and came to a dead stop. The house lights came up and we sat helplessly awaiting the rest of the film. (I can’t complain about the cost. Full disclosure: my employer is among the festival’s sponsors. Unlike the other four Heartland films I’d paid to see this week, we’d actually gotten into this one free.) Some audience members gave up and abandoned ship, but not us stubborn hopeless optimists. Twenty minutes later a theater rep came out and informed us the film’s digital file had been corrupted; they literally couldn’t show the rest of the film. Quite possibly the projector had rebelled and couldn’t take one more minute of Holiday Special footage.

That sucked, but there was nothing to be done. Anne and I have been in the customer service field and we know what it’s like to deal with circumstances beyond our control. It still sucked, though. On our way out the door, those of us who’d stuck around were given access codes to get free passes to another Heartland screening of our choice before the weekend ends in…um, in less than 48 hours. That means MCC will be bringing you an unexpected sixth entry in this very special miniseries, just as soon as we figure out what the heck we’re watching next.

We’re working on letting go of our FOMO for those final six minutes of the film, not to mention my own bitterness at how the theater’s ostensible validation of our three-hour garage parking somehow only gave partial credit and the garage machinery insisted on charging me for an hour anyway. That was also not the filmmakers’ fault but, much like The Star Wars Holiday Special itself, too many screw-ups in a row can really add up.

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Meanwhile in the customary MCC film breakdowns:

Hey, look, it’s that one actor!: Other Holiday Special participants who speak here and who went on to their own careers include frequent Stephen King adapter Mick Garris and *batteries not included director Matthew Robbins. The parade of amusing talking-heads SW fans include “Weird Al” Yankovic, the late Gilbert Gottfried, Robot Chicken‘s Seth Green, ex-SNLer Taran Killam, Best Week Ever veteran Paul Scheer, and of course Kevin Smith, always a welcome commentator on any and every geek phenomenon.

The numerous archival interviews include one with Bea Arthur from 2001, Harvey Korman from 2004, and that time Conan O’Brien made Harrison Ford cringe harder than he’d ever cringed before and has ever cringed since.

How about those end credits? BOY, I SURE WISH I COULD TELL YOU IF THERE’S A SCENE AFTER THE A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE END CREDITS. I REALLY, REALLY DO. IF ONLY THERE WERE SOME WAY TO KNOW, SUCH AS BEING ALLOWED TO WATCH THE REST OF THE MOVIE.

*sigh*

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Other chapters in this very special miniseries:

• Jailhouse to Milhouse
• The Promised Land
• Fancy Dance
• Monster
• Avenue of the Giants