Tuesday, December 11, 2007

The Star Wars Weapon of Mass Destruction

Also Known As: The Star Wars Holiday Special.

First of all if you do watch the atrocity I recommend taking some special precautions. The best option would be to move yourself to a concrete bunker several miles away from the program. Be warned, however, that its fumes can be deadly and you should not emerge from the bunker until you hear the all-clear siren. Bring food for several months.

There's been a lot written about the special over the years, it's a favorite whipping boy of nerds and holiday staple of blogs everywhere, so let me find something new to say. I could try to fake some praise for it and become the only positive comments you'll ever read about the special but quite frankly I'm positive that the weight of such a lie would drag me directly into hell before I finished the post. And I'm an atheist so that's saying something.

I will say that Mike Nelson's Rifftrax for special does make it tolerable but you will need the version from Google video (linked to above) in order to synchronize it properly. You see the special was so terrible that they could not riff it all the way through and instead had to take a break to riff the 1970's commercials that are part of that footage. The riff is hysterical, one of the best they've done, but at the same time they're riffing on the worst atrocity ever committed against nerddom.

I won't dare to describe one facet of the special for those who have not seen it. Much like the Necronomicon no warnings could possibly prepare you for its mind-blasting contents. Better to enter the fray blind and be shocked and disturbed by each new layer applied. Every time you think that things can't get any worse they step down one more level. Okay, I'll say one thing: interspecies wookie porn. And no, that's not a comic misinterpretation of something in the special; it's actually in there.

And so I leave you with this image to haunt your nightmares: