The Star Wars Holiday Special – A “What Christmas Means To Me” Reflection

I watched it.  I finally watched it.  The much-maligned, infamously lampooned Star Wars Holiday Special – the story George Lucas preferred to forget.  Debuting on 17 November 1978 on CBS, the story is set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back.  It’s the very first appearance of Boba Fett!  Of Chewie’s family!  Of the Wookiee homeworld!  Despite these firsts, it was near-universally panned and the special was never rebroadcast nor officially released on home video.  But after writing about the Guardians of the Galaxy and their Holiday Special, it seemed fitting to watch the original (thanks YouTube!) as the latest installment in my holiday series.  See, it’s Christmastime again, so ‘tis the season for me to read and watch a buncha Christmas specials and use them to reflect on what Christmas means to me just like Stevie Wonder does in the very song which inspired this series.  And, just like Stevie Wonder sings about, “All these things and more, darling (all these things and more) / That’s what Christmas means to me, my love,” Christmas means a lot of things to me, too.  It turns out The Star Wars Holiday Special is a surprisingly perfect example of an important one.

Fiction’s Fearless Females – Princess Leia

By Jeffrey Cagle of The Imperial Talker

There is a line in Star Wars: A New Hope which often gets lost in the greater scope of the film, a quote which points to the toughness of the movie’s lone female protagonist, Princess Leia. It comes when Darth Vader, the movie’s villain, speaks to Grand Moff Tarkin, the secondary villain in the film. Pacing back and forth as if annoyed, Vader admits that, “Her [Leia’s] resistance to the mind probe is considerable. It will be some time before we can extract any information from her.” Prior to this admission, we saw Vader enter Princess Leia’s prison cell with an interrogation droid floating behind him, a needle protruding from the droid and Leia’s face giving off subtle apprehension. Now, Vader states that it was for not, that the Princess has resisted this “mind probe” and that breaking her will take more time.

Star Wars ComLINKS: Favorite Female Character

Much like Woody Allen Wednesdays took a hit when teaching slowed my participation in joint blogging adventures (papers don’t grade themselves…phooey), I’ve been sadly absent from Anakin and His Angel‘s Star Wars ComLINKS for a few months.  But I’m back baby!  This month, in honor of the Forces Of Destiny cartoon shorts on the Disney YouTube channel, Jenmarie has focused our ComLINKS posts on favorite female characters.  There are so many strong women I love in Star Wars.  Where would we be without Princess Leia??  And we have Padmé Amidala, Mara Jade, Jaina Solo, Admiral Natasi Daala, Shmi Skywalker, and Ahsoka Tano too!  But for me, this post belongs to Mallatobuck.  Malla is Chewie’s wife and their relationship serves as a moving meditation on the strength of love.