While stuck in quarantine thanks to COVID-19, I've developed a habit of watching really, really bad movies to see what's salvageable from them. Call me a masochist or whatever, but it was quite an interesting experience.
Having watched about 15 of these movies while in quarantine, I can pretty much categorize bad movies into three categories.
First, there are the "ironic" movies - movies which are so incomprehensibly bad that they are actually good. They may be awful but they are so interestingly awful that I can't help but watch them and even sometimes like them. I liken these movies to abstract art - visually ugly but still interesting in their own way.
Secondly, there are the disappointing movies - movies which have an interesting or creative premise but suffer from bad directing and poor execution. These movies often come from a thoughtful idea but that idea isn't properly conveyed through the film that is produced from it.
And thirdly, there are the depraved movies - movies which have absolutely nothing salvageable at all. Their premise is terrible and the film is terrible as well. These bad movies aren't even fun to watch; they're simply painful.
So, with all that in mind, here are the six worst movies I've ever seen.
#6: A Kid in King Arthur's Court (1995)
Produced by Disney in 1995, this film falls into the second category of bad movies that I mentioned earlier. While not a terrible movie, it still falls flat in more ways than one.
The premise of A Kid in King Arthur's Court centers around a socially-awkward teenage boy named Calvin Fuller (played by Thomas Ian Nicholas) , who lives in Los Angeles in the 1990s and, despite being on a baseball team, is not a very good player.
After striking out and causing his team to lose, Calvin is swallowed up by an earthquake and is transplanted into the era of medieval England by the wizard Merlin. Merlin, it turns out, inadvertently summoned Calvin back to the past while searching for a knight to join King Arthur in a quest to save Camelot from the scheming Lord Belasco, Arthur's head of the guard who is plotting to overthrow him and take control of the kingdom.
Despite living in an era 1500 years before his own time, Calvin gradually learns to adapt to medieval life, learns the art of swordfighting and jousting, and even falls in love with one of King Arthur's daughters, Princess Katey.
Lord Belasco (played by Art Malik), in the meantime, is seeking to wed King Arthur's oldest daughter, Princess Sarah, so that he can become king and rule Camelot. As Calvin wins over the affection of King Arthur and the other knights, Belasco begins to see him as a threat. In the end, Belasco kidnaps Princess Katey in order to blackmail Princess Sarah into marrying him, but Calvin uncovers the plot and he and King Arthur rescue Katey, defeat Belasco and his guards, and allow Princess Sarah to wed a peasant (played by Daniel Craig) that she falls in love with.
The movie ends with Calvin being sent back to the future and right before he comes up to bat at his original baseball game. Having overcome his fears and gained self-confidence, Calvin hits a home run and wins the game. As the team celebrates, it is revealed that Princess Katey and King Arthur (or their descendants) are among the spectators.
This movie actually has a pretty creative premise - involving a quirky and socially-awkward 90's kid having to adapt to life in medieval England and, in doing so, learn to face his fears and become a better person. This story has a lot of potential, and could actually be made into a very good movie with proper direction. Unfortunately, that was not what we got.
Although the film has many notable stars such as Daniel Craig, Kate Winslett, and Art Malik, the acting in A Kid in King Arthur's Court leaves a lot to be desired. The dialogue is dated even by '90s standards, the jokes are often forced, don't make much sense, and aren't all that funny, there are many plot holes, and the special effects are very shoddy and low-budget.
Even for a film with magical elements in it, A Kid in King Arthur's Court also isn't very believable at times. For example, during the movie, Calvin enlists a medieval blacksmith to build him roller blades and even a mountain bike based on nothing more than Calvin's poorly-drawn blueprints. Also, there are numerous plot holes involving Belasco's conspiracy to overthrow King Arthur. Arthur is unrealistically ignorant of Belasco's plot, and there are many instances where he almost deliberately avoids a simple solution.
Also, the film spends way too much of its time trying to build a romance between Calvin and Princess Katey. While I can understand a '90s kids movie wanting to have some sort of romantic drama in it, this film makes it feel kind of forced. While, to the film's credit, Calvin and Katie do spend some time together before falling in love, they don't really get to know each other or really connect all that well. It's kind of unrealistic and not very interesting.
While certainly not the worst movie I've ever seen, A Kid in King Arthur's Court was definitely disappointing, especially considering the potential the original story had. The film didn't exactly aim high, nor did it have to, but it felt like a lot of talent and creativity that could have made this film memorable was wasted on poor character development, bad acting, stilted dialogue, and unfunny attempts at humor, and instead made it yet another stock, boring, and forgettable '90s movie that faded about as quickly as it appeared.
But not all bad movies are necessarily forgettable. If anything, the next movie on this list is so incomprehensibly awful that it has become one of the most memorable films in cinematic history.
#5: The Room (2003)
Written, directed, and produced on a $6,000,000 budget by a little-known filmmaker with ambiguous origins named Tommy Wiseau (who also stars in the film), The Room is truly a film so unique that it almost creates its own genre. It was released in 2003 and has since gained infamy for being one of the worst films ever made.
The plot centers around a wealthy, eccentric man named Johnny (played by Wiseau) who is engaged to a young woman named Lisa. While they prepare for the wedding, Lisa begins an extramarital affair with Johnny's best friend, Mark, and Johnny's friends eventually turn on him one-by-one.
Johnny finds out about the affair numerous times (and, for some reason, acts totally surprised every single time he learns of it) and the film culminates in Johnny and Mark having a fight, Lisa breaking off the engagement, and Johnny committing suicide.
I'm not going to cut corners. This movie is really, really bad. Incomprehensibly bad. One of the worst films I have ever, ever seen in my life. The acting is beyond awful, and the dialogue is either unbelievable, boring, or so over-the-top that it leaves the viewer confused. The effects are cheap to nonexistent, with obvious green-screen superimpositions and badly-edited cutaways. And the story is confusing, repetitive, unbelievable, and has numerous unexplained subplots - such as Lisa's mother getting breast cancer - which are never developed, explored, or answered.
At the same time, however, The Room seems to have created its own genre of film. It has gained a massive cult following and ironic fanbase which revels in the cinematic badness of the movie. It is so bad that it is hypnotizing and maybe even brilliant.
A short scene from The Room, demonstrating its terrible acting and bizarre dialogue.
I can't even say I hated The Room! I've honestly never seen a movie so interestingly bad and awful. It is so bad that it is captivating and unintentionally hilarious. In a way, it's a brilliant masterpiece of awful - a film that falls so hard that it bounces back up. It's almost like an alien visited earth, saw a movie, and tried to blend in by replicating that movie and including scenes with how he thought human interaction works.
Honestly, as terrible as the movie is, I'd actually recommend it to people. I actually can't do it justice simply by writing about it. It is truly one of those things you have to actually see to believe.
#4: The Nutcracker in 3D (2010)
Unlike A Kid in King Arthur's Court, The Nutcracker in 3D is definitely a memorable movie. Unfortunately, it is memorable for all the wrong reasons. How could a Nutcracker movie be so awful, you ask? Well, strap yourselves in, because - whatever you're thinking makes this movie bad - I can assure you it is worse. Far, far worse.
A lot of effort was actually put into making this movie. Written and directed by world-renown filmmaker Andrei Konchalovsky (known for projects like The Runaway Train and Tango and Cash), The Nutcracker in 3D was Konchalovsky's dream project for almost 20 years. After finally getting a $90,000,000 budget to bring it to the big screen, Konchalovsky began production on the film in around 2006, and spent the next four years working on it.
He even managed to convince a litany of notable actors and actresses to take part in his film as well, such as Elle Fanning, John Turturro, Nathan Lane, Richard Grant, Shirley Henderson, and Frances de la Tour.
This movie has a few redeeming qualities. Most of the actors play their parts well. The child actors aren't all that great, but I can cut them some slack. Furthermore, the special effects and graphics are impressive and the visuals are excellently pulled off. Even the plot, though confusing at times, isn't particularly boring.
However, the main issue with the film isn't the production but actually the story. The Nutcracker in 3D is quite possibly the most cruel, tone-deaf, and tasteless movie I have ever seen in my entire life.
Like the original Nutcracker story, this adaptation begins with a brother and sister living in Vienna, Austria, in a wealthy home the night before Christmas. In this film, the main characters are Mary and Max instead of Clara and Fritz. Max has an unexplained and borderline-psychotic habit of breaking and burning toys for no discernable reason, and is unnecessarily cruel and mean throughout most of the film.
After their parents leave for a special dinner, Mary and Max are visited by their uncle, Albert Einstein. (Yes, you read that correctly! Why would a Jewish scientist be celebrating Christmas? I don't know. The movie never explains it!) Uncle Albert brings Mary a gift in the form of a Napoleon-style Nutcracker, which he calls "NC", and Mary immediately becomes attached to it.
Max, of course, later breaks the Nutcracker's jaw for no apparent reason and throws it under the piano, angering Mary, but Uncle Albert fixes it. What was the point of that scene? What purpose did it serve? Nothing. Starting to see a pattern here?
Believe it or not, this is actually the GOOD part of the film. The worst is yet to come.
Like the original ballet, The Nutcracker in 3D includes the conflict between the Nutcrackers and the evil Mouse Kingdom. In this version, the mice are replaced with anthropomorphic rats, probably because rats have a more negative connotation than mice.
And it's here where the film becomes unbelievably, despicably tone-deaf.
In Konchalovsky's version, the rat antagonists are Nazi-esque characters who wear SS-style uniforms, jackboots, and the infamous German Stahlhelms. This is certainly a departure from the original ballet, but it could still be made to work. Many movies include "Nazi bad guy" motifs in them and still make a good story out of it.
But this movie takes it much, much further - to extremely uncomfortable, grotesque, and insultingly tasteless levels.
Instead of simply being simple "bad guy Nazi" characters like those in Indiana Jones or Captain America, these Nazi rats actually round up toys, pile them by the thousands in the city square, dump them into a factory complete with slave laborers and smokestacks, and, while singing and dancing to Tchaikovsky's music, they INCINERATE THEM IN OVENS!
Yes, you read that right! Andrei Konchalovsky thought it was appropriate to insert a blatant Holocaust allegory in a children's Christmas story!
Talk about bad taste! I've heard of tone-deafness, but this is something else entirely! I distinctly remember my jaw falling open when I saw that scene. I actually couldn't believe what I was watching!
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A scene from The Nutcracker in 3D, showing the antagonist rats wearing Nazi-style uniforms while toys are rounded up and piled in the city square for incineration in ovens. This is perhaps the most tone-deaf movie I've ever seen in my life.
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The Nazi-style imagery still doesn't end there. The Rat King also has a policy he calls "RATification", in which he promises to turn his kingdom into a purely Rat homeland and found an empire which will "last a thousand years". Again, do we really need a "thousand-year Reich" reference in a Christmas movie? Is there any reason for something like that?
There are other disturbing moments in this film, like the Rat King ripping someone's head off and playing catch with it with the other rats, and a torture scene involving the rats tying the Nutcracker (who is a child in this movie!) to a chair and forcing him to crush nuts until his jaw breaks.
The Nutcracker in 3D is absolutely, positively disgusting. It is tone-deaf to the extreme and it doesn't even seem to realize it. It doesn't at all understand what the Nutcracker is about or what Christmas is about. It is one of those films where you have to wonder what someone was even thinking when they made it.
And it turns out I'm not the only one who felt this way. This movie bombed at the box office, grossing less than $20,000,000 on a $90,000,000 budget, and holds a rare 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
For a film this despicably tone-deaf, even that feels like too nice of a rating. While some of this film is salvageable and creative to some extent, any positives are lost in the incomprehensibly tasteless allegories and disturbing elements.
#3: Foodfight! (2012)
Foodfight! is, without a doubt, the worst animated movie ever made, but what makes this even more terrible is how much talent, money, and creativity was wasted on such a horrible, horrible, horrible production.
First, a little background. The idea for Foodfight! was created around 1999, and was supposed to be released in 2002, but due to budget problems, the initial studio going bankrupt, and even someone stealing the footage, the film wasn't released until 2012.
Surprisingly, a budget of $65,000,000 was put into making this movie, which stars numerous famed actors such as Charlie Sheen, Wayne Brady, Hillary Duff, and Christopher Lloyd.
So how did a film with this big of a budget, this notable a cast, and ten years of production flop so badly? I'm still not sure how they managed, but they did. Every single second of this film was painful to watch.
The plot is completely nonsensical. The story takes place in a supermarket called "Marketopolis Market" (yes, I cringed at that too) where, after the store closes for the night, the different products come to life, represented by their mascots, or "ikes", such as Mr. Clean and Mr. Twinkie.
The protagonist is an anthropomorphic dog mascot for a raisin brand (despite the fact that raisins are toxic to dogs) named "Dex Dogtective", voiced by Charlie Sheen. He and his sidekick, a beaver mascot named Daredevil Dan, are seeking to rescue Dex's kidnapped fiance - an anthropomorphic cat-woman - after she goes missing. Along the way, they have to deal with the appearance of the sinister "Brand X" - basically a representation of the stereotypical nameless, faceless, bland evil corporation that is so common in many movies. Brand X is led by a seductive-looking woman named Lady X, who seeks to destroy all of the Ikes in the supermarket and replace them with Brand X products.
To make a long story short, there is a big, poorly-animated battle at the end in which Brand X is defeated and the supermarket is saved. 90% of the plot is simple build-up to this moment and it isn't nearly as satisfying or climactic as one would hope for.
This movie is awful in so many ways. I can't even begin to describe how terrible it is. One actually has to see it to believe. For example, here is the scene where the Brand X representative enters the store:
First off, as you can see, the animation in the film is beyond poor. It looks as if the graphics are only half-rendered. The faces of the characters have no expressions, and can only express their emotions by moving their arms - resulting in almost all of them having seizuresque motions.
Secondly, this movie - despite being ostensibly made for kids - unfortunately contains many adult puns. A LOT of them. And not only are they tired and repetitive - they often times don't make any sense whatsoever. I'd be lying if I said a few of them didn't get a little chuckle out of me now and then, but it is highly unlikely that any kid would understand most of the adult jokes and dirty humor. It's just not appropriate for kids.
Thirdly, I have to address the secondary protagonists. They aren't just stupid; they're actually downright racist. Daredevil Dan is clearly meant to represent a "sassy black sidekick" and he constantly says stereotypical one-liners and references to "chocolate". There is also a character in the form of a giant nose who - as you probably guessed - has a stereotypical Jewish accent. Pretty much every character in this movie is a stereotype of a race or ethnicity in one form or another. It's almost as if the movie was trying to be offensive.
Now, I don't mind offensiveness in movies if it has a point to it. But this movie has no point to the racist portrayals of its characters. There's no thought put into it, and hence it's not funny or inventive; it's just tasteless.
And speaking of tasteless, Foodfight! also suffers from the same thing as The Nutcracker in 3D: tone-deaf Nazi imagery. Brand X's soldiers wear Nazi-style uniforms with red armbands bearing the letter "X" on them. Additionally, they proclaim a policy of extermination against "inferior" ikes in order to create a "master product".
Yet again, we see an unnecessary Holocaust allegory tastelessly thrown into a kid's movie with no point whatsoever. There should be an award for being this tasteless, thoughtless, and awful, and this movie should win it. It is the worst of cinema combined with the worst of storywriting, product placement, and god-awful humor.
#2: The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987)
Oh God, do I hate this movie. I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it! I despise this movie with every fiber of my being. It has no thought, no direction, no compass, no lessons - nothing!
OK, first, a little background. The Garbage Pail Kids Movie is based on the Garbage Pail Kids trading card series, which was popular during the 1980s. The cards themselves were a parody of the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, except with humorously gross, disgusting, ugly, or grotesque characters. Naturally, they were a huge hit with kids at the time.
So when The Garbage Pail Kids Movie was announced, many fans of the series were excited to see their beloved trading cards hit the big screen for the first time. They were, ultimately, to be disappointed.
So what's wrong with this film? A lot. Pretty much everything, in fact, because I still can't find anything redeemable about this movie at all.
Well, let's start from the beginning. The film opens up with a garbage can spaceship flying by earth several times. I guess this is meant to imply the Garbage Pail Kids are from space, but the movie never elaborates. The spaceship garbage can is never seen or referenced again.
After the garbage can somehow ends up in an antique shop, the film cuts to a young boy named Dodger being chased by a gang of bullies led by a man named Juice, who beat him up, steal his lunch money, and drop him into a puddle. Here, the film shows us the first in a long series of disturbing arcs. Dodger is around 12 or 13 years old, and the bullies chasing him look to be well into their 20s or 30s.
This isn't just bullying - this is literally a crime. These bullies could literally be booked for assaulting a child. They could go to jail for that. And the film just glosses over this fact without even giving the audience an explanation or a reason for why a pack of grown adults are assaulting and tormenting a boy who probably isn't even in high school yet.
Anyway, Dodger is good friends with the owner of the aforementioned antique shop, a man named Captain Manzini who apparently has magical powers such as being able to activate washing machines by speaking a magic spell (again, this magic is never explained in the movie). Manzini tells Dodger about the mysterious garbage can in the antique shop and tells him never to open it.
Later on, one of the bullies, a young woman named Tangerine, visits Dodger in the antique shop. For some unexplained reason, Tangerine is supposed to be Dodger's love interest despite being one of the bullies who torment him and appearing much older than he is. However, the rest of the gang shows up and in the ensuing fight, the mysterious garbage can is knocked over and green ooze begins to spill out.
The gang then knocks Dodger unconscious, throws him into the sewer, and opens a pipe that sprays raw sewage all over his body. This needlessly cruel and outright disturbing scene has no point other than to introduce the stars of the film: the Garbage Pail Kids themselves, who rescue Dodger from the sewer and take him back to the antique shop.
There are seven Garbage Pail Kids characters portrayed in the movie: Valerie Vomit (a girl who constantly projectile vomits on people), Foul Phil (a baby with terrible breath who constantly whines in an irritating voice), Nat Nerd (an acne-ridden kid wearing a superhero costume who constantly wets his pants), Windy Winston (a kid wearing a Hawaiian shirt who constantly farts), Greaser Greg (an aggressive, knife-wielding character with a stereotypical Italian accent), Ali Gator (an anthropomorphic alligator who has a taste for human eyes, fingers, and toes), and Messy Tessie (a girl who constantly sneezes or covers everything in snot and mucus).
And it is these creatures that make this movie so god-awful.
First of all, the Garbage Pail Kids are portrayed by people wearing puppet masks. The animatronics are astonishingly awful. The kids' mouths never fully open or close while they are talking, and their voices don't sync with their mouth movements either. Ali Gator, for example, never closes his mouth when shown in the wide shots, and just walks around with his jaw hanging open most of the time.
Not only are the Garbage Pail Kids disgusting and visually disturbing, but they have no character, no personality, no development, learn no lessons, aren't remotely likeable, and do nothing except the gross stuff assigned to their card. They constantly do horrible things throughout the movie, like hijacking a Pepsi truck, crushing someone's car, stealing equipment from a print shot, biting people's toes off, farting in people's faces, and vomiting on others.
At one point, the kids comment about how they don't have any money, so Greaser Greg pulls out a switchblade and says that he'll "carve out an IOU". (Yeah, great message for kids!) And Nat Nerd constantly pees in his pants or on the floor something like eight times throughout the movie (I guess the writers thought this was a funny gag, but it's just gross and, again, serves absolutely no purpose).
To get a sense of how poorly made this film is, here is a segment where the Garbage Pail Kids sing a musical number.
Watch at your own risk.
There is a side plot involving Dodger trying to impress Tangerine by giving her clothes made by the Garbage Pail Kids, who apparently have the ability to sew (as you probably guessed, this is also never explained). Tangerine becomes impressed and appears to warm up to Dodger until she meets the Garbage Pail Kids herself. At that point, it is revealed that she is still loyal to the bully Juice and she betrays Dodger, steals all of the clothes the Garbage Pail Kids made, and has the kids sent to the "State Home for the Ugly" (yes, I cringed at that part too.)
The Garbage Pail Kids don't do anything that would make an audience member become attached to them, like them, or care for them, but the movie still expects the audience to sympathize with these egregiously hideous monsters when they are kidnapped and taken to the "State Home for the Ugly" at the climax of the film.
After an uncomfortable sequence revealing that the institution not only imprisons ugly people but actually executes them too, Dodger and Captain Manzini rescue the kids from the "State Home for the Ugly". It is implied by Manzini that several other Garbage Pail Kids - unseen in the film - were also held at the State Home for the Ugly but were unable to be saved and were killed. This plot thread, as usual, comes out of nowhere, is totally irrelevant to the story, and is never mentioned again.
Manzini, Dodger, and the Garbage Pail Kids return to a fashion show Tangerine is hosting, where the Kids sneeze, fart, vomit, and urinate on people, rip clothes off of women, and Dodger finally beats up Juice and gets his revenge.
Afterwards, Tangerine approaches Dodger after the final fight and tries to patch things up and rekindle her relationship with him, but Dodger - having seen her lie, cheat, abuse, and betray him and his friends - refuses, saying that he doesn't "find her pretty anymore"
In all honesty, this is the only good part of the entire film. This is the only thing even resembling a good lesson in this entire abomination of a movie.
But everything else in this entire movie is despicable. The film ends with the Garbage Pail Kids riding off into the night on some stolen ATVs while Dodger and Captain Manzini bid them farewell. Nobody learned anything, nobody grew or developed, and nobody was redeemed.
This film is every definition of the word "awful". Every single thing about this movie is wrong. It's horribly acted, horribly written, horribly animated, horribly directed, and horribly produced.
Even the POSTER for the movie is awful! The poster for The Garbage Pail Kids Movie includes the tagline "Out of the Garbage Pail and Into Your Heart" (I believe this was also the original slogan for McDonald's). I guess this is meant to imply the film is charming or something, but I can assure you that this film has absolutely no charm to it.
The poster also includes the tagline "A Live-Action Heap of Fun!".
Well, this film is certainly a heap of something, but "fun" is not it.
The only reason this film is #2 on this list is because I never really knew much about the original Garbage Pail Kids trading cards. They were before my time and prior to learning of this movie I didn't really know much about them, so this abomination of a movie didn't really affect my perception of them all that much.
However, I cannot say the same for the #1 spot on this list - the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life.
#1: The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)
Ever since I was a little boy of about 6-years-old, I loved - absolutely LOVED - Star Wars. I was the biggest fan of Star Wars in the entire world. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I loved absolutely everything about it. It wasn't just a favorite childhood obsession; it literally made up about 90% of my daily life as a kid.
In fact, most of my childhood memories are of me watching Star Wars movies, playing Star Wars video games, talking about Star Wars with my friends, playing with Star Wars toys, reading Star Wars books, writing Star Wars stories, and drawing Star Wars-themed pictures. It defined my childhood probably more than any other franchise could have.
As I've gotten older, my Star Wars obsession has, of course, taken a backseat to the regular tasks and routines any typical young adult has to face, but my love of it has never faded. The Star Wars trilogies, in fact, still remain my most favorite movies of all time.
Now, the first Star Wars movie (A New Hope) came out in 1977, and it was a huge hit. But while waiting for the next Star Wars movie (The Empire Strikes Back) to finish production, George Lucas wanted to keep Star Wars fresh in the minds of fans. So, in 1978, the producers got a contract with CBS to make a holiday special based in the Star Wars universe, with a budget of about $1,000,000.
The special brought back almost the entire original cast of A New Hope, such as Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels, and James Earl Jones. Several guest stars also appeared in this film, including Art Carney, Harvey Korman, Diahanne Carol, and Bea Arthur.
The special aired only once on CBS, on the evening of November 17th, 1978. It never re-aired and was never released on home video. It was universally panned by critics, Star Wars fans, and even the Star Wars cast themselves. Even George Lucas has apparently gone out of his way to keep people from watching it, and once allegedly commented that, if he had the time and a sledgehammer, he'd find and smash every single copy of it.
Now, I'd heard of the Star Wars Holiday Special for a while before I actually saw it. I had heard that it was infamously awful, and that even George Lucas himself hated the special, but I always thought people were exaggerating its badness like they had done with the Star Wars prequels.
So, back in March, while at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I decided to finally take a look at the special. I found a copy of it on YouTube and sat down to watch it. I distinctly remember thinking to myself "Come on. It's Star Wars! It can't be that bad! Maybe the acting isn't all that great, or maybe the effects are a little outdated, but there's no way it can be as bad as people are saying it is!"
Well, I think I made it about five minutes in before I was struggling not to rip out my hair, gouge out my eyeballs, puncture my eardrums, and beg for death itself to bless me with sweet relief. In fact, I remember the first exact word I said after turning it on: a dumbfounded, flabbergasted "No".
I, by the grace of God and all that is good and holy, am thankful that I never saw this special as a child. Not only would this have killed my interest in Star Wars, but I think it would have literally killed my brain. I would have gotten stupider by watching this abomination. The Star Wars Holiday Special is, without a doubt, the absolute worst excuse for a movie that I have ever seen in my entire life.
So, what's wrong with this special? What's RIGHT with this special? That's the real question!
The special opens up innocently enough, with Chewbacca and Han Solo flying the Millenium Falcon as they try to evade Imperial Star Destroyers and TIE fighters so they can make it back to Chewbacca's home planet of Kashyyyk, where Chewbacca intends to celebrate a Wookie holiday called "Life Day" with his family. After they jump to lightspeed, the film cuts to a treehouse in Kashyyyk, where we meet Chewbacca's family: his wife, Molla; his father, Itchy; and his son, Lumpy.
And it was right here - right here - where I immediately realized that the special was going to be a special kind of awful.
Let me explain. Chewbacca's family - like all wookies in the series - communicate with each other through roars, growls, grumbles, and screeches. This isn't a problem in the regular series, because a human protagonist often translates what the wookies are saying so the other characters - and the audience - can understand the dialogue.
But there is no such thing in this unholy abomination of a movie! The wookies screech, growl, and roar at each other - with no context or purpose - for about twelve minutes straight while doing absolutely nothing! There are no subtitles and no translations, so the audience has no clue what they're saying! It's just annoying, confusing, and downright painful to watch.
At one point, Lumpy turns on some kind of holographic table where, for another five minutes or so, the audience is subjected to a grotesquely awful scene as a bizarrely-dressed circus act is performed by people wearing bright green, pink, and yellow outfits while horrible kazoo-style music plays in the background. The entire scene makes no sense, serves no purpose, and has absolutely no point to it. It just wastes time - something this special has a special talent for.
One of the many, MANY pointless and horrid scenes in the Star Wars Holiday Special.
Confused? I was too.
Eventually, a trader played by Art Carney arrives at Chewbacca's home and greets the wookies. At this point, I was relieved to get a break from hearing and watching these walking hairballs screeching and roaring, and optimistically hoping that the dialogue would actually become more interesting.
But, again, I expected way too much of this special.
Art Carney gives Itchy a device of some sort, which Itchy plugs into some kind of Virtual Reality headset. We then see Itchy watch - and I swear I'm absolutely not making this up - virtual reality softcore porn.
The VR depicts a scantily-dressed woman (played by Diahann Carroll) speaking suggestively to Itchy while making a bunch of hideous sexual innuendos and telling him to "experience" her "pleasure" before singing another horrid, pointless song while the background fades into colors that I would expect to see in a bad LSD trip.
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| By this point in the movie, I felt like I'd lost about half my brain. I've never been more confused in my life. |
At this point, I had to turn off the special and take a break in order to preserve my own sanity. I was in literal physical pain from watching it. I had never, ever seen something so incomprehensibly awful and so surreally bad in my entire life.
As you might have guessed by now, there is absolutely no plot, no charm, no story, no thought, and no character arc in the entire damn movie. Most of the cast clearly looks miserable while acting in this atrocious thing, and almost all of the actors look like they're either struggling not to laugh or struggling not to cry. I kept hoping for the special to get better, but it only got worse and worse and worse.
When I finally did return, I trudged my way through the rest of the special. Harvey Korman shows up twice in the special; first as an eccentric, four-armed, cross-dressing chef on a cooking show (yes, I was just as confused as you probably are), and again as a malfunctioning android narrating a four-minute long transmitter assembly instruction video (because when you think of Star Wars, you think of instructional videos, right?).
At this point, I'm pretty much convinced that I either spaced out from sheer boredom, or that my brain tried to block out any memory of the special entirely, because I don't really remember much about it afterwards (and no, I will NOT rewatch it to jog my memory!). I do remember that there was an animated cartoon in the middle of the special which seemed to be the only thing even resembling a plot thread in the entire movie, but the cartoon was ugly, poorly animated, poorly dubbed, and had very little - if any - action.
To cut to the end of this thing, Han and Chewbacca eventually return to Kashyyyk, fight off a single lone Imperial Stormtrooper (who trips over his own gun and falls to his death), and Chewbacca reunites with his family and celebrates "Life Day" while Princess Leia sings a cheesy holiday song in a room full of screeching wookies. After that, this horrible, horrible special thankfully comes to an end.
This is it. The worst. The absolute worst movie I have ever seen. No comparison. There is nothing redeemable about this movie at all. The Star Wars Holiday Special is every single definition of the word "awful". Every second of it felt like a swift kick to the balls with a steel-toed boot.
There is absolutely nothing in this special worth watching. It doesn't have anything that makes Star Wars so likeable and so inspiring. There are no spaceship chases, no laser battles, no cool action scenes, no invigorating music, no character arcs or development, and no story. There is only pure, distilled, and concentrated agony.
I cannot believe that a group of people actually came up with this idea, wrote a script, directed it, produced it, edited it, reviewed it, approved it, and released it to the public. It is hideous. It is an abomination. It is the worst of cinema combined with the worst of television. Everything about this special makes me cringe. It is the most god-awful thing I have ever seen in my entire life.
Personally, I can now see why George Lucas has disowned this special. It is an insult to everything that made Star Wars great. It deserves to be forgotten and cast down into the pits of Hell where it rightfully belongs.
And that concludes the recount of my masochistic fiesta of self-harm. I'm sure there are other movies out there that would be on this list had I seen them, like Battlefield Earth or Birdemic, but, as it stands, these are the worst movies I have ever seen.
I know this is a departure from my usual topics, and I usually don't write about pop culture or movies on this website, but, after suffering through several hours of cinematic garbage, I honestly felt like I had to write something about this. Because God help me if I sat through all those agonizingly horrible movies for nothing.
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