Movie Review: The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special

Movie Review: The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special

2nd December 2020 Off By Ewan Gleadow

Copyright: Lucasfilm

Pairing something I love (Christmas), with something I couldn’t care less for (Star Wars) is surely a way to annoy me. It’ll either ruin my Yuletide spirit or have me feeling an extended animosity toward a franchise and fanbase I’ve already had to deal with after I shunned Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Clearly, it’s becoming some sort of festive tradition, then, to rile up a group fascinated with devouring any sliver of media they can get that depicts this far, far away galaxy. More power to them, I suppose, but those going into The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special asking for anything more than jovial Christmas nonsense is surely more a fool than I.  

I do wonder to myself who exactly The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special is for. It can’t be trying to tap into the cult fascination of the actual Star Wars Holiday Special, a horrific think piece on why we shouldn’t have nice things, but a LEGO tie-in to the shoddy sequel offerings of this past decade is a strange option. For a game, sure, I can see the appeal, as a kid that was my introduction to this world of warring stars, but I was a kid. I’ve matured since the days of drooling and eating nothing but hot dogs. Still, the Star Wars series has pulled a smart card, appealing to full-grown nerds by popping the term “Life Day” into The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special. 

That’s about all the similarities between the late-70s piece and this offering from modern times. Boring jokes, bland and stifled storytelling that follows all the tropes and cliché expectations of a Christmas cash-in. Ken Cunningham does a decent job of capturing what few LEGO-y charms offered up, but when you sit through something at this age, it’s hard to find the charm. Surely there’ll be charm for younger audiences though, although I do doubt it. It’s the needless, fading fads of old, wheeled out for a quick pop that in two years time will feel dated and embarrassing to view. Not a good look for any film, but I doubt anyone cares about how well The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special will go down, what with its boring performances, lifeless animation and the robotic, charmless nature in which it carries out the spirit of Christmas. 

All the bells and whistles you’d expect of a shoddy Christmas flick aimed at children who would probably enjoy eating glue or petting the arm of a chair as much as this. They don’t care about call-backs to films they’re too young to see, too old to accept this sort of animation style. It finds such a horrid, cheap feeling in visiting these moments of the past, having Rey recite what we’re looking at, and then leaving for the next scene. It’s stitched together in such a vacuous style, grating from the opening seconds to the closing moments. Ruin your Christmas with this. Go on, you know you want to.