A Disturbance in the Force Documentary Goes Behind the Scenes of the Star Wars Holiday Special

A Disturbance in the Force, detailing the Star Wars Holiday Special, premieres at SXSW this month.

A teaser trailer has been released for A Disturbance in the Force ahead of its world premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas this month. The documentary details the creation and subsequent burial of the Star Wars Holiday Special as well as touching on that particular era of event television in the late 1970s. The film will premiere at SXSW on March 11, and you can get a sneak peek at the movie by watching the teaser trailer below.

The film is written and directed by the team of Jeremy Coon and Steve Kozak. The two also produced with Kyle Newman. Several notable stars are interviews for the documentary as well, including such names as Seth Green, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Paul Scheer, Taran Killam, Donny Osmond, Gilbert Gottfried, Bonnie Burton, Bruce Vilanch, and Steve Binder.

An official synopsis for A Disturbance in the Force is as follows:

In 1977, Star Wars became a cultural phenomenon that single-handedly revitalized a stagnant film industry, and forever changed how films were sold, made, and marketed. Movies would never be the same again. A year later, neither would television. In 1978, CBS aired the two-hour Star Wars Holiday Special during the week of Thanksgiving and was watched by 13 million people. It never re-aired. While some fans of the franchise are aware of this dark secret, this bizarre two hours of television still remains relatively unknown among the general public. Simply put, we will answer how and why did the Holiday Special get made.

Related: Star Wars: Why Does Everyone Hate the 1978 Holiday Special?

The Star Wars Holiday Special Is Infamous

The Star Wars Holiday Special has the distinction of being the very first Star Wars spinoff, decades before they would become commonplace. It’s also notable for first introducing the Boba Fett character, who was recently given his own Disney+ series The Book of Boba Fett. The special also brought back the stars of the original movie, including Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Peter Mayhew, and the voice of James Earl Jones.

But despite what the special had going for it, it was infamously panned when it was first premiered in 1978. It was so lambasted that CBS swiftly buried the special, refusing to re-air it on the network moving forward. It has also not been given an official release on home video, leading to bootleg versions sold in fan communities for many years. Despite its bad reputation, however, the special does have its fans, with James Gunn proudly considering himself to be among them.

You can find out more about Disturbance in the Force by visiting the official website at HolidaySpecialDoc.com.