The Star Wars LEGO Holiday Special Offers Gifts of Past and Present

By Tom Farr​

For many families, a much-adored tradition around the holiday season is sitting down to watch the many classic holiday specials that have been airing on television for decades.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Frosty the Snowman
A Charlie Brown Christmas
How the Grinch Stole Christmas 

For adults, these specials create a feeling of nostalgia. For children, they create a sense of hope for a an unknown and discoverable world. 
 
One holiday special families aren't usually gathering around every year only aired on television once in 1978. For the past four decades, its creators have preferred to pretend it never happened. The Star Wars Holiday Special aired on CBS just a year after the original Star Wars film's release to capitalize on the film's success. However, the special was cheesy and so fundamentally different in tone from A New Hope that fans and critics maligned it.

Even George Lucas thought it was terrible. 
 
Still, the concept of a Star Wars holiday special was interesting. So interesting that Lucasfilm is releasing a new special on Disney+. The Star Wars LEGO Holiday Special will feature a post-Episode IX story about Rey going on an adventure with BB-8 and discovering a strange Jedi temple that plunges her into a time-hopping journey through the Skywalker Saga. She'll encounter some of the moments we love most about the saga and even interact with Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Luke Skywalker before he became the famous Jedi knight. However, she has to get back in time for the Life Day celebration to celebrate with her friends.
 
LEGO Star Wars stories aren't canon; they're fun slapstick versions of our favorite stories for a younger audience, which are, of course, enjoyed by adults as well. So, we can probably assume that Rey's experience traveling through time won't be considered canon. Yet, all of the LEGO Star Wars stories are based on things that happened in the Star Wars universe.

So, it seems possible that this holiday special is at least based on something that actually happened to Rey. We already know time travel is possible in the Star Wars universe because of the World Between Worlds introduced in Star Wars: Rebels. 
 
The LEGO Holiday Special is the first story to take place after the Skywalker Saga ended with The Rise of Skywalker, and many Star Wars fans are eager to see what Rey is up to after saving the galaxy from her evil grandfather and adopting the name of Skywalker for herself.

The special has the opportunity to show us some of the interactions we missed between Rey and Luke Skywalker because of the direction Disney took in the sequel trilogy. Of course, with Rey meeting a much younger Luke, it will be interesting to see the roles reversed between the two because Rey will be the more experienced Jedi.

There will be so much we can see Rey learn through the experience of traveling through the Skywalker Saga.  The LEGO Star Wars Holiday special looks to be a bright spot in an otherwise dark year. For Star Wars fans, this could become a tradition they look forward to every year.