Disney+ is about to get the Star Wars Holiday Special … sort of.
The streaming service has announced next month’s new arrivals, and there are some unexpected additions: the original Ewok films and animated series from the 1980s, the original Clone Wars series, and one of the Star Wars Holiday Special‘s animated segments that introduced the iconic Boba Fett.
The Holiday Special is an infamous relic from the unexpected success of A New Hope back in 1978. Produced for CBS, it brought back much of the original cast and featured an odd plot: Chewbacca runs into trouble as he returns home, and while his family awaits his arrival, they watch a lot of galactic vids.
It’s not a good program, but it did have some redeeming points, including the introduction of one Boba Fett in an animated segment called The Story Of The Faithful Wookiee. It’s appeared over the years as a bonus feature in some Blu-Ray releases, but it marks its streaming debut next month.
That it’s being brought to the streaming platform makes sense, given the wild success of The Mandalorian and the various nods that creator Jon Favreau included in it. It’ll be something to watch while we wait for Boba Fett’s next appearance in The Book of Boba Fett, anticipated later this year.
That’s not the only new Star Wars content that’s coming to Disney+ next month: the two Ewok films, Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor will also debut, as well as the Ewoks animated series. (Its companion series, Droids, doesn’t appear to be on the schedule yet.)
Most excitingly, Genndy Tartakovsky’s 2003 Clone Wars animated series will also begin streaming next month. The series was produced between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith and consisted of 25 shorts across three seasons, which filled in some of the gaps between the two films. It featured a unique style that was later translated into the more prominent Clone Wars series that debuted a couple of years later. It’ll tide us over while we wait for the next Clone Wars project, The Bad Batch, which begins streaming on May 4th.
April will bring other entertainment as well: the final The Falcon and The Winter Soldier episode, the sports series Big Shot, and the third season of the just-concluded DuckTales.
