Peter Quill and the gang returned earlier than expected for The Guardians of the Galaxy’s Holiday Special. The short presentation premiered on Disney+ at the end of November 2022 with a high view count and favorable reception among critics and fans alike. The special, directed by James Gunn, embraced the comedic side of the Guardians, something already present in the franchise but predominant on this occasion.
The MCU’s Christmas incursion is not new, with Iron Man 3 and Hawkeye’s setting revolving around the holidays, to mention a couple. Yet Gunn raised the bar with this fully-themed Christmas story, a clear tribute to the infamous The Star Wars Holiday Special.
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On that note, the Guardians of the Galaxy director clearly drew inspiration from the Star Wars 1978 TV special. It is easy to see today what made the original such a flop, though the late 70s feature presentation tried a usually successful premise: making a Christmas segment on a popular brand. The first movie premiered one year before the special, and people were going mad for anything Star Wars-related. The galaxy far, far away was not what it is today, a multimedia franchise with an expanded universe.
The Marvel special clearly took note of this and created an homage that stands better where the original one failed. The changes make for a more solid presentation and a good basis for future ones. Here are some points in which they are similar and others in which there are improvements.
Outer Space Meeting Earth Worked To Marvel’s Advantage
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Both Guardians and Star Wars coincide in their philosophies. The two take place somewhere in the galaxy, and they are both deeply connected to Earth. The advantage of the MCU is that Star-Lord’s story is deeply rooted in the world as we know it.
Star Wars was, in its way, a celebration of earth’s traditions for the holidays, with a family celebration taking place and guest appearances from celebrities. It was much easier to bring the Guardians to Earth’s traditions due to Peter Quill’s backstory. In fact, the special talks about Christmas without any nuances. For Star Wars, “long ago in a galaxy far away” gave the special a bizarre turn, referring to a very enigmatic “Life Day” that resembles earth’s tradition vaguely.
In the end, as hinted in the introduction, it was a clever decision to use this particular Marvel franchise for the holiday special, even if they are not remotely as popular as Star Wars was. Though clearly well-known and lovable enough to deserve a Christmas presentation, choosing the Guardians was a nice balance between popularity and flexibility, meaning they could bend this universe enough to allow a holiday theme as well as certain cameos.
In that territory, Kevin Bacon’s appearance was a bold one. Usually, sci-fi movies and shows need to create an extraterrestrial character to accommodate a celebrity. Moreover, that is exactly what the Star Wars special did with Beatrice Arthur and Art Carney. There was nothing wrong with those cameos and how they were treated, yet they fall short of being memorable. The intention behind them was more related to bringing famous actors and actresses to appeal to adult audiences accompanying their kids to the film.
In contrast, MCU’s special relied on a more established tradition of a family Christmas special and opted for a modern “celebrity roasting himself” approach with Bacon. The jury might be out on how well that went, but it’s undeniable that it is an unforgettable one.
The musical cameos, on the other hand, were much more balanced in James Gunn’s special. With an excellent Christmas carol parody by The Old 97, the musical moment had a much more prominent role and singalong vibe than Jefferson Starship’s shyer cameo. Even if the ’70s band was more popular than their present counterparts, it was all a matter of better presenting them.
Last but not least, the animation segment was present in both specials, but kept to the minimum in the 2022 rendition. Star Wars just went all in, unbalancing the live and animated segments.
Are More Disney Marvel Specials Coming?
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Far from dubbing The Star Wars Holiday Special as a simple flop, the idea was right but poorly executed, or maybe even ahead of its time. More than 40 years later, the same structure proves to be functional with the right changes.
The story still resolves with a familiar focus, that is, by reuniting Peter with his family. Is Disney planning to make its top franchises hold annual specials? Now that the Guardians have learned the ways of the Jedi and perfected the practice, the possibility is open. Holiday Specials are a genre per se, and the 2022 version’s success proves that they found a good formula to do it.
Disney’s MCU and Star Wars franchises have enough content to find characters that are flexible enough to celebrate Christmas without seeming out of place. It’s hard to guess which of those could potentially have one, but the tides have turned and this is again on the table.
For the time being, MCU is much more holiday-friendly, and they have a tradition of mixing apparently unconnected universes. A new Guardians of the Galaxy special in 2023 wouldn’t be as effective as the first one, as its role in this sci-fi holiday redemption worked well once, but could also scrap the immense progress done. This year was also the year for Marvel’s Halloween special presentation with Werewolf by Night, a clear Disney strategy of capitalizing on holidays. Let’s just hope that the lesson is learned and that those specials are here to stay.
