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I remember it very well: many years ago I rented the official Star Wars episode 4-6 box set at a video rental, and it had a bonus disk, telling the story of how its first episodes where made.

Duly watching until the last bit of it, I found this uniquely amazing post-credits scene.

Was this official? Did someone hack the DVD set? Was I dreaming? Was it a prank from some production employee? Did George Lucas ever see/agree to this?

And, finally, why hasn't Disney kept it in the streaming version of the making of?

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  • I've seen several mentions of it being part of the official boxed set.
    – FuzzyBoots
    Jan 14, 2022 at 19:45
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    Should have kept what I wrote as a comment: Lots of agencies were vying for spots that pushed the edge, as it were, at that time. It was real, I had paperwork for the agency, creatives, cast, studio, etc, but its in boxes somewhere. MTV Europe was pretty open to some fun at the time IIRC, but something like this wouldn't be pushed for Lucasfilm, it would be entirely for MTV Europe, hoping the US side wouldn't notice. An early version of something supposed to look homemade going viral.
    – blobbymcblobby
    Jan 15, 2022 at 22:23
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    If it was felt that it would go too far (everything goes past lawyers, MTV or not), then it would go out the unofficial channels - out the side door - adding to the idea that it was an unofficial fan video that's somehow got really popular. Reality was is that it got approval, budget, studio time, post time, and ad revenue spent pushing it to the online agencies. I think the only reason it got on the US side was its sheer popularity once it was 'out there'. Officially, everyone would shrug. And hope they got an ad trophy, champagne, and other stuff, out of it...
    – blobbymcblobby
    Jan 15, 2022 at 22:28
  • Cool, very cool to have an insider view. I guess Lucasfilm was ok with it after all, but DIsney was not. Anyway, "its in boxes somewhere"... what MTV historical wonders thoses boxes might contain :)
    – Arc
    Jan 15, 2022 at 23:03

1 Answer 1

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According to IMDB, this video clip was indeed included in the end credits of the on-disc documentary The Birth of the Lightsaber. Furthermore, it turns out this documentary is actually still available on starwars.com.

While the Christmas gag seems to be cut out of the end credits, it does still include a citation for "Goodgift", from MTV Europe:

Screenshot of video player reading "Scenes from GOODGIFT Courtesy of MTV Networks Europe

The watermark on the video in the question gives its source as "www.mtv.co.uk/xmas", so this would certainly make sense if this is the video given an acknowledgement in the documentary credits. Doing a little digging, I found a reference to this video in a Dutch Star Wars forum from 2002:

Screenshot of forum post reading: ANSCD http://www.mtv.co.uk/mtv.co.uk/en/dynamo/downloads/tVf2699/goodgift.mpg a new jedi was born.... Vet Lache...

Looking through the Wayback machine, I eventually found a version of http://www.mtv.co.uk/mtv.co.uk/en/dynamo/downloads/tVf2699/goodgift.mpg from August 2003 with a thumbnail of the video:

Screenshot of mtv.co.uk from 2003 with the headline "MTV.CO.UK: WE FELT YOUR PRESENTS!" and showing a thumbnail of the lightsaber video

So, the most likely explanation for this video is that MTV Europe made it in or before 2002, it stuck around as an early-2000s internet meme, and the makers of the lightsaber documentary in 2004 put it in the end credits for fun along with the Simpsons and Futurama gags. Evidently Lucasfilm later reconsidered its appropriateness, since it's no longer included in the official site's version of the documentary.

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    It's also possible that MTV revoked their permission to use it.
    – Graham
    Jan 15, 2022 at 10:57
  • Well, the comments posted on my question seem to endorse your answer. Thanks!
    – Arc
    Feb 14, 2022 at 1:06

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