Sheeved: A Star Wars Christmas Story is Coming to ABC
ABC has announced the premiere of a brand new Christmas special set to air this holiday season. SHEEVED: A Star Wars Christmas Story is a retelling of Richard Donner’s holiday classic Scrooged, which was a retelling of the holiday classic, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which was also a retelling of the all-time holiday classic, Mickey’s Christmas Carol. Disney is mashing them all up for a heart-warming tale starring the heartless Sheev Palpatine. Details after the jump!
Star Wars has a history of creating memorable holiday specials and SHEEVED is set to continue the legacy. The Christmas special will feature stop-motion animation in the style of classic Christmas specials such as Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town. SHEEVED will also feature an all-star voice cast consisting of veteran Star Wars actors and familiar Hollywood names. Directing the ensemble will be none other than The Maker himself, George Lucas!
After sitting down with the show’s writer, John Favreau, we were allowed to share the full non-canon synopsis of the special. Without further adieu, Faking Star Wars presents, SHEEVED: A Star Wars Christmas Story.
Sheev Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) is a cynical Sith Lord working for his Empire. He has found unlimited power, success, and wealth, but only by becoming cold-hearted and cruel. His ruthless concentration on his wicked ways has cost him his true love, Mon Destra (Melissa McCarthy). It has also alienated him from his clone brother Steev (Ian McKellan), his only living blood relative, and ruined any chance of having a happy and fulfilling life. Sheev overworks his apprentice Darth Vader (LeBron James), forcing him to constantly break plans with his family and neglect his force-sensitive son and daughter.
Sheev is put in charge of the Empire’s bold plan to broadcast a live, high-budget version of A Christmas Carol to air on Christmas Eve. Sheev is stressed by the responsibility, firing timid yes-man Admiral Piett (Bobcat Goldthwait) on the spot over a non-compelling announcement to the Empire’s troops. Sheev’s boss, Darth Plageuis (Andy Serkis), takes the liberty of hiring an assistant for Sheev, Thrawn (Jason Bateman), who is transparently after Sheev’s job.
On Christmas Eve as the event prepares to go live, Sheev is visited by the ghost of the long dead Sith Lord Darth Revan (Burt Reynolds), warning Sheev of the error of his ways and that three more ghosts will visit him that evening. Prior to leaving, Thrawn calls Mon Destra on Sheev’s phone, and Destra later tracks down Sheev wondering why he called after all this time, sensing he wished to make amends.
On the set of the show, Sheev argues with the censor over the amount of cleavage that is showing from a Twirk’lek Dancer’s costume. All the while he is repeatedly screaming at one of the stagehands to stop hammering. The censor is knocked out cold by a careless stagehand and is promptly carried away. It’s then that Destra calls out to Sheev.
Sheev is genuinely delighted when he sees Destra. Their meeting is interrupted by the choreographer who has the Twerk’lek Dancers demonstrate their routine for the show. Then the ewok handler tells Sheev that he can’t get the tiny antlers to stay glued onto the little furries. Sheev suggests he use staples much to the shock of Destra and the ewok handler.
Destra says she has to leave and gives Sheev the card of the Rebel base where she spends most of her time. After watching her leave and trying to talk to a commander via hologram, Sheev has had enough of the hammering stagehand and yells at him one last time. The stagehand finally complies only to have the set collapse from the lack of support.
Sheev encounters the Force Ghost of Christmas Past (David Johansen), who appears as a Coruscant taxi driver. The Force Ghost takes him to the past, showing him the Christmas where Sheev’s father, essentially a light-side version of Sheev, tells him he must work for what he wants and accuses the men at the gungan meatpacking plant of being lazy slobs feigning disability, a conversation that caused his mother to leave them. The Force Ghost shows Sheev wasted his whole childhood watching intergalactic C-SPAN, and then when the opportunity came and he had met Destra, he opted to let the lure of a better job in the Empire outweigh his feelings for her, leading Destra to leave him. Sheev realizes he has let his success and power overwhelm his life.
After the Force Ghost leaves him he is back on his Death Star. Sheev decides to see Destra, selflessly giving her time at a dug homeless shelter, and Sheev comes to admire her and her work more. However, Sheev’s old personality still shows when he gets upset when two of the people volunteering there interrupt his talk with urgent problems.
Angry that she refuses to let them solve problems by themselves so they can talk, Sheev leaves, telling Destra to scrape them off. She scolds him for his poor attitude, and he replies with a ‘Bah Humbug’. Outside sitting by the door is the hobo, Teedo (Aziz Ansari), who asks Sheev for two credits to buy batteries for his electric blanket. Sheev tells him to ask someone else for the money.
The Force Ghost of Christmas Present (Carol Kane), a pixie that delights in force choking and slapping Palpatine, shows Sheev the struggles that Destra has with raising her family on a tight budget, and that he was oblivious to how her son had become mute after witnessing the murder of his father, and how Destra struggles with his problems whereas Frank says he knows plenty of Sith witches who could easily help the boy.
She also shows Sheev the distance that has come between him and his clone brother Steev, at a Christmas party where Steev’s wife says Sheev has turned down multiple invitations, but Steev says he will always invite his blood relatives no matter what.
After returning to what he thinks is reality, Sheev finds himself in a sewer. He then finds that not too far from him, sits the frozen corpse of Teedo, whose request for credits for batteries for his electric blanket he had declined, causing Sheev to remark how vital a simple gift is to some.
After Teedo’s only possession, a gold watch that plays Jingle Bells, falls from his frozen hand and begins to play, Sheev yells at him, saying he should have stayed with Destra who would have taken care of him. It’s only then that he manages to break out of the sewer and back to reality.
In both cases, Sheev’s encounter with the Force Ghosts leads him to disrupt the final rehearsals for the live show, and Darth Vader is put in charge while Sheev returns to his quarters. As he rests there, a drunk and disheveled (and very angry) Piett shows up and attempts to shoot Sheev with a blaster.
Sheev takes shelter in a lift, where the Force Ghost of Christmas Future, a Grim Reaper-like Darth Bane (Mark Hamill), awaits. Sheev is initially grateful for the timing of the Force Ghost until it begins to show him the future, where Destra has forgone her charity for a life of wealth and power based on Sheev’s attitude, and where Sheev himself has died, the only guests at his funeral are Steev and his wife.
Sheev wakes back up in the lift, and realizes what he must do. When the lift opens on Piett, Sheev astounds the man by offering him his job back if he would help regain control of the show. As the live show draws to its conclusion, Sheev interrupts the ending while Piett holds the control room under his blaster. Sheev expounds on the true meaning of Christmas to the running cameras, apologizing to all those that he had done wrong, including Steev and Destra.
When Destra hears this, she quickly makes for the Empire’s studios aided by the Force Ghost of Christmas Past, and the two reconcile their past. Piett is able to convince Darth Plagueis that this was all Thrawn’s idea.
When Sheev finishes his speech, Destra’s son, who is on set along with his mother, approaches Sheev and, speaking for the first time, reminds him of the important line “The Force bless us, everyone,” astounding Destra and the others. With everyone happy, Sheev leads the cast and crew in singing of Put a Little Love in Your Heart, while the Force Ghosts look on, congratulating Sheev.
SHEEVED: A Star Wars Christmas Story will air on ABC December 22nd 2015. Please check your local listings.
