A German TV network has pledged to play the Star Wars movies 24 hours a day from December 1 until December 14, ensuring that the Krampus will not kidnap any children this year because they’ll all be inside watching Star Wars. “We all know that for Star Wars fans it is too long to wait till Dec. 18, 2015 (for the launch of the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII),” Sky Deutschland VP of Programming Gary Davey tells The Hollywood Reporter, downplaying the obvious Krampusnacht connection.
Sky Deutschland is re-branding itself as Sky Star Wars for the event, which will include behind-the-scenes featurettes on the making of the films as well as two Ken Burns documentaries, 2004’s Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy and 2007’s Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed. The documentary content will be interspersed in between the six official Star Wars movies, which will be broadcast in narrative order from Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace to Star Wars: Episode 6: The Return Of The Jedi. (Germans, being a practical bunch, like to get the unpleasant stuff out of the way early.) Perhaps obviously, Sky Star Wars will only be available to Sky TV subscribers in Germany and Austria—sad news for the 176,632 people in England and Wales who listed their religion as “Jedi” on the 2011 UK census.