Do I Still Love 1980's The Empire Strikes Back?

1980 20th Century Fox
Directed by: Irvin Kershner; Written by: Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan
Starring: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, David Prowse, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, and Frank Oz
MPAA Rating: PG; Running Time: 124 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 10/10

After their victory at the Battle of Yavin, the Rebels are chased into hiding on a distant frozen planet by the Galactic Empire. The Empire's terrifying Darth Vader will stop at nothing to find the Rebels and the hero of the Battle of Yavin, Luke Skywalker. When the Empire finds the Rebel base and the Rebels evacuate, Luke must split up from his friends, Han and Leia, so that he can train in the ways of the mysterious Force, on the planet Dagobah with the exiled master, Yoda. Meanwhile, as Han and Leia speed away on Han's ship, the Millennium Falcon, Darth Vader and the Empire are in hot pursuit. Will Han and Leia escape the Empire's clutches? Will Luke, perhaps the Galaxy's last hope, succeed in his training, or will he sacrifice it to leave and help his friends? If Luke does leave Dagobah, is he playing right into the strangely obsessed Darth Vader's waiting hands?

* * *

This will be quite a long intro, but this is for me, and even I need the context.
I first saw Star Wars: A New Hope on a school night CBS airing in the first grade. My bed time was 8 pm (8:30 on Monday, so that I could watch the first quarter of Monday Night Football), so I missed everything after the Cantina scene. I made my mom recap the second half of the movie to me the next day, and I can't tell you the first time I finally saw it. I can say, we bought a VCR a few months later, I saw a cable TV ad for the A New Hope sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, and watched and recorded it. It blew my mind to the degree that I called my older cousin Rhett immediately afterward to ask if Darth Vader was lying when he gives the film's climactic revelation, then went over to his house to finish the trilogy with Return of the Jedi. I loved Jedi, but it didn't quite measure up to Empire, which I watched regularly until my tape vanished, the early 90's happened, and I kind of forgot about Star Wars for a little while. Then destiny came. At the start of 1995, I used some leftover Christmas money to purchase a Super Nintendo. A few months later, I was looking through the used games at Blockbuster Video and bought a copy of Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes back for about $5. After a few minutes of the game, I suddenly remembered something: The Empire Strikes Back is awesome. I hopefully hunted for my old VHS to no avail, then thumbed through a TV Guide to see the original trilogy would soon be airing on the USA Network. I recorded them all on one awesome, eight-hour TDK VHS tape, and during that summer between seventh and eighth grade, my little brother and I watched the original trilogy probably 30 or 40 times.

 

And this was how the Lucasfilm logo looked back then. It always reminded us of Luke's final-form lightsaber.

That was when my Star Wars fandom was the most pure. I played through those SNES Star Wars games, watched the movies again and again, played the computer games, thumbed through LucasArts catalogues, read the extended universe novels, read the making of books. Star Wars was my favorite thing ever, and I am quite sure it was a lot of people's favorite thing ever. The prequels started to muddy the waters of my fandom, but throughout college, the Expanded Universe of novels and comics kept me going. I got married, forced my wife to watch the original trilogy, and kept reading Star Wars books and comics until Disney bought Star Wars and Her Satanic Majesty, Kathleen Kennedy, declared the Expanded Universe non-canon. This was a far more brutal blow to my fandom than my initial disappointment with the prequels, but I held out hope that this new Disney Star Wars, with all the money and resources behind it, would do right by the franchise. It didn't.
I thought 2015's The Force Awakens was fine at first. It at least brought about some exciting possibilities. Then I put together that one of the core trio's absences until the film's final minute, and the death of another ten minutes earlier in the film, meant that Disney spent $4 billion on Star Wars to not let two of the main trio members, and consequently the trio in its entirety, ever share a scene together. Still, I was excited about 2017's The Last Jedi, and on first viewing, was thrilled by the way it subverted my expectations...at least until I tried to watch it again later at my house, and was confronted with actually thinking about what I was seeing. I've hated The Last Jedi more with every second that's passed since that first viewing: the way it squanders Luke Skywalker, 34 years after his last cinematic appearance, the way its dull-as-dishwasher, nonsensical plot can't hold up to even a modicum of logic, the way it essentially negates itself, the previous film, and in a way, all the movies that came before it. And then The Rise of Skywalker happened...

 

Maybe I should have started the piece with this picture

The Rise of Skywalker is the worst major franchise film I've seen since Batman and Robin. It is that bad. In its massive and nearly incomprehensible incompetence, it not only negates The Last Jedi, but all of Star Wars, including the prequels, as the major character redemption at the end of the original trilogy is essentially wiped away to bring back a previous villain, namely because of the lack of foresight and the all-encompassing stupidity of the film's creators, Kathleen Kennedy and JJ Abrams. What a flaming, listless pile of garbage Rise of Skywalker is. At that point in late 2019, I thought my fandom was dead, but the first season of The Mandalorian renewed my hope, as did the Clone Wars and Rebels TV series. In fact, the unfathomable terribleness of the sequel trilogy, along with the excellence of Clone Wars and parts of Rebels, put me in a position to finally revaluate and appreciate the prequels. At this point, despite their flaws, I unconditionally love them. Yes, I love the Star Wars prequels, I love the original trilogy, and I love the last few episodes of The Clone Wars, which are some of my favorite Star Wars. 

And with this new foundation, my faith in Star Wars was restored...until something perhaps irrevocably destroyed it. That something was 2022's Kenobi, the worst television series centered around a major franchise, and one of the worst overall television series I have ever seen. I am still in shock over how low its quality is. I think it may have given me pop-culture PTSD. It is just unreal how bad Kathleen Kennedy is at shepherding Star Wars. Something as bad as Kenobi should never have seen the light of day, especially as part of a fictional universe whose original three movies were once known as the Holy Trilogy. It is in that current mindset that I, as part of a series where I am revisiting the five films I've considered my long-time favorites, now rewatch and reevaluate The Empire Strikes Back, the film I've generally ranked third after 1958's Vertigo and 1963's Winter Light. Do I still adore The Empire Strikes Back, the film that I once considered the crown jewel in the headdress of my once favorite thing?

 

Oh no, you think I'm about to finally start the review, don't you?

And just when it seems the evaluation is yet to begin, I must bring another (extremely quick) digression to the forefront. In 1997, George Lucas released "Special Editions" of the original trilogy to theaters, which feature various, mostly CGI additions, as well as several dialogue and music changes. Lucas stated these are the versions he "always" intended. These versions have since been altered even more, and I pray they are not altered further. Compared to the other two films, Empire's changes are fairly insubstantial, though I wouldn't quite call them minor. Thankfully, several obsessive Star Wars and cinema fans have restored the theatrical cuts of the films to high-definition quality. For the purposes of this review, I've watched both the original cut (via the Harmy's Despecialized version), which I grew up with (and from which all screenshots here are taken), and the current 2022 cut. I'm now 1300 words into this piece, though. Let's begin. While I shouldn't have to say this for a 42-year old pop-culture phenomenon, SPOILERS START NOW

 

They tell you it's going to be dark right there in the first sentence

Like every Star Wars film before 2016, The Empire Strikes Back begins with an opening crawl that gives a quick summation of previous events, as well as the setup for the film. This is in the spirit of the classic Saturday morning serials that inspired George Lucas to create Star Wars in the first place, though I can't imagine watching The Empire Strikes Back without first seeing the previous film, A New Hope. Still, I think The Empire Strikes Back stands alone. 

If you haven't seen A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back's opening crawl, as well as the film's superior skill in immediately giving clear pictures of its characters and plot, makes it easy to jump in. Our heroes, the Rebels, are hiding on the ice planet of Hoth from a Galactic Empire that will stop at nothing to find and destroy them. Our central character is a young Rebel warrior named Luke Skywalker, who is learning to use something called The Force, a mystical power that binds all things together, and seems to give Luke telekinetic powers. The force was mastered by the Jedi, a religious sect that was wiped out by the Empire. Our other main characters are Han Solo, a roguish ship pilot who has been helping the Rebels, but who needs to leave to pay off a debt to void a bounty on his head, and Princess Leia Organa, a decisive Rebellion leader who was rescued from the Empire by Luke and Han in the previous film. Through the skill of the script and Irvin Kershner's direction, the first 20 minutes of the film expertly defines the relationships these characters have with one another.

 

The production design and art direction in this film are second to none. Also, this Kershner dude can compose a shot.

After the Rebels' huge victory in A New Hope, which ends with the triumphant destruction of the Empire's planet-killing superweapon, the far darker The Empire Strikes Back is essentially a series of partially mitigated losses. This begins in the opening scene, as Han and Luke are out on a scouting mission in a vast, forlorn, and wintry landscape. Han heads back to base, while Luke decides to stay back to investigate something. Luke is immediately mauled and captured by a fearsome snow monster called a wampa, and taken back to its cave. Meanwhile, Han heads back to the Rebels' secret base, where he declares his intention to leave to pay off his debts, and Leia protests. It's immediately clear that these are two stubborn assholes who are in love with each other, but neither is willing to do what is necessary for that love to come to fruition; namely, the hardened Leia refuses to acknowledge there's a spark between them (despite clear evidence), while Han refuses to acknowledge that spark in any manner other than what I might charitably describe as oafish.

 

You know what, on second thought, women love it when you raise your voice, point in their face, and tell them about how much they are in love with you

Han then hears that Luke hasn't come back yet, and that in a few hours, as night falls, it will be so cold on the planetary surface that nothing can survive. Han leaves to rescue Luke without hesitating, telling the officer who insists that Han's ride will freeze before the first marker that he'll "see him in hell." This shows that the loyalty Han learned through his growth in the previous film has stuck. As Han leaves to save Luke, we also see just how much Leia, as well as Han's seven-foot tall best friend, Chewbacca, and their droids C-3PO and R2-D2 care about Luke and Han. The core unit is in place, their dynamic solidified through the second half of the first film, and deepened here. I should take this moment to mention, the execrable sequel trilogy not only never reunited the original core characters, but even failed to do so with its NEW core unit until the third, and by far WORST film in that trilogy. 

Chewie, that's exactly how those sequel "movies" make me feel

I'm not planning to harp on how much the sequel trilogy sucks for the entirety of this piece, but I have to in this next scene, where Luke escapes from the wampa's cave. Here, Luke awakens, hanging from the ceiling, ankles encased in ice. He sees his lightsaber, a Jedi's light sword, protruding from the ice as well. We're now ten minutes into the second film in this trilogy. By this point in the sequel trilogy, the heroine is already adept at Jedi mind tricks and utilizing the Force, and has defeated a Sith Lord in combat, not from any work by the character, but because the films give her these powers. Here at this point in The Empire Strikes Back, Luke struggles to use the force to pull his lightsaber out of ice from three feat away. Luke has to fight and struggle for everything. Every victory Luke achieves across the original trilogy feels hard-earned, and is often through pain. This feels real, even in a series about aliens and space wizards, and it makes Luke relatable and likable, which is probably why his toys have always sold like hotcakes, and Rey's have been sitting untouched on clearance for the last three years.

Luke...Luke...don't sign a contract with Disney...

Here is the one element of the film that you really need previous context for. As Luke runs a few hundred feet from the cave, then collapses in the snow, he has a spiritual vision of his previous master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, who speaks to Luke from the great beyond, and tells him to go to the planet Dagobah, to find the Jedi master, Yoda. If you haven't seen A New Hope, you'll have no idea who Obi-Wan is, but you can easily assume he is a wise voice who guides Luke, even in death. The vision is interrupted by Han, who rides to Luke's rescue, and comes up with an ingenious idea to keep the two alive through the night (using his now dead ride), so that they can be rescued the next morning. Said rescue scene is strangely exhilarating, considering it solely consists of a snowspeeder flying over some snowy hills and looking for Luke and Han. People used to know how to make movies.

 

Rescue me from modern cinema!!

Kershner now makes sure we get some shots featuring all of the characters together. The most shocking of these is one of everyone gathered around Luke in a healing (bacta) tank. Luke's face is torn to shreds (a narrative decision partly done to cover a real-life injury Mark Hamill sustained before filming), grotesque machinery connected to his body, as he floats helplessly. This is the hero of the movie, and fifteen minutes in, he's in an intensive care unit. The film then skillfully skips through several days as Luke is back in his room, surrounded by his friends who are happy to see him healing and well. This then leads to the famous "sister-kissing" moment, where Leia kisses Luke, and as gross as this is given the revelation (to the audience AND Luke and Leia) of their shared parentage in the next film, Return of the Jedi, the moment is actually just a part of the Han and Leia romance. Leia only kisses Luke to irritate Han and make him jealous, as payback for his loutishness earlier in the scene--rather tellingly, at least in this film, the moment does nothing to come between Han and Luke's strong friendship. The Rebels then discover that the object Luke saw earlier was an Imperial probe. Han and Chewie venture off to investigate, but the probe self-destructs, proving that they've been discovered and must flee. Cue the first image of villain, Darth Vader, 20 minutes into the film.

 

There's a strange holiness to this shot, like Luke is being beautified through his suffering

The best element of this moment is C-3PO running from across the room to get a front row seat

Darth Vader's Star Destroyer, Executor, is my favorite ship from any film. It's 11 miles long!

The first shot of Vader in every original trilogy film is iconic

With the value and depth of the relationships now fully drawn, the movie now drops its leisurely, but enjoyable pace, and kicks it into an even more enjoyable overdrive. The Rebels immediately begin prepping for evacuation. The Imperial fleet high-tails it to Hoth, but comes out of hyperspace too early, which alerts the Rebels to their presence, giving the Rebels an opportunity to put up a planetary shield and begin off-worlding ships--and beginning a great gag of Darth Vader Force-strangling all of the generals who fail him, only to promote another hapless officer in their stead. Han and Leia stay back to help manage the evacuation, while Luke and several pilots board snowspeeders to try to delay the Imperial ground assault. So many great elements come together here at this moment where our heroes are separated, the film seems to peak, and yet that peak somehow continues to rise for the next 100 minutes.

Hero

Luke and Han say goodbye, and an expression seems to cross Han's face for a split second, some sort of negative premonition (a premonition of doom?). The phrase "I've got a bad feeling about this" is a running Star Wars gag, but The Empire Strikes Back is when all those bad feelings come to fruition. At this point, I must praise John Williams musical score for the film, perhaps the greatest classical work of the 20th Century. Williams presents a wheelbarrow of themes for this film, bringing back the original Star Wars theme, Leia's theme, and the Force's theme from the first film, along with several motifs, and adds an Imperial theme (one of the most famous pieces of music to come out of the 20th Century), a theme for Yoda, a theme for Han and Leia's romance, a theme for the bounty hunter, Boba Fett, an escape/rescue theme, a theme for Cloud City, and motif after motif after motif, evolving the martial, more throwback cinematic score from A New Hope into a tonally darker, more fantastical behemoth. Even singular moments in the film get a one-time theme, like the fly-in to Cloud City, or the beginning of the battle of Hoth, with its monstrous, multi-piano intro. The overall "Battle of Hoth" piece is fifteen(!!!!) continuous minutes, one of the most incredible suites of music ever composed.

Maybe he was inspired by the epic imagery

This is where the film incurs upon the territory of myth, as massive, incredibly well-designed, horrific Imperial tanks called "walkers" invade the planet's surface, looking more like living metal beasts from a child's nightmare than technological creations. In an incredibly well-made and edited battle, the Rebel forces are annihilated. The Rebel lasers can't break through the walkers' armor. The Rebels are only able to destroy two, both by unconventional, ingenious means. All but perhaps one snowspeeder is destroyed, the shield is destroyed, and the Rebel soldiers on the ground are routed, as Darth Vader and his stormtroopers invade the base. However, the Rebel forces do buy enough time for the Rebel fleet to escape. However, as Leia decides to stay until the evacuation is as far along as possible, she is cut off from the rest of the evacuees, and has to try to escape the base with Han (who waited for her), Chewie, and C-3PO.  I love how kinetic the editing is throughout this scene, my favorite moment the cathartic shots of Han finally getting the Millennium Falcon to start up (the Falcon's malfunctions are not only a running gag, but a plot point), taking off right in Darth Vader's face, then flying over Luke's shoulder as  the young Jedi sees his friends successfully escape. Luke successfully takes off in his X-Wing fighter, along with the surviving Rebel soldiers, and launches into space, where he tells his droid, R2-D2, that he wont be joining the Rebel fleet, but will be heading to Dagobah.

There's a recurring visual motif of circular windows here, and I love all of them

As the camera wipes away from Luke, we then get perhaps the most balls-out action scene of the film, which takes the kinetic sense of the Hoth battle and pumps it full of steroids. Since the Millennium Falcon not only left Hoth after most of the fleet escaped, but was one of the ships that helped destroy the Death Star at the end of A New Hope, the Imperial Fleet puts all of their will into capturing it. Han then gets to display his incredible skill (and luck) as a pilot, as he first swerves through the Imperial fleet, turning the tables on his mammoth pursuers and creating total chaos as they must take evasive action to avoid ramming into each other. He then flees into a very active and dangerous asteroid field. This scene gets its own musical theme as well, as John Williams flexes his composing muscles so hard, it's a wonder the orchestra didn't burst into flames while performing it. As Han expertly pilots through the rocky debris, the pursuing Imperial Tie Fighters crash and explode into the asteroids and each other, until Han takes the ship toward an enormous asteroid, turns the Falcon vertical as he zooms through a canyon, and the final two Tie Fighters crash to Williams' climactic note, before Han hides the Falcon in a cave. Phew.

And then we go to a swamp planet for a bunch of philosophical moments with a green Muppet, and the movie somehow gets more exciting!

The movie then reaches its meditative center, though the threat of looming danger has now been amped so highly, the adrenaline of the past action-packed half-hour doesn't exactly wear off, but is converted into some kind of intoxicating dopamine fog. The film from this point unfolds like a dream (Luke even explicitly states this). 

Luke crashes on the swampy, overgrown Dagobah, and he and R2-D2 get out on a patch of dry land, as his X-Wing sinks into the muck. Luke then runs into a mischievous little green alien who says he can take Luke to Yoda, but it turns out this IS Yoda, treating Luke to a test of patience that Luke fails miserably. A New Hope viewers know that Luke was raised by his aunt and uncle, and that, according to Obi-Wan, Luke's father was a great Jedi named Anakin, who was betrayed and murdered by Darth Vader, a Jedi who turned to the Dark Side of the Force. When Yoda, still in disguise, quizzes Luke as to why he wants to become a Jedi, Luke says he guesses because of his father--and Yoda mentions that Luke's father was a powerful Jedi, giving up the game. When Yoda reveals himself, he says that Luke has much anger...like his father did. Luke angrily insists he's ready for training, but it takes the intervening Force ghost voice of Obi-Wan to convince Yoda. While Yoda insists that Luke is too farsighted and reckless to become a Jedi (and too old), Luke insists that he won't fail Yoda and that he's "not afraid." Yoda responds, in the film's most terrifying moment, one that gives infinitely horrific implications, in a voice that grows dark as Williams' music touches upon the sinister, "Oh. You will be. You. Will be."

This moment scared the hell out of me when I was a kid to the point of nightmares, and it still gives me chills to this day

Empire then bounces between Luke's training and Han and Leia's various exploits and burgeoning romance, as Han starts to soften and humble a bit, and Leia begins to let her guard down. The two finally kiss (and it's a great one), but are interrupted by C-3PO. They soon find that the "cave" they've landed in is actually the stomach of a giant space worm, escape, and find themselves again running from the Imperial fleet, before Han uses his slick flying to attach the Falcon to the back of one of the huge Star Destroyers, taking the ship off of Imperial radar. Han then ingeniously floats off when the Imperial fleet dumps their trash to leave, and decides to head to the Bespin system, where an old friend of his runs a mining colony. This is perfectly intercut with Luke's time on Dagobah, as the film continuously builds a sense of meaning and feeling.

Don't be a 3PO

The filmmakers have a brilliant idea for Luke here, which is perfectly executed. They correctly assume most viewers will not believe the protagonist of the film would be killed off in the second part of a trilogy. However, there is a fate worse than death for Luke...turning to the Dark Side. Thus, the tension with Luke is over the battle for his soul. The film is careful during Luke's training to ensure Yoda is not just spouting empty platitudes. The impish Jedi gives genuine nuggets of wisdom to Luke, whose questions, rather alarmingly, quickly center around the Dark Side of the Force. "Is the Dark Side stronger?" he asks, as he runs through the swampy forest, with Yoda on his shoulder. "No," the wizened master answers, "But easier. More seductive." Yoda eventually leads Luke to a cave in the forest, and in a scene that fully realizes the film's dark storybook fantasy and dream/nightmare elements, tells Luke he will have to go inside. When Luke asks what's inside, Yoda tells him "Only what you take with you." Yoda also tells Luke that Luke won't need his weapons, but Luke takes them anyway. As Luke traverses the dark cave, full of shadows and every sort of slithering reptile, he suddenly hears a familiar breathing sound. Out steps none other than Darth Vader (watching for the first time as a kid, I thought Vader was really there!), who Luke engages in a duel. Luke victoriously chops off Darth Vader's head, only to see as the smoke clears that his own face is behind Vader's visor.

 

More childhood nightmare fuel

It's here that the viewer might realize, Luke's greatest fear is turning to the Dark Side. He's terrified of the darkness within his own soul. His journey within the cave is a failure, and as we cut to the third storyline here, that of Darth Vader, we see that the dark will to turn Luke to the Dark Side is very real. Vader is called to communicate with his master, and viewers are given their first glimpse of the Emperor, the ruler of the Galactic Empire, who was only mentioned briefly as "dissolving the Senate" in the previous film. The grotesque Emperor, shown only in hologram, discusses Luke with Vader, who says of Luke, "If he could be turned, he would become a powerful ally...he will join us or die."

 

If Darth Vader is kneeling before someone, they must be pretty bad

I much prefer the original version of this scene, which used some strange tricks, including superimposing a chimpanzee's eyes over an actress in a mask (though voiced by a man) to the hammy current version with Ian McDiarmid...but I'll give my judgement on what version is best at the end

I think the substantiality of each of Luke's training scenes in this film is incredible. Maybe it's the recent cultural disregard for objective truth, but it's been a very long time since I can recall a film featuring scenes of a teacher imparting such vital lessons to their pupil. Indeed, all one has to do is look at the sequel trilogy's 2017 centerpiece, The Last Jedi, where that trilogy's interpretation of an aged Luke can only bitterly yell at his pupil "You stink and the Jedi should be destroyed!" Contrast this with perhaps Empire's greatest scene, where Yoda urges Luke to use the Force to raise his sunken X-Wing from the mud. Luke tries, but can only get the water to bubble a bit. Luke tells Yoda in frustration that the wizened master wants "the impossible," and begins to walk away, when Yoda himself, with quite a bit of effort, raises the ship to dry ground, as John Williams music blows down from the heavens. A stunned Luke looks at his ship, then down to his tiny master. 

"I don't believe it," Luke says. 

"That," says Yoda, "Is why you fail." 

Maybe the same goes for Rian Johnson.

Seriously, though, I don't think John Williams is human

The film's dream-like state heightens, as the Millennium Falcon soars through the clouds of a deep orange Bespin sunrise. Over an unearthly choir and harps (used frequently in this film to enhance the dream state), Williams presents an incredible one-time theme for the Falcon's entrance to the City in the Clouds. This is about as intoxicating a scene as any in a science fiction film, and I wish I'd known such visions would not be common moving forward in cinema, as a kid when I put a poster of Empire art designer Ralph McQuarrie's work for this scene on my wall.

*Sigh*

This setting has never been topped for me

And the details are so perfect. Han and Lando's hair, and Lando's cape whipping around in the high altitude wind. Lando's assistants strange head gear. The costume design as a whole. All brilliant.

The pleasantness of the Cloud City stay is cut short, when it is revealed that the Empire (thanks to the bounty hunter, Boba Fett) correctly guessed Han Solo would act on his friendship with Lando, and reached Bespin before the Falcon did. Lando, with little choice, betrays our heroes, and it is revealed, as Han is tortured and everyone else is confined to a cell, that Vader and the Empire don't care about them at all, and are only setting a trap for Luke. While training on Dagobah, Luke sees a vision of his friends in trouble on Bespin, and proves why he is the single greatest Jedi in all of Star Wars. It's perhaps hinted in the original trilogy, and made explicit in the prequel trilogy, that the Jedi failed because they lost connection with their humanity. Indeed, Yoda and Obi-Wan are both a product of and partial cause of that failure. When Luke tells of his vision, Yoda and Obi-Wan insist that this is an obvious trap, and that Luke should forget about his friends (i.e., as the prequel trilogy would call them, "attachments") and focus on his training. In what will not be the first time Luke goes against his elders' suggestions, Luke leaves for Bespin to save his friends. The second time Luke disobeys their advice? In the next film, Return of the Jedi, when Obi-Wan tells Luke that he must kill Vader. Luke refuses and takes a higher path. Instead of killing Vader, Luke saves his soul.

Epic. Amazing.

Everything The Empire Strikes Back does from this point on takes the kind of balls no filmmaker has had since. Vader decides he'll use the mining colony's quick freeze machinery to freeze Luke and transport him back to the Emperor. However, Vader wants to make sure Luke will survive the process, and decides to use Han Solo as a test subject. In a shocking scene, Vader brings Han, Leia, and Chewie to the carbon freezing chamber. Han and Leia say their goodbyes with John Williams absolutely going ham in the background. The emotional power of the scene reaches a fever pitch when Chewie loses it and tries to kill all of the Imperials, is restrained, and Han and Leia kiss one last time before she finally confesses her love to him and he responds with the most famous and likely best ad-lib of all time, "I know."

Carrie Fisher is so great in this film

Really, the vulnerability both Fisher and Ford are able to portray in this scene, in direct opposition to the guarded antagonism of their hallway scene at the start of the film, is incredible

And then the film takes its wildest, coolest, luckiest, most confident, and most badass hero, and freezes him in a block of metal. As a kid, I found this scene terrifying, and as John Williams' "The Imperial March" rises triumphantly at its apex, it's clearly meant to be. The block of carbonite is then thrown callously to the ground, Lando confirms that Han is still alive within it, despite the twisted pain in Han's face, Boba Fett take it away to collect the bounty on Han' head, and that's it for Han in the Empire Strikes Back. He's just gone.

Hey, kids born in the late 70's and early 80's, how's about we take your favorite character and do this to him? Will that give you nightmares?

At this exact moment, Luke lands at Cloud City, as Vader had ordered his men to let him arrive safely. Vader orders that Leia and Chewie be taken to his ship, against what he originally promised Lando, and also tells his soldiers to herd Luke toward the freezing chamber. Luke comes across a handcuffed Chewie and Leia, who are surrounded by stormtroopers, and engages in a brief firefight, as Leia screams, "It's a trap!" but before Luke knows it, he's wandered into and locked in a dark and steam-filled room. From the shadows, Vader emerges.

Doom

The fight begins. Luke has never fought in a lightsaber duel, and his first exchanges are tentative, though he speaks aggressively toward Vader with an arrogance he seems to be exuding to bolster his own confidence. This works, as his fighting techniques become more sure, and he seems to hold his own for a moment. The fight is skillfully intercut with scenes of Leia and Chewie, who are freed by Lando's men in an ambush. Chewie begins to (rightfully) strangle Lando to death, but Lando insists this was his only possible path, and that there is still a chance to save Han. 

The lighting

Williams' score grows more epic and dire, as Leia and Chewie fail, and Boba Fett escapes to the stars with Han. Meanwhile, Luke evades Vader's attempt to freeze him, and even manages to knock Vader into a steaming pit. I love how the dream state aspect is heightened even more as this scene goes along, as Luke moves through a series of more and more surreal rooms, until he encounters a Vader who's tired of playing around. Suddenly, it's clear that Vader was only testing Luke's abilities and holding back earlier in the fight, as he starts to use the force to throw objects from the room at Luke, WHILE he's still fighting him.

This is my favorite window of all windows

Luke is knocked out of the best window that has ever existed and just barely grabs onto a catwalk below. There's a visual nod to destiny here, as Luke has now been pushed to the strange, funnel-shaped city center, all points narrowing into one. Meanwhile, Leia, Chewie, Lando, and C-3PO have now turned their attention toward escaping Cloud City alive, as they try to get to the Falcon, now joined by R2-D2, who was separated from Luke. Carrie Fisher does a great job in these scenes of both kicking ass and being emotionally devastated. Again, those early scenes with our trio are paying off with emotional weight. Meanwhile, Luke is fighting for his life, as he's waylaid by Vader in a terrifying shot where Vader looks ten-feet tall. The two fight across a catwalk, and Luke somehow manages to get a good shot in before Vader definitively ends the fight, by cutting off Luke's hand, sending his lightsaber falling into oblivion. 

That's right. 

With ten minutes left, one of our heroes has been frozen in a block of metal and taken away, another is at the mercy of someone whose allegiance is still uncertain, and the central character, LUKE SKYWALKER, has just had his hand cut off and has a lightsaber at his throat? This feels like a horror movie. Could things get any worse?

Yes. Catastrophically.
Luke backs away from the hulking, terrifying Vader, until he is hanging off the end of the catwalk.
Darth Vader asks Luke to join him, so that Vader can complete Luke's training and the two can bring order to the galaxy. 

Luke defiantly screams "I'll never join you!" 

Darth Vader responds, "If you only knew the power of the Dark Side. Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father." 

"He told me enough!" Luke spits. "He told me you killed him!"
"No," says Darth Vader. "I am your father."

David Prowse's work in the Vader suit and James Earl Jones' voice work are incredible

Mark Hamill's performance in this moment has been meme'd to death, but truthfully, his devastated reaction is absolutely perfect for this moment

I can't overstate the impact of this revelation. As I said above, I called my cousin as soon as the credits rolled to find out if it was true. There's never been a twist in a genre picture that hit as hard as this one. It's a shockingly nihilistic climax for a film that was the sequel to the highest grossing movie of all time. Luke was going to learn the ways of the Force to be a hero like his father, and to fight the evil forces responsible for his father's murder. This was his central mission, the vision of the world he'd recently built his life around. Now that vision is shattered, annihilated by the darkest, most horrific truth possible. For Luke, this is literally the worst possible outcome, the worst thing he could possibly hear. His father is no dead, righteous hero, but the living embodiment of evil. You can see this information enter his ears like an atomic bomb, as it takes a second to dawn on him before he realizes, knows in his heart that it is true...and then his psyche explodes. From the moment after Luke responds, "That's not true! That's impossible," he is nearly catatonic for the rest of the film. 

However, even in this state, Luke again proves that he is the greatest Jedi. Darth Vader offers Luke a final devil's bargain: instead of Vader bringing Luke to serve the Emperor, Vader and Luke can join forces to destroy the Emperor and rule the galaxy as father and son. 

As usual, Luke finds and takes another path. He self-nullifies.

I'm not sure that a VFX house in 2022 could recreate this shot to make it feel as real as ILM did back in 1980.

It's almost absurd to think now that in this major motion picture in the biggest franchise in history, the hero achieves victory by suicide. In this case, it is the only heroic option, and the brief moment of peace and serenity that crosses Mark Hamill's face as Luke makes that decision, along with a resigned, yet victorious motif by Williams, is incredible, before reality hits and Luke is falling a great distance towards a certain end. Miraculously, Luke is sucked into some sort of tunnel near the bottom of the funnel. For a brief moment, Luke's tumbling comes to a stop, and it appears he will come out of the situation intact (outside of a missing hand and any sense of positive existence in the universe). However, following the dark themes of the latter part of this film, the bottom of the tunnel drops out, and Luke falls until he reaches the absolute bottom of the city, a frail metal vane to which he can barely grasp. In a last ditch effort, Luke reaches out in the Force to anyone he can call. Leia, now aboard the Falcon as it races away from Cloud City, hears him.
Leia's ability to hear Luke opens up questions that are definitively answered in Return of the Jedi. For now, the broken and battered Luke is placed in a Falcon bunk, while Leia, Chewie, Lando, and the droids try to escape the Imperial fleet. As our heroes try to figure out why the hyperdrive won't engage, barely evading Imperial ships without Han at the controls, Luke tries to reach out in the Force to Obi-Wan, pleading to know why such a catastrophic secret was kept from him. The only answer he receives in the force comes from Vader.

I think it's amazing that the film's choice when Vader calls out to Luke is to have Luke spring out of bed to exclaim "Father!" It's like he's always known and wants connection. It's amazing. However, he is still able to resist Vader's entreaties, continuously crying out to Obi-Wan in dismay. Obi-Wan does not answer. R2-D2 fixes the hyperdrive and the Falcon jumps to lightspeed, just before the Imperial tractor beam locks on. The only victory is escape. Vader looks on, then walks off the bridge, as his men fearfully look on. One can only guess the reaction the Emperor will have. Everyone loses.
The last scene features Luke receiving a robotic hand--just like his father--and standing at a Rebel medical ship's window to comfort Leia, as Lando and Chewie fly off in the Falcon to look for Han. John Williams pulls out all the stops, the camera shows the ship window from the outside, moves out to show the fleet, roll credits. Amazing.

 

Yep, this movie is awesome

No major franchise or series has had the guts, imagination, complexity, or emotional power of The Empire Strikes Back. You've got dark themes exploring destiny, fear, and darkness through a phenomenal story, incredible characters, incredible writing, incredible art and set design, incredible action, flawless, expansive world-building, and the greatest musical score in cinematic history. But does any of that change due to which version you watch? Speaking only of The Empire Strikes Back out of the original trilogy, the answer is "no." The Special Edition changes do warrant conversation: the additional wampa footage early in the film is minute, and neither takes away, nor really gives anything to the film; the cleaned up practical effects, including scanline reductions, are positive changes; the original matte paintings of Cloud City are more haunting than the CGI used in the Special Edition, but the extra windows overlooking the city in the Special Edition are welcome; the added moment of Cloud City citizens reacting to Lando's call for evacuation is fine, but the added footage of Vader flying back to his Star Destroyer at the end feels pointless. Basically, there are minuscule pros and cons either way, and none detract from the film's perfection. My main historical complaint against the Special Edition version, the looping of Williams' music in Cloud City because of the addition of CGI footage, is even negated by the fact that the Special Edition fixes some musical transition errors from the original version during the cuts between Luke's training on Dagobah and Vader's storyline with the Imperial Fleet. Yes, I am that big of a nerd that those types of changes effect me. Yes, I am that big of a nerd that I even noticed those things in the first place. With the music, there are pros and cons, either way. 

Both versions of the film are perfect.

 

Ralph McQuarrie deserves a Presidential Medal of Freedom

But does the lamentable future of these characters at the hand of Disney ruin my enjoyability of this film? 

Does the negation of Luke and Anakin's storyline in Darth Kennedy and Jar Jar Abram's "Star Wars" negate their storyline for me? 

Is The Empire Strikes Back still my third favorite movie I've ever seen? 

Does knowing that the Luke Skywalker of this film-- who endures so much pain, failure and loss, who faces the ultimate tests of his will and very being and grows and triumphs in order to become the zenned out master in Return of the Jedi, who will make the ultimate sacrifice because of his love for his father--will one day be a bitter old man hiding on an island, who gets schooled and has his mantle and very name taken away by a girl who endures none of the pain, learns none of the lessons, and earns none of the victories that Luke did...does knowing all of that ruin The Empire Strikes Back for me? 

No. 

Because Disney Star Wars is just fan fiction. It's no different (though of far less quality) than the EU that it replaced. After Return of the Jedi ended, whatever you or I want or imagined to have happened, happened. Luke rebuilds a new Jedi order that draws its purpose from actual human love and connection. Han and Leia have children, and some learn from Luke and become Jedi. Luke falls in love with a force sensitive female. Let's say she has red hair. Lets call her Mara Jade. She and Luke have children too. Some of them also become Jedi. The Star Wars finally come to an end, and the galaxy finally experiences a lasting peace, thanks to the efforts of our heroes. The End.