Star Wars rewatch: The Empire Strikes Back

 **SPOILERS HEREIN**

The Empire Strikes Back is close to a perfect film. So perfect that it doesn’t even matter that it has some pretty glaring flaws. 

WHAT!?!, I can hear the superfans raging. How dare you insinuate there’s anything wrong with Empire! It is impeccable! It is immaculate! It is sacred! I won’t argue against its greatness, but it still has some pretty obvious errors that are right in front of the viewer’s face should they choose to think about them for even a second.

For instance, why would the Rebels put the shield generator protecting their base on Hoth outside of the shield (a question that also comes up in several video games, such as one of my childhood favorites Rogue Squadron)? Alright, so this lapse in logic has been rectified via the Expanded Universe. But then, why didn’t the Imperials impound the Millennium Falcon on Cloud City instead of just turning off the hyperdrive, thus enabling it to escape following a little tinkering from R2-D2 (Kenny Baker)? Okay, maybe they’re just lazy or incompetent (an explanation bolstered by the old joke about how Stormtroopers are all terrible shots). One thing that can’t be denied, however, is that the movie’s sense of time is all screwed up. Either Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) is an exceptionally fast Jedi pupil, learning the basics of the Force in a matter of days on Dagobah, or Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), and C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) were stuck in that asteroid slug for months and months, and yet never even put on a fresh set of clothes (well, the two of them that wear clothes, anyway).

But, it matters not. Small mistakes, inconsistencies, or plot holes are mostly irrelevant in works of make-believe, especially more fantastical ones like Star Wars. People only dwell on such things, I think, when they don’t like the work as a whole; such foibles are easy to overlook if a film (or work in any other medium) is good in the aspects that matter. And Empire is far greater than simply “good.”

The picture is a step up from Star Wars in every respect. On a purely aesthetic level, the sets are much more detailed and dynamic. Not that those in Star Wars were bad, but some of them look like they could have been built on a studio set or backlot. In Empire, all of them look like we’re seeing a real environment, be it the frozen Echo Base on Hoth, the glitz and gutters of Cloud City, or especially the living swamps of Dagobah (yeah, I almost forgot that it wasn't a real swamp, too). As for the special effects, while Star Wars was still a thrilling technical achievement, there are admittedly some shots among the space battles that look rather static. No so in Empire. The Battle of Hoth feels the closest to real combat of any moment in the saga (the Death Star trench run is still the trilogy’s top action sequence in my opinion, but this is a damn close second), and the chases through the asteroid field are breathtaking. These are all the more impressive with the knowledge that they were created without a bit of CGI.

And as for John Williams' "Imperial March," which debuts in this film, I say the following without a shred of hyperbole: it's the 20^th century's answer to Richard Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries."

The bigger, greater production spectacle, however, isn’t the best thing about the movie. Rather, it’s the exact opposite, the littler things. Like the moments where Luke’s fears and feelings are stripped bare during his training with Yoda (Frank Oz), alternately haunting and inspiring. Or the spilling-over romantic tension between Han and Leia. There’s a real, passionate emotional intimacy to these scenes. In Star Wars, the audience had a great time with these characters, but it’s this movie where they come to love them like they’re real people.

It is this that makes third act story turns likes Lando Calrissian’s (Billy Dee Williams) betrayal and Han’s carbonite imprisonment so heartbreaking. It also gives Lando, Leia, and Chewie’s escape from Cloud City, at least as well-staged as the Death Star shootouts in Star Wars, a much greater tension. And as for Luke losing his hand and Darth Vader’s (David Prowse) “I am your father.” revelation, it cuts as deep as a plot twist can. The Rebels’ overwhelming defeat in the snow battle earlier in the picture isn’t half as devastating as this iconic scene. The entire last half-hour or so is emotionally draining in the best, most satisfying way a movie can be.

Indeed, it’s fair to say Darth Vader’s reputation as one of cinema’s greatest villains stems mostly from this picture. Think about it: In Star Wars, he was little more than a colorful masked bad guy you’d find in any Gold or Silver Age comic book, and arguably more of a secondary villain to Peter Cushing. Here, he’s absolutely evil, and terrifying. I, for one, freaked out a bit at his habit of force-choking his underlings to death when I was a child, and to this day it remains a chilling trait.

While the film secured the dark lord’s legacy, it also gave us an instantly iconic new character in Yoda. He’s the single greatest creature creation in the whole saga for the same reason his swampy home planet is such a great set: we never once think what we're seeing is fake. His expressive features and tiny movements give him the illusion of life that eluded most creations of puppetry in the pre-CGI era. It’s simply masterful work from Frank Oz, making the little green sensei look like a real living, breathing alien being and a full character on equal footing with Mark Hamill in the scenes they share. Higher footing, even, as the puppet exudes a stronger authority than even the great Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi. 

Empire isn’t just the best Star Wars picture (at least so far, but The Force Awakens will practically have to be the best move ever if it’s going to top this) and among the best sequels ever made; it’s arguably an important point in the evolution of the modern comic book movie.

Let’s take a little trip back to 1980: It was the latter half of comics’ Bronze Age. The medium featured smarter, elaborate stories with more grown-up appeal, writing which would usher in the Modern Age a few years later. However, the onscreen comic productions of the time like the Christopher Reeve Superman movies and The Incredible Hulk with Lou Ferrigno were lagging behind, more reminiscent of the lighter, sillier, and increasingly distant Silver Age. Star Wars may not have been directly  based on any comic book, but it was very rooted in old-school comics and children’s serials, and the first film reflected that.

But three short years later came Empire, treating the same material with a seriousness and deep reverence that was fairly new to comics and practically unheard-of in any comic book film up to that time. It’s hard to gauge how directly the movie influenced the genre; I don’t doubt Tim Burton’s Batman at the end of the decade and all the “grownup” comic movies and shows that followed would have still been made if Star Wars had no sequels. But it’s arguably fair to say Empire was one of the first screen works to bring a mature sophistication to “comic book” fare.

Regardless of its importance in the history of the comic book movie, or the history of all film, The Empire Strikes Back is an incredible motion picture. Flaws and all.