“Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” is an American space opera film released May 21, 1980 to universal acclaim. Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher all reprise their roles from the previous movie, as well as newcomers Billy Dee Williams and Frank Oz making their “Star Wars” debuts. This time, American director Irvin Kershner took the helm with creator George Lucas taking a backseat after directing the original.
The film picks up roughly 2 years after Luke Skywalker (Hamill) and the Rebel Alliance, in their quest to free the galaxy from the tyrannical Galactic Empire, destroyed their planet-killing superweapon, the Death Star. The Empire, under the leadership of the mysterious Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) and feared Sith Lord Darth Vader (David Prowse and James Earl Jones) have been hunting down the rebels, chasing them throughout the galaxy. They track them to the dormant ice planet, Hoth, before launching a walker assault on the rebel base.
Skywalker leads the rebel counterattack with a squadron of snowspeeders, trying to take down the Empire’s All-Terrain Armored Transport (AT-AT) walker vehicles. The Empire proves to be too strong as they take out the rebel defenses with ease, however, the rebels stalled them long enough to escape Hoth. While this is happening, Han Solo (Ford) and the wookiee Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) are planning on leaving the rebels, but their exit is delayed due to faulty systems on the Millenium Falcon.
When Imperial forces enter the base, Solo is forced to bring Leia Organa (Fisher) with him and Chewbacca to flee the Empire, loyal droid C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) also tags along and they escape in the Millenium Falcon just in time. Skywalker is able to escape Hoth as well on his own in his X-Wing fighter and he and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) make their way to the mysterious planet Dagobah in search of the Jedi Master Yoda (Oz).
The film spends most of its runtime focusing on Solo and the others in the Millenium Falcon fleeing from the Empire while trying to figure out a solution to a faulty hyperdrive preventing them from jumping to hyperspace, while simultaneously focusing on Skywalker training in the ways of the Force with Yoda.
The cinematography is a huge step up from its predecessor, it continues to use painted backgrounds and miniature figures for space scenes and large scale battles, except now with a bigger budget, the scale of the movie in general is drastically increased, and for the better.
The acting as well is an improvement. Hamill and Ford are easily the highlights of the film as they deliver super inspired and immersive performances. Not to mention Williams portraying the egotistical and charismatic Lando Calrissian was perfect casting.
The legendary John Williams returned to compose the score for this movie, as if being well known for composing the scores for “Jaws” and the original “Star Wars” at the time wasn’t enough, Williams delivered quite possibly the most iconic score of his career. Williams composed iconic motifs that would be used throughout the rest of the “Star Wars” saga, the most iconic being “The Imperial March” which was adapted as Darth Vader’s theme.
“Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” is everything you’d want from a sequel. It gets a rating of 4.99📼 out of 5📼. From epic large scale battle scenes, to cheesy romance, to what might be the greatest plot twist in the history of fiction, this film improves on everything the original laid out.
