# Empire Strikes Back, The (1980)

### reviewed by
Berge Garabedian

    THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
    RATING: 8.5 / 10 --> Excellent movie

For more Star Wars reviews and screensavers, visit http://www.joblo.com/

PLOT: Darth Vader is pissed at, and in search of, Luke Skywalker, in the hopes of swaying him over to the dark side. He does so by chasing his friends, Solo, Leia and Chewie, into his lair, while Luke is off studying the ways of the Jedi from Yoda, the Jedi Master. The Force continues...

CRITIQUE: Great follow-up to the original tale of a galaxy far, far away, this film has plenty of action, one-liners, special-effects, good vs evil rivalries and a pleasantly dark ending. This is the episode that also features one of the biggest revelations from the trilogy (mum's the word), and a very good snow battle scene in the very beginning of the movie. Watching the digitally re-mastered version of this flick, I did notice several fake-looking special effects, especially in the explosions, and an obvious blue screen scenario, but overall, fantastic! The budding romance between Leia and Solo also worked in this film, while the whole Yoda training sessions with Luke left me a tad dry, feeling long-winded at times. The latter complaint may come from having seen this film too many times, so don't pay it much attention. All in all, a fun times in the world of the stars and droids, packed with humor, action and romance, a superb score, excellent battle sequences, and Darth getting as nasty as he wants to be. Now if I could only use the Force to levitate my TV remote control and nachos right next to me by my pillow...the Empire would be in serious trouble.

Little Known Facts about this film and its stars: (Most facts gathered from the IMDb) Unbeknownst to many people, George Lucas only directed the first of the Star Wars trilogy. This one was directed by Irvin Kershner, the man who went on to direct such "classics" as NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN and ROBOCOP 2. Screenwriter Leigh Brackett, a noted science fiction/fantasy author who was prolific in science-fiction and other pulps in the 1940's, died of cancer after writing the first version of the script of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Because it was an unfinished script George Lucas revised her draft and engaged Lawrence Kasdan to finish the screenplay. It was Lawrence's first film writing credit, as he went on to write and direct the 1981 hit BODY HEAT with Kathleen Turner. He returned to the Force in 1983's RETURN OF THE JEDI, which he helped co-write with Lucas. In his early twenties, George Lucas was in a severe road accident and spent many months in the hospital. It was during his time in the hospital that he created the concept of the Force. On the planet Hoth, General Rieekan says "Send Rogues 10 and 11 to sector 38," a veiled reference to THX 1138, one of Lucas' earlier films. The character of Boba Fett is never referred to by name, except in the credits. In the asteroid scene, one of the asteroids is actually a shoe. The rumor is that Lucas asked the SFX people to redo the scene so many times that they got annoyed and one of them threw in their shoe. Security surrounding this movie was so intense that George Lucas had regular reports about "leaks" from actors. Lucas was so determined that the ending be kept secret that he had actor David Prowse (Darth Vader) say "Obi Wan Kenobi is your father" ("Obi-Wan killed your father" by some reports), and dubbed it later to be "I am your father". An extra fell sick, and Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett) was called in as a replacement. He can be seen as the Imperial Guard who pulls Princess Leia into the elevator after she screams "Luke! It's a trap!". He can also be seen as the Imperial Guard who is captured by Lando Calrissian's men. Denis Lawson plays Wedge Antilles. Wedge was not originally scripted to appear in this film, but intense fan interest prompted Lucas to include him. This is Carrie Fisher's favorite movie of the trilogy. The scene where Han Solo (Harrison Ford) was to be carbon frozen was a long and complex scene which required many takes. Eventually, Leia says "I love you" to Han Solo. Ford had heard this line so many times that he changed the scripted "I love you too" to "I know". Lucas didn't want to film the scene again, and thought it read much better that way, so it remained.

    Review Date:          May 15, 1999
    Director:                  Irvin Kershner
    Writers:                   Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan
                                    (Story by George Lucas)
    Producer:                Gary Kurtz
    Actors:                     Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker
                                     Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia
                                     Harrison Ford as Han Solo
    Genre:                     Science-Fiction
    Year of Release:    1980
    ---------------------------------------
    JoBlo's Movie Emporium
    http://www.joblo.com
    ---------------------------------------
    (c) 1999 Berge Garabedian

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews