Star Wars Episode V

Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

10 out of 10

Running time: 2:06

MPAA rating: PG (Mild sci-fi violence.)

Peruvian rating: Apta para Todos

Cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, David Prowse, Kenny Baker, Alec Guinness, Frank Oz, voice of James Earl Jones.
Director: Irvin Kershner
Script: Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, based on a story by George Lucas
Photography: Peter Suschitzky
Score: John Williams
Distributor: Twentieth-Century Fox

The original Star Wars (now re-titled Episode IV: A New Hope) was a huge success throughout the world the moment it was released on May 1977, and it was pretty obvious that there was going to be a sequel. Although some people thought the sequel was going to be made only for monetary reasons, what they didn't know was that it was one big story, and that two sequels were planned from the beginning. What audiences throughout the world weren't prepared for, I'm pretty sure, was a sequel that was better than the first installment. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is a superior film to A New Hope pretty much in every level; it's darker, better-acted, more dramatic, better-paced and, overall, more entertaining.

Imperial forces have driven the Rebels to hide on the ice world Hoth. But even on such an icy, backwater world, they cannot escape the wicked Darth Vader's (voice of James Earl Jones) eye for long, and he devastates the Rebel base in an assault with the horrible AT-AT walkers. Luke (Mark Hamill) flees to Dagobah to begin Jedi Knight training with Yoda, (Frank Oz) while Han Solo, (Harrison Ford) Chewbacca, (Peter Mayhew) Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and C-3PO (R2-D2)run the blockade of Imperial Star Destroyers in the Millennium Falcon. The Imperials pursue them across the galaxy and eventually catch up with them at Bespin. Now Darth Vader plans to use them as bait to lure Luke Skywalker to him, and turns Han Solo over to Boba Fett (voice of Temuerra Morrison) as a prize to be delivered to crime lord Jabba the Hutt.

Performances, for starters, are better than in the previous film, and Hamill, Ford and Fisher have even more chemistry than in the previous movie, interacting in an incredibly familiar way. Hamill is especially effective, conveying the appropriate sense of heroism and conflicted feelings; Luke is transforming from a naïve farmboy into a more mature and serious young man, and Hamill manages to make this change credible. Characters in general are more complicated, (there's even the start of a romance between Princess Leia and Han Solo) and the screenplay (credited to the late Leigh Brackett and the underrated Lawrence Kasdan) provides with more character development for all three principal actors. Even secondary performances are great; Billy Dee Williams is delightfully charming as Lando Calrissian, and Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew and Kenny Baker do what they do best.

Visually, the movie is also better than the previous one. The original Star Wars had very good special effects (for its time) but in this one there is evidence of a more mature work. There are better camera angles in the space-travel scenes and in the battle scenes. The Hoth land battle is particularly impressive, full of rebel soldiers shooting at the Imperial Walkers and rebel Snowspeeders trying to make the Imperial forces surrender. Modelwork is amazing, as always, and although composing and bluescreen work is not perfect - it's an 80s movie after all - it really never matters because the film doesn't depend on special effects: Empire is actually trying to tell an interesting story about compelling characters.

Unlike A New Hope, though, which started pretty slowly and ended with an exciting and suspenseful action sequence (the Death Star attack), Empire starts with the big battle and ends things up more personally. This is what makes the movie different from the average sequel: it wasn't made because Lucas wanted money (well, at least not only for that reason). It was made because he and his team of writers had a story to tell, and a more mature and darker story at that. When it was released back in 1980, the film wasn't well received because people thought it was too pessimistic and didn't like the fact that the movie ended with the heroes losing: Luke loses a hand and finds out Darth Vader is his real father, and Han Solo is frozen in carbonite and taken to Jabba the Hutt. But this is precisely what makes the movie so especial: everything goes to hell, and the plot is left hanging so that in the third installment, Return of the Jedi, the whole big conflict can be resolved in a more satisfying fashion.

I gave The Empire Strikes Back a perfect rating not only because I'm a Star Wars fan, but also because it's the best Star Wars film of the six: it's dark, it's mature, it's amazingly well-written, it's got memorable quotes and moments and images, it's got convincing special effects, compelling performances and a really interesting plot, as well as more developed characters. A New Hope was the revolutionary flick, the one that managed to modify an already-existing genre (the space opera) into something that hadn't been seen before in a way that audience would have never expected. But Episode V is something else entirely: it's the movie that sent everything to hell, that improved everything that was worth improving from the previous installment, and that manages to entertain and appease the more intellectual and emotional sides of the viewer's brain. Highly recommendable.