The Empire Strikes Back - Film Review
The Empire Strikes Back is directed by Irvin Kershner and stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Frank Oz, Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels and James Earl Jones.
Plot
Three years after the events of Star Wars, the rebels have been overpowered by the Empire on their newly established base, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) takes advanced Jedi training with Master Yoda (Frank Oz), while his friends are followed by Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) as part of his plan to capture Luke and bring him to the Dark Side.
Review
It took eight days to get to the best of the entire saga.
I love this movie, this is in my top 5 favorite films of all time. This in my opinion is the one of the best sequels of all time, second only to The Dark Knight.
I haven't really noticed a lot of changes for the special edition for this, I wasn't really looking. What I did notice was Luke saying "you were lucky to get out of there" instead of "you're lucky you don't taste very good" and the Emperor being played by Ian McDiarmid instead of Marjorie Eaton and that they changed Boba Fett's voice from Jason Wingreen to Temuera Morrison. I wasn't really looking for changes.
This film is pretty much perfect, I can't think of many flaws, the story, characters and effects are amazing.
The story is amazing, and a bit darker than the original Star Wars. Han gets frozen in carbonite, Luke gets his hand cut off, the Rebels get defeated on Hoth, and even C-3PO gets blown up. As Dante from Clerks said, “It ends on such a down note. I mean, that's what life is, a series of down endings.”
The fight between Darth Vader and Luke and the reveal that Vader is Luke's father is probably the best moment in the entire series. I asked in my review of the original Star Wars why Obi-Wan never tells Luke that Vader is his father, well Luke asks this too. And yet we still don't know why he also never told him Leia is his sister.
One of my favorite parts is Luke training with Yoda, Y-O-D-A Yoda, on Dagobah, where it bubbles all the time like a giant carbonated soda. S-O-D-A soda. He first comes off as some weird little creature, but turns out he's a Jedi master, the one Obi-Wan told Luke to look for when he was on Hoth.
Another part is where Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) betrays Han to the Empire and has him frozen in carbonite, although he regrets this and helps Leia and Chewbacca escape.
The score here is amazing as always, I don't know why I never brought it up in any other reviews, but John Williams is one of the best composers of all time, his scores for every Star Wars film is amazing, and this one is no different.
Now let's talk about the characters, I already mentioned the characters in my Star Wars review, so I'll just talk about the new ones introduced here.
Boba Fett is one of the greatest Star Wars characters ever, in no particular order, my favorites are Boba Fett, Darth Vader, and Han Solo. Boba is a bounty hunter who worked for Jabba, but Boba and some other bounty hunters were gathered by the Empire to find Han Solo. This is a better introduction for Boba Fett than the Holiday Special, which came out two years before.
Billy Dee Williams is great as Lando Calrissian. He was a smuggler and friend of Han Solo, who won the Millennium Falcom from him, who becomes the administrator for Cloud City on the gas giant Bespin. He's a really good character despite what he did to Han.
Yoda is a great character too, as I said, he comes off as some weird little creature who tries to eat Luke's dinner, go through his stuff and steal his flashlight, but turns out he's a Jedi Master who trains Luke.
The Emperor first appears in this movie, there's not much too him in here, but he's great. In the original, you think that Darth Vader runs everything, but in this we learn that Vader serves the Emperor. I have the Blu-Ray that's just the original trilogy and in that he's played by Ian McDiarmid, but in the original he was played by Marjorie Eaton and dubbed by Clive Revill. We actually learn more about the Emperor in the prequels than we do original trilogy as he's only in this movie for one scene.
There's not much else I can say about the movie that hasn't been said since literally everyone has seen this movie.
In conclusion, this is the best of the entire saga, number three in my list of favorite movies of all time, and to me, the second best sequel ever.
10/10
Something important I want to talk about: Net neutrality. The FCC is voting to kill net neutrality tomorrow and I'm afraid that I will have to stop using this blog, I hope they don't kill it and I can still make reviews, but I am afraid of them killing it. I will still watch the movies over the next few days, just not sure if I'll review them. So I'll see if I can review Return of the Jedi tomorrow.
Previous review - The Disaster Artist
Next review - Return of the Jedi
Previous Star Wars review - Holiday Special
Next Star Wars review (Chronological) - Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure
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