Star Wars Month - Mini-review: Star Wars episode V - The Empire strikes back

It's still Star-Wars Month

And we continue our review of the 6 films with episode V - the Empire Strikes Back

Spoilers to follow

If you think of a list of things you'd consider iconic about Star Wars, chances are you'd find as many/more here, as you would the first one

- Luke 'I am your father'
- The Darth Vader Theme
- Boba Fett
- Yoda
- Lando Calrissian
- The asteroid monster
- The first appearance of the Emperor

Not to devalue the first one at all, quite the contrary, it's a rare sequel that is as good or better than the original, but there are some things that helped that, first and foremost the fact that the budget for this film, funded largely from Lucas' own pocket, was triple that of the original (it still went on to make a tidy profit) so they can afford better looking special effects, more intense light-saber battles, and some great puppetry for Yoda

Frank Oz does a very good job as Yoda. For a guy whose listened to Tom Kane's Yoda voice first, this does take a little getting used to but it's well worth it in the end, just to see Yoda lift the ship with the force.

While the action is little and far between, I didn't spend the time between the action bored, as the time develops character, and creates some nice interactions. (C3PO was funny once again in this one, especially with R2-D2 with him)

I suppose it's worth mentioning Mark Hamill at this point, sometime near the end of filming the original film, Mark was involved in a car crash, which broke his nose, and left considerable scarring. To compensate for that in the, no I'm still not going to review it, Star Wars Christmas Special, he was caked in make-up. For this film, they actually wrote in the opening scene to allow for the scarring. I find that quite touching and it's a great scene.

The relationship between Princess Leia and Hans Solo is... odd in my opinion. It goes something like this
"You're in love with me"
"I'm not in love with you"
"You're in love with me"
"I'm not in love with you"
"You're in love with me"
"I'm not in love with you"
"You're in love with me"
"I'm not in love with you"
"You're in love with me"
"OK, I'm in love with you"
The only reason I could possibly find that believable is because of the chemistry between Harrison Ford (playing Hans Solo) and Carrie Fisher (playing Princess Leia)

At this point, they obviously knew they were going for 3 movies, given the way it ended. Actually there was no real evil plan in this episode, just Darth Vader seeking out his son. Obviously with the capture of Hans Solo and the fact that Darth Vader is still around at the end, it was obvious that a third movie was to come (I don't think sequel baiting was quite as prominent then as it is now)

Yoda's statement that Jedi don't use the force to attack seems interesting compared to what happened during the Clone Wars (both the second/third episodes and the series, to an extent) but, it all adds interesting layers over his character

Luke's insistence of leaving to save his friends, as opposed to completing his training. To me it seems more like the selfless (hence Jedi) option, rather than the path to the dark side. Just a thought.

Also, is losing a hand no big deal in the Star Wars universe. The fact that he lost his hand is barely touched upon and by the end of the episode, he has his new robot hand, so well, that was an easy fix.

Rating 85/100

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Images used in this review are from Star Wars Episode V and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use.