My Favorite Movies: The Empire Strikes Back

Well, with The Force Awakens about a month away, I had PLANNED to watch all of the Star Wars movies and review them accordingly. You know, like I did all the James Bond films before Spectre. However, I ended up live blogging all my thoughts on Facebook for the prequels, and I found myself not needing to stress the same thoughts again in a full-on review. To sum it all up: The Phantom Menace is a 2.5 out of 5, for being mostly boring with some redeeming scenes throughout; Attack of the Clones is a 3.5 out of 5, for taking out some of the blandness of The Phantom Menace and presenting some more exhilarating moments; Revenge of the Sith gets 4.5 out of 5 stars for being the closest to an original trilogy film as they could get.

So, then I decided to review my two favorite Star Wars films, Star Wars (aka A New Hope) and The Empire Strikes Back. Last night was Thanksgiving, so I had planned to watch Star Wars and review it, but then my family ended up watching it with me, and they wanted to watch Empire Strikes Back afterwards. So, I finally filed it down to reviewing my number one favorite Star Wars film: Empire Strikes Back.

When Star Wars was released in 1977, it was a big hit. A HUGE hit, and so it was natural to make a sequel. This sequel was going to be darker, more dramatic, and focusing more on the Empire and less on the Rebellion front. People were gracious to see it...and it was an even bigger hit...cementing itself as the fan favorite amongst many.

The film follows the story of the heroes from the first film: Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia, who are still fighting off the remains of the Empire after blowing up the Death Star at the end of Star Wars. Darth Vader is still alive, pretty much running the brunt of the Empire by himself with small guidance from the Emperor, who gets his first scene in this film. Anyway, Vader is looming above the Rebel home of Hoth, leading a small army of Stormtroopers upon the planet. The rebels manage to hold them off for a short time but they end up having to flee, Han taking Leia in the Millenium Falcon and Luke in his X-Wing.

Under the orders of Obi-Wan Kenobi's force ghost, Luke goes to Dagobah to learn from Obi-Wan's master, Yoda. He arrives on the small jungle planet, and finds Yoda, who pretends to be someone else at first with the promise of leading Luke to the real Yoda. Luke becomes impatient with all the lolly-gagging and mundane tasks the small creature puts him on, constantly wanting to move forward towards Yoda. When Yoda sees this, he swears to Obi-Wan that he cannot teach Luke. But Luke and Obi-Wan protest, and Yoda caves in, beginning the training.

Meanwhile, Han, Leia, Chewie, and C-3P0 are struggling to get away from the tailing Empire, when they discover the Millenium Falcon's hyperdrive is broken. They fly themselves into an asteroid field and stop on one of the larger asteroids to make some repairs. We get some funny and romantically intense scenes with Han and Leia as they try to make do with repairing the ship. When C-3P0 notices some monsters in the cave outside, they venture outside to investigate, accidentally shooting the cave walls with a blaster, which causes the cave to shake. They quickly escape inside the Falcon, finding that the cave is actually a large monster that lives inside the asteroid. They fly out, garnering the Empire, and Vader's attention.

Speaking of Vader, he's been having a lot of trouble tracking down the Millenium Falcon, trying to get his hands on the ship and its patrons, but mostly Luke himself. Turns out that Luke, being the son of Anakin Skywalker, is viewed by the Emperor as a possible ally that could be dangerous to any foes, so he sends Darth Vader to find him, capture him, and take him to the Emperor to be turned to the Dark Side. As the Falcon manages to keep out of his reach, he gathers the help of some bounty hunters, one in particular, Boba Fett, who is already out looking for Solo and the Falcon to gather a prize from his master, Jabba the Hutt, on Tattooine.

The Falcon manages to escape to the planet of Bespin, which is mostly controlled by Han's old friend, Lando Calrissian. Back on Dagobah, Luke is having some trouble training with Yoda, as he's having visions of Han and Leia being in grave danger. So, much to Yoda's dismay, he ventures off to Bespin to face Darth Vader. Meanwhile, it turns out that Lando has been paid off by the Emperor to turn Solo over to Darth Vader, and, after him and Leia confessing love for each other, Solo is frozen in carbonite to be sent to Jabba the Hutt, a, "test," of the functionality so Vader can do the same to Luke.

While Leia, Lando (who's feeling much regret for betraying his old friend), Chewie, and C-3P0, run from Empire forces throughout the city, Luke arrives and confronts Darth Vader. The two engage in a lightsabre fight, with Luke putting up his best efforts to fend off Vader, but Vader ends up overpowering him on a ledge by cutting his hand off. As Luke clings for his life, Vader offers a position for Luke to join him and bring balance to the force once and for all. Luke refuses, and Vader, as a last resort, says that Obi-Wan kept the truth of what happened to Luke's father away from him. Luke swears that Obi-Wan told the truth that Vader had killed him, but Vader says, "No...I am your father." Probably one of the biggest plot twists in history, if not the biggest plot twist ever. Anyway, Luke jumps off and flies down a hatch to be rescued by Leia and Lando in the Falcon.

The film ends with a dark and uncertain feel to it. Luke now has tons of thoughts and feelings about what he knows and what he doesn't know, and a new robotic hand. But they know that they have one major mission right now: to find Han and get the gang all back together.

Empire Strikes Back is the masterpiece of this saga. It takes a lot to follow up a magnificent movie like the first Star Wars, but somehow, Lucas and co. pulled it off. The dramatic elements, the new score pieces, the big plot twist, and that beautiful ending of uncertainty. It would take a lot of balls to pull something like this off in these days, and it's really a shame (and it's why Catching Fire is my favorite Hunger Games movie, but that's a story for another day. I can watch Empire Strikes Back over and over again and have no qualms with it. It is truly a classic piece of cinema that will live on for generations and that's another thing I love about it.

There's literally next to no problems with this movie, so you're damn right I'm giving it 5 out of 5 stars. Empire Strikes Back is the type of movie you can show to anyone in your family and they'd all deeply enjoy it, and some even more than others. I hope that this new trilogy brings back this level of greatness to the Star Wars saga, but all we can do is hope...I suppose we'll see sometime next month.