Boundless Imagination
In Empire, you once more find yourself exploring some of the most exciting, unique and vibrant locations and meeting the most bizarre creatures and characters, just as you did in A New Hope. This time, however, everything's even more exciting, even more unique, even more vibrant and even more bizarre.
We start off on Hoth, a freezing cold desert planet littered with humongous caves and shrouded entirely in snow. You see people riding snow goat/horse hybrid things called tauntauns, getting attacked by a massive yeti like creature called a wampa and going into battle in snowspeeders against giant four legged walkers known as AT-ATs and it only ever gets better.
From giant space worms inside asteroids, to little green men living in huts on a swamp planet, to a city entirely in clouds, nothing is ever mundane or boring and the same can be said for the action. As previously mentioned, the film starts off with an amazing action sequence on Hoth, with the Rebels defending against an attacking army of Imperial walkers and snowtroopers. There's also rapidly paced space chases through asteroid fields, crash landings on swamp planets and an amazing lightsabre duel at the end of the film between the main protagonist and antagonist, that's way more intense than anything ever seen before.
All of this manages to maintain a timeless look, thanks to the consistent use of practical effects over special effects, just like the previous film. The lightsabre duel, for example, maintains a raw and physical feeling that makes the fight feel more real and therefore more engaging. The special effects have improved, as well. There's some fantastic use of stop motion, mainly in the tauntauns and AT-ATs, that's really convincing and the sets are still incredibly detailed and beautiful to look at.
Empire Strikes Back is exploding with just as much creativity, if not more, than its predecessor, and is also just as timeless thanks to its use of practical effects and real sets.
The Better Filmmaker
Empire is directed by Irvin Kershner and the screenplay written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan. These three people are responsible for a lot of Empire's superior quality over the rest of the Original Trilogy. Whilst Lucas does an excellent job in providing the story, it's these three people that bring a level of competence in both directing and writing that Lucas just, unfortunately, doesn't seem to have.
First of all, the script is so much better than it is in A New Hope. Gone are the robotic lines of dialogue, instead replaced with dialogue that's far more natural and, as a result of that, much more emotionally engaging. You can see actual human beings interacting on screen, not just actors reading out lines from a piece of paper.
Kershner is also a much stronger director than Lucas. He directs the actors in a way that feels, just like the script, more human. This is especially important, considering that Lucas's story provides much more emotional depth than the previous outing and Kershner manages to deliver spectacularly, directing some of the darkest, most exciting and iconic scenes in Star Wars history.
The actors are still fantastic and have really become their characters by this point. Kershner directs them perfectly and Lucas's story allows them to explore their characters much further than before. Harrison Ford is still just as confident and big headed as before, but he's now more vulnerable too, thanks to the introduction of his character's relationship with Leia. Mark Hamill's Luke has also become more mature than before (and considerably less whiney).
All of these things come together to make what is easily the most competent of the original trilogy, with the most human and engaging directing, writing and acting of the three.
Delving Deeper
As previously mentioned, Lucas's story is a far more emotionally involved than in the previous film. It's also much darker and, thanks to that, much more exciting.
There's more of a focus on the characters this time around. It explores the relationship between Han Solo and Princess Leia, but it mainly focuses on Luke. It deals with his troubles with the family he never knew and it deals with him trying to resist the pull to the dark side. It also deals with his recklessness, his compulsive behaviour to save his friends no matter how dangerous and stupid it might be. It explores a lot of this on Dagobah, where he's trained by Yoda, a sort of grand old wizard type character, who's brilliantly performed by Frank Oz in arguably his most iconic role.
It's far darker as well, without a doubt the darkest of all the Star Wars films. There's the fantastic sequence on Dagobah where Luke fights something he believes to be Darth Vader, chops of his head and is shown that, underneath the mask, is his own face, cleverly implying (in a terrifying way) that if Luke continues down this path of hatred (and chopping of people's heads) he's going to end up just like Darth Vader.
Then there's the famous reveal, the most infamous and harrowing plot twists in cinematic history. After a brutal, violent and incredibly physical lightsabre duel between Luke and Vader, in which Luke gets his hand cut clean off by Vader and his left clinging on to the edge of a platform hanging above a humongous pit, Darth Vader reveals to Luke something nobody saw coming, that changed everyone's outlook on the entire saga. You probably know what I'm talking about already, so there's no point in saying it, but the point still stands, this was a twist like no other.
Compared to A New Hope, it's amazing how much more daring Empire Strikes Back is. It doesn't even have a happy ending. Thanks to this, however, Empire Strikes Back is easily the most exciting, engaging and entertaining of the original trilogy.
Verdict
I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said before when I say that Empire Strikes Back is without a doubt the best of the original trilogy. It expands on the fantastic universe A New Hope introduced both creatively and emotionally, creating something that's both exciting and engaging. It's also much darker as well, dealing with much more mature things than the rest of the trilogy and it ends on an incredibly sombre note. It's also an all round better made film, with more confident directing and a more human script and the acting has also improved immensely. Everything that was introduced in Empire's predecessor has been made so much better, making Empire Strikes Back not only the best Star Wars film, but a gold standard for sequels everywhere.
9.4/10
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