Movie: Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980)
I was over the moon after seeing the 1977 film and wanted to stay with it without immediately bingeing the entire original trilogy. I also thought it would be fun to try to replicate the experience of the original audiences and wait a bit before seeing the sequel. Now, while there are far worse ways to spend New Year's Day, I was somewhat disappointed by Empire Strikes Back. It's a good film, but it was not exactly what I was hoping to get out of Star Wars. Thus, having become a typical Star Wars fan, I immediately turned to Return of the Jedi, hoping to get my fix there. It did it's job, and then some. It's one of the most eccentric, goofy and joyous Holywood blockbsuters I've ever seen, builidng upon my favourite aspects of the original. The first half is essentially a hang out film with all the bizarre creatures of its world, with the plot even stopping briefly for a musical performance of a band of freaks. And the images of a scanitly clad Carrie Fisher lying in front of Jabba The Hutt strike an absolutely perfect balance between the lurid and the innocent. Later on, the film straddles a similar line with its depiction of the Ewoks. I had no idea of them, but they are a great invention; a primitive tribe of souped up teddy bears that are alternately both kinder and more aggressive than you'd expect. Their decision to help our heroes defeat 'The Dark Side' hinges on their belief that C-3PO is a deity.
The Empire Strikes Back has none of the imagination or distinct personality of either the 1977 film or Return of the Jedi. It's a much more straightfoward blockbuster, albeit with a first hour that should be thought in film schools as a masterclass in editing, highlighting that the wipe is much more than just a quirky old-fashioned effect to transition between scenes. Han Solo, Luke and Leia are separated from each other and from other rebels, fighting the Empire in two or three different locations simultaneously, yet the movie makes you feel as if they are fighting together and that actions taken in one place directly affect events in another. The movie is in such a rhythm that at a certain point it can even resort to more traditional cuts and still create the same effect. It helps that everytime we go to another location everyone is always in movement, and that the film is not afraid to ocassionally move away from scenes before they have shown what they are seemingly set up to show. The approach almost reminds of a live broadcast of sports games happening simultaneously, which would cut away from the Real Madrid game in the middle of a corner kick, because something more interesting is happening in the Manchester City game.
That first hour is an amazing feat, but The Empire Strikes Back quickly loses steam afterwards, becoming a bit of a retread of the first film with worse dialogue, flatter characters and less interesting locations and creatures. Cloud City is barely any different from the average futuristic metropolis and Dagobah, the swamp where we find Yoda, is a darker version of Eden without much interestng details beyond that. Yoda himself is cool though and one of the examples of what I like about Star Wars. It's wonderfully funny and counterintutive for a big-budget blockbuster about the fight between good and evil to present its great wise mentor as a Muppet puppet, especially when it sets up Alec Guinness at his most regal as his student. I also liked Han Solo's final words, one of the great Harrison Ford one-liners, that gets a delightful call-back at a crucial moment in Return of the Jedi. I would have likely been more disappointed by the Empire Strikes Back if I had seen it in 1980, as it clearly anticipates Ford not coming back. Han Solo is as far as I am concerned key to Star Wars and Lando Calrissian/Billy Dee Williams is no replacement. Ford did obviously return for the sequel, and as a result Lando's scenes are the weakest part of Return of the Jedi, playing as if they are only there out of narrative obligation.
I am looking forward to rewatching the original trilogy, and will see the prequels too, but I am getting an inkling of why people don't like them. To my understanding they go into more depth into what makes the Dark Side evil, and into what makes the Force a concrete force that can shape personalities and societies. Part of my resistance to Star Wars was my impression that the original films take this stuff too seriously. They really don't - beyond knowing that Darth Vader is Luke's father (I don't know if Dutch people were really that taken aback even in 1980 by that revelation) it remains largely unclear what Darth Vader is or does and how the evilness of the Empire actually affects lives in the Galaxy. It would go to far to call all of that just a MacGuffin, but the heroes' adventures and interactions with each other and with the various creatures in Lucas' world are more important to the original movies than any real considerations of the mythical/moral reasons behind those adventures. I prefer that and I like the films' trust that John Williams and James Earl Jones are enough to turn Darth Vader into an iconic villain without needing to rely too much on overwrought backstories or self-important myths.
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