Some films need a few weeks to grow legs in order to be considered successful. Star Wars, with all its behind the scenes problems, and all the doubts thrown George Lucas’s way, had grown its own team of Rockettes kicking legs, starting the weekend it was released. Right out of the gate, it reaped benefits of cash flow and merchandise, and it wasn’t long before the studio went from doubting their young filmmaker’s vision to asking him for a sequel. It was looking like Lucas would realize his original vision after all. The public was set. It was inevitably coming. The question was, could Lucas possibly be able to do it again?

Background: Looking at the mostly monochromatic images plastered across their silver screens, I have a feeling people don’t realize that as hard Star Wars was to make, The Empire Strikes Back would take double that effort, maybe more.  I am not going to get too specific about what went into Empire‘s behind the scenes stories, as all of them are in a tremendous book by J.D Rinzler called The Making of Empire Strikes Back. All I will say here is Lucas went through two or three scripts and a hell of a battle with the Writer’s and Director’s Guilds (he ended up paying over $250,000 in fines due to his not putting credits at the beginning of the film.) People who give Lucas a hard time about not having the passion to make the later films in the saga, probably have not been through an arbitration to have their original vision get realized. Snarkiness aside, I have an easier time forgiving Lucas than most due to what he had to go through in order for him to get his films made.

Me, I can trace my love for cinema to the day my father took me to theaters to see The Empire Strikes Back. It was a culmination of so many viewings of Star Wars, and the action figures I had played with in reenacting what I thought was going to come next. Now I am not sure how much a three year old could anticipate a movie. All I knew was that my father was taking me into a theater, and a brand new Star Wars film was about to start. I have never taken that feeling for granted in the other four times it has happened since.

I can only remember two instances from that screening. One, the Imperial Walker battle, even as a young boy, was mind numbingly awe inspiring. That scene was astonishing to sit next to my father and experience, as I remember chewing my popcorn and asking him when Darth Vader was going to show up.

Two, I remember how I felt after the final reveal. I remember the final lightsaber battle and Vader revealing just who he is to his son, and asking my father the entire way home if that could be at all possible. Why would Ben Kenobi lie to Luke in the previous film? Did this revelation make the first Star Wars film completely obsolete?  Just how long would we have to wait until we see it end?

In all honesty, I cannot truly process another memory from that night. Other than it was very special in that it made me want more of it. Not just the film. But experiences with my father where we could talk and bond. Even if it was a story about a man wearing a big black helmet.

What I Think Now: Believe it or not, even after a number of viewings that at this point might be in the triple digits, this viewing of The Empire Strikes Back yielded even more discoveries. See, as I said in my last Revisit, it is hard to come into this film with a constructive eye. But as someone who critiques for a living, I can say I started The Empire Strikes Back with every intent of seeing a flaw in flow, acting, or story. But I can honestly say, that I saw even more right than I originally thought.

First, director Irvin Kershner took the reigns of the series straight out of Lucas’s hands and created a beautiful in every way motion picture. The film no doubt benefits from being a more personal, smaller film than its predecessor. It is hard to realize, that on top of everything Lucas was going through behind the scenes, Kershner was having just as rough a time. Between sending his actors out in the below zero degrees weather of Norway to film the Hoth scenes, and having two more of the absolute worst set environments to film in. The Dagobah set was musty and hot, with Kershner also running into problems with how to incorporate the mechanics of the brand new character Yoda puppet convincingly into frame. There was also the carbonite freezing room in Cloud City, where the steam and heat, on top of the hot costumes worn, made for varying degrees of temperaments and frustrations.

Though I have to say that all of the agony was worth it. Kershner (or ‘Kersh,’ as he was known around set), did so many things right on The Empire Strikes Back that it’s hard to narrow them down to two. But I’m going to try. One, he brought out the best performance of Carrie Fisher’s career. Fisher’s acting in Empire was the true stand-out, near flawless performance of not only Empire, but also the entire franchise. She seems genuinely frustrated while arguing with Han (and avoiding workers moving in and out of their way in the process) in the film’s early relationship developing scenes. Their banter in the small confines of the Falcon’s mainframe are the things of well calculated and well fused beauty. Dialogue like her calling Han a Nerf Herder could have been deadly with Lucas directing. But Kersh and Fisher paid more attention to the emotion behind Leia’s words, instead of the words themselves. Also, watch her eyes while Han’s being lowered into carbonite. The scene is heart wrenching, and that is mostly due to the way her emotions tell us how to feel. Just looking at Fisher brief but stirring glance at Vader, and you can almost hear her sadness at how this man in black blew up her home planet, and now was about to take away the one person she opened her emotions to. In addition, the scene when Boba Fett’s ship takes off, she looks up, and realizes she has failed. From this moment on, you feel each and every shot she fires from her gun, every flip of a door switch, as her head is spun with just how badly she has fizzled in her mission. Before this viewing, I had never credited Fisher as being a great actress. I’m not sure if it is Kershner pushing her to the brink, or Fisher taking the role much more seriously than last time, where she wasn’t much more than a rescued Princess who couldn’t stop being a smartass. Or the alleged cocaine habit she had on set. But she really brought it to Empire, and her reactions are what makes the fantastical circumstances she’s surrounded by feel real as rain and emotional as a newlywed’s parents.

There was one other thing I wanted to point out that Kersh does here. He had a knack for making even the most trivial object a part of the drama, as there are many instances in which he uses Vader’s cape to full dramatic effect. From shots of people looking up to him on a higher plane, to specific snapshot worthy scenes of Vader walking away from the camera, Kershner does a magnificent job of framing the cape just right. This might seem like a little thing. But it is little things like this that all add up to a highly enjoyable experience. They are shots that establish Vader as one who has the power due to his higher ground. And the black cape he wears gives each scene the slightest hint of theatrical integrity needed to feel engaged.

Still, its lack of exposition and daring idea to be a more intimate film is Empire‘s biggest strength. What is that worm-like thing the Falcon flies in? ‘This is no cave’ is all we hear, and all we need to hear. The sly touches Kersh adds to Empire‘s biggest scenes is another strength. The steam that foreshadows a Dark Lord’s thinking as Han is lowered into carbonite, the way early  interactions between Leia and Han culminate in perhaps the most manly declaration of love ever put onscreen (‘I love you,’ ‘I know), Lando & Chewbacca’s at times comedic bickering towards each other, which finally ends with Chewie shoving him. The way Kersh cinematically distributes the seldom used, ultra angry growls of Chewbacca, which we only really hear when he is PISSED to high hell. The way composer John Williams took the themes he established in the previous film, made a brand new classic one for Darth Vader, and built upon them all. The Hoth dogfight and asteroid chase themes are some of the series’ utmost action enhancing pieces of in the moment enhancing music. I did end up getting this two disc record set of the soundtrack for my birthday that year. Because even then, I could associate each and every piece of music to the scene it was connected to. To the point where I would listen to the book & record set, and get mad the correct theme wasn’t playing.

In Conclusion:  One thing I thought of when watching Empire this time was how it taught people that keeping plot twists close to the vest was the way to go when making a blockbuster. The reveal that Vader is Luke’s father is indeed a nicely revealed, mind blowing twist. But directors like Nolan and Abrams would take this little thing that made Empire stand out above the rest and treat each of their films like their twists are just as impactful. In a lot of ways, this is the wrong way to approach filmmaking, and people fail to realize just how much lightning Lucas caught in his little bottle for the story point to be as impactful as it was. I find it curious that Lucas has been on record in the years since his saga wrapped and said that Empire is his least favorite of the entire series. Maybe this has something to do with how Kersh and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan took what he wrote and made Star Wars into something much more. Now I don’t want to be giving the wrong impression. As you can tell from my last Revisit, the original Star Wars is still a fantastically enjoyable film. And Lucas’s hand prints are indeed all over Empire. But without his ex film school professor Kershner at the helm of a brilliantly outlined script, The Empire Strikes Back could have been the litigated disaster a follow-up to cinema’s most popular film should have been. There are so many nice touches in Empire, even more than those which I have layed out here, that it could just as well be its own entity. If I am in the mood for Star Wars and do not have twelve hours to kill, this is the film I pick to watch. It just has so much of what makes Star Wars as good as it is. In fact, I would argue that Empire is the best representative of Star Wars we have seen yet. I’m not sure Lucas would agree with that statement. But three year old me did. Thirty-eight year old me does. I know for damn sure my father did then. And somewhere, someway, he does now as well.