A Fan’s Retrospective on The Empire Strikes Back on its 45th Anniversary
When the original Star Wars film released in May 1977, few could have imagined what it would end up creating. Fast forward almost fifty years later, and few can imagine our culture without the presence of Star Wars. From the billions made in merchandise each year to the many shows, books, and video games, Star Wars is everywhere. Even counting the debate over the worth of its media in recent years, there’s no denying that Star Wars has become ingrained into the DNA of pop culture. However, while A New Hope might have been what started the franchise, it wasn’t the film that gave Star Wars its identity. That honor goes towards its sequel, The Empire Strikes Back.
Released almost three years to the day since the original, The Empire Strikes Back was, in hindsight, what would make or break Star Wars. The reason being that, as insane as it sounds today, many people had expected the original film to fail. And to be fair, its detractors did have some points: the plot for A New Hope is fairly basic and the villains can seem too over-the-top to be taken seriously. If Lucas wanted to prove to everyone that his creation hadn’t been a fluke, he had to go bigger. What Lucas and his team did, though, didn’t just top what came before: it defined the entire story of Star Wars. The Empire Strikes Back gave us the entire philosophy behind the franchise. It pushed the characters people had grown to know and love to their limits. And most importantly, it would eventually lead to the franchise opening the door to a new generation almost two decades later.
The Empire is Done Messing Around
When people were first introduced to the Galactic Empire in A New Hope, they knew right away that they were the bad guys. From the sight of them destroying an entire planet to the not-so-subtle references to the Nazi’s, it was fairly easy for audiences to cheer whenever the heroes humiliated them. However, Lucas might have done his job too well, as the Empire was so over-the-top with its villainy, yet also so inept, that it could be hard to take them seriously. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in Grand Moff Tarkin. As reprehensible as it was to see him destroy Alderaan, the fact that he did so just to be a jerk comes off as Saturday-morning-cartoon-villain levels of petty. If Star Wars wanted people to take it seriously, it had to start by showing that its villains weren’t just a joke the heroes could easily overcome. And in that regard, The Empire Strikes Back succeeded beyond its wildest dreams.
From the moment that iconic opening crawl appears, Empire makes it clear that, despite the happy ending in the last movie, things have only gotten worse. The Empire has driven the Rebellion and its heroes into hiding, and once they find them, they do everything they can to try and run them down like animals on a highway. From the sight of the hulking AT-AT’s to the massive Super Star Destroyer, the film does an excellent job of hammering home how Herculean the task of fighting the Empire truly is. At best, all the heroes can do is fight and run; at worst, all they can do is run.
Luke Was Humbled
Speaking of the heroes, they get put through the absolute ringer during The Empire Strikes Back. While Luke is training on Dagobah, the others are hunted by the Empire with barely a chance to catch their breath. Even worse, when they think they’ve found safe harbor, Han is captured and frozen in carbonite, his face etched into something out of a nightmare.
Meanwhile, Luke starts to make headway in his training to become a Jedi, only for the audience to come face to face with his various imperfections. He sees firsthand just how little he understands about the Force, and worse, he has to grapple with the fact that he has a darker side to him, something that shakes him to his core. All of this comes to a head when he decides to leave to reduce his friends, only to fall straight into Vader’s trap. While their duel would become the stuff of legends, it also hammered home that Luke wasn’t as good as he thought he was, and it would end up leaving him permanently maimed by the loss of his hand.
And then came the moment. The line that would ultimately decide the direction of the entire franchise.
WHAAAAT??
The reveal that Darth Vader, the faceless, remorseless embodiment of evil was, in fact, Luke’s father was a watershed moment for the franchise. It’s likely people watching it when Empire first came out wound up having their minds blown, especially those who were kids. When we’re young, we tend to look up to and admire our parents and use them as examples of how to live our lives. The very idea that someone’s dad could be such an inhuman monster must have sounded completely alien. The fact that audiences saw Luke, a grown man, visibly break upon learning this would’ve made the scene all the more impactful. But once people got over the initial shock, they would inevitably want to know how such a thing could be possible. That, in turn, would lead to the birth of the Prequel Trilogy in 1999, which, in turn, would lead to renewed interest in the franchise that continues to this day. And all of that stems from that one line.
A New Hope may have started Star Wars, but The Empire Strikes Back is what elevated the franchise into one of the greatest stories in movie history. From reframing the story into a conflict between family, exploring the deeper nature of good and evil, to even Han and Leia’s legendary, and eventually tragic, romance. All of this came out of The Empire Strikes Back. It is considered the best Star Wars film, and one of the best movies ever made, for a good reason. Had the film not done as well it had, it’s very likely that Star Wars would’ve eventually been forgotten about as just another movie. Thanks to Empire, though, people knew that George hadn’t just gotten lucky with Star Wars, and that there was something worthwhile to be found. And when the film hits its 50th anniversary five years from now, theaters will likely re-release it to capture some of what people experienced almost half a century ago.
