How Dare Real Life Intrude Into My Fantasy! Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back

You’re George Lucas: you’ve just created what other filmmakers only dream of doing and so rarely accomplish – creating a cultural phenomenon. Audiences loved it, the suits at 20th Century Fox love the ongoing return of profit at the box office. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences gave it seven Oscars, and you’ve arrived as a filmmaker in control of the story you’ve created.

You’re free to do whatever you want because you’re the guy who made Star Wars. And regardless of whatever else you do in your time as a director, that’s how you’ll be remembered as. So what do you do? How do carry on what you’ve started in A New Hope?

You…work behind the scenes and deliver a picture where the bad guys essentially win? Huh? That was my initial reaction when I first watched The Empire Strikes Back in 1997.

How could this be? The Death Star was destroyed, Luke finally embraced the Force and everything was coming up aces! Why has the creator decided to bring doom and gloom to my sci-fi fantasy?

Three years after the events of Episode IV, the Rebel Alliance is in, for lack of a better term, deep shit. Yavin 4, the headquarters of the Rebels, has been compromised, scurrying our heroes to the frozen tundra that is the Hoth system.

Darth Vader, now more relentless in locating the Alliance and its pilot, Luke Skywalker, has launched probes all across the stars. Searching for his whereabouts, eventually succeeding in finding the new location. The rebels evacuate and flee into space. But not before Luke receives a vision from his former Master Obi-Won Kenobi. Instructing him to head to the Degobah system to seek out Jedi Master Yoda (voiced by Frank Oz) to further his training. Leaving Han, Leia, C-3PO and Chewbacca to outrun the Imperial fleet that is hot on their trail.

After the magical high that was A New Hope, I went in thrilled to see what the follow-up would look like. I left, that tender age of 7, confused and disappointed by what I had seen.

All throughout I was thinking to myself: ‘What do they mean that it’s a dark time for the Rebellion?…the bad guys are winning? What gives?…OMG, they captured Han Solo!?…Luke is related to WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!”

I wasn’t prepared for the darker, more mature storytelling this time around. And it wasn’t until I was a teenager when I understood that The Empire Strikes Back had some crucial life lessons for all of us if we are willing to listen.

Take Mark Hamil’s turn as Luke Skywalker, for example. We first saw him as this eager young pilot wanting to get out of his dull existence as a farm hand for his aunt and uncle one minute. Next, he’s blowing obscenely large space stations out of the sky.

He’s a talented fighter pilot who’s made a name for himself and he has a strong connection with the Force. He’s got everything going for him, right up until he crash-lands in to Yoda’s backyard, and we see a less-than admirable side of him. His arrogance, his selfishness, and his leap-without-looking attitude when he sees visions of his friends being tortured by Vader.

There are moments where his performance borders on obnoxious, but I believe there is a purpose for the shift in Skywalker’s character. It’s to show that even a person like Luke, someone the audience can identify with and relate to, has his own shortcomings. And could easily be swayed into following the Dark Side of the Force. Most people have positive and negative attributes about their very person, but in the end, it is our choices which dictate our futures.

The theme of confrontation is prevalent all throughout Episode V. And it’s not just Luke confronting Lord Vader in the cloud city of Bespin. Leia has to grapple her growing feelings towards Han Solo. She is infuriated with his cocky, reckless behavior that nearly gets them killed, like in the chase in the asteroid belt. Yet she finds herself falling for him for the exact same reason. He’s a scoundrel, yes, but he’s the scoundrel that has, somehow, captured her heart.

Lando Calrissian (the perpetually suave Billy Dee Williams) has to choose between his old friend Han, and protecting the citizens of Bespin from the Empire taking control of the region. And Lord Vader himself is forced to confront a truth he long remembered, but chose to forget. His true identity, as well as his connection to the young Jedi Skywalker.

All these characters have to face up to something that will define who they are going forward. Much as in life, when we’re faced with moments that could shape, or break, who we will become.

Lastly, what makes The Empire Strikes Back memorable, as well as its final lesson is simple: sometimes, the bad guys do, indeed, win. Despite a valiant effort by the Rebels on Hoth, the Empire seizes control of the base, and they’re left with but one option. To flee into the stars, rally what forces they have and meet at a non-disclosed rende vouz point to plan for the next battle.

Even when Lando redeemed himself and offered to help Leia, 3PO and Chewie rescue Solo from Boba Fett. Leaving to turn in his bounty to Jabba the Hut, the bounty hunter succeeds in collecting his prize.

And Luke, despite using all that he’s learned from Obi-Won and Yoda in his training, fails to defeat a more powerful foe. Losing his hand, and almost his life, in the process.

Yet, despite the bad guys claiming victory and, indeed, striking back at the Rebel Alliance, the former can’t claim total victory. The Rebels are able to evacuate the majority of their forces off the tundra planet. Leia and company reach the rende vouz point in space, as Lando & Chewbacca depart on the Millenum Falcon, vowing to locate and find Han.

And Luke makes a daring escape from Vader’s clutches, surviving the encounter with the Dark Lord. In life, we’re handed bitter defeats, but we’re given the opportunity to get up off the mat and live to fight another battle tomorrow. It’s the film’s most bittersweet truth, but even in bitter defeats, there is still a reason to hope.

The last shot is of Luke, Leia, C-3PO and R2-D2, the former two close together, staring at a milky way, and a look that is of determination to get back up and fight again. It is a fitting close to a middle chapter that flips the script on our perceptions on what we were expecting. And rewards the audience with a rich, exciting and thoroughly satisfying sci-fi epic.