When A New Hope came out, it beat out the scepticism that everybody had on the project when it was regarded very fondly for being visual stunning and emotionally engaging. Lucas was able to create a movie that attracted all kinds of people, young and old, in a sci-fi fairy-tale like experience that called back to classic films and genres while also creating its own form of pop cultural iconic status. With this in mind and with how beloved the first film was, creating a sequel would prove to be inevitable but was going to be tricky as sequels were not viewed as highly as its previous. With companies having more faith in the product, getting funding and names behind the sequel was much easily which made the process come at a far less painful pace for Lucas himself. Upon release in 1980, fans were eager to jump back into the world of the force but were undoubtedly worried that it might not live up to the expectations of the first. Empire Strikes Back did anything but disappoint. Three years after the destruction of the Death Star, Luke Skywalker (played again by Mark Hamill) is called by a dead Obi-wan to find his old Jedi master Yoda (voiced by Frank Oz) in order to continue his Jedi training. As he develops his force powers, Han Solo and Leia (played again by Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher) along with C3P0 and Chewbacca, are on the run from the empire and find refuge in an old friend of Han, Lando (played by Billy Dee Williams). Luke is flashed with a horrifying vision however, that shows his friends in mortal peril and leaves to comfort Darth Vader (voiced again by James Earl Jones) as he makes his way to capture the group. The final battle of good vs evil is ready to be decided until a twist is revealed that changes everything. Star Wars was already a smash success upon release and if it wanted to throw out a forgettable sequel that tried nothing different, it definitely would have been able too. The Empire Strikes Back does not only succeed in improving upon A New Hope, but it also manages to make itself the best Star Wars movie ever made.

The funny thing about this movie is that it was not a critical success when it came out, instead gaining fandom over the years until people truly respected what the film did. This film achieved something that could have easily made it not as engrossing for its audience; alter its formula, tone and spirit into a much darker more complex story. A New Hope is very bright, innocence and goofy fun, relying on connectable simple emotions to keep people invested in its simple premise. This lack of depth was something that Empire added in with spades, with a much heavier focus on characters and relationships that made them feel more real. The story also gets far more interesting as well; after the first film shaped its world out to be very much like a fairy tale with its simple good vs evil set-up and familiar tropes, and then Empire shoots it all down and creates a much more realistic environment where morality isn’t as clear cut and happy endings aren’t always going to exist. Its use of darker themes and more intense moments helped to flesh out its environment into a more believable and made the audience even more invested than they previously were. As the middle film of a later created trilogy, the movie does not actually get much accomplished on the surface, rather having its progress be in how the characters have changed due to the recent experiences. The director of the film, Irvin Kershner, makes movies that are solely based around the strengths of its characters, and the altered tone and harsher atmosphere only help in defining itself even more. Even the final reveal (which everybody knows at this point, but will be kept secret anyway) is an incredible brilliant yet simple way to establish how unclear this world is with its morality; it’s a twist that is regarded as one of the best of cinema yet the movie plays it out very straightforward without many clues, yet it feels perfectly appropriate.

The characters have become much more identifiable and enjoyable to watch after the basic nature of them in the first film. In A New Hope, they were basic archetypes without much added onto them, the focus of the film was in its ideas and its emotion connectivity. Here, the roles are given much more depth and variety outside of the one-note they previously had, which meant that it was not always obvious what was going to happen to them by the film’s conclusion. In the first film, the direction each one would take was incredibly obvious, whereas here it’s more than likely no-one really expected the film to end as bittersweet as it does. The acting is also a lot better, mainly due to the better directing and script, and helps make a lot of these great scenes even stronger than they would have normally been. Hamill is much better as Luke being given a lot more to him outside of the simple farm boy, Leia and Han have some very good chemistry together as a couple, and the comic relief characters still get some good bits throughout, even better spaced out and delivered than in the first. This is the movie that made Darth Vader one of the all-time movie villains; in the first film, he has a striking look but doesn’t really anything that special, while in this film, his sheer brutality and cold death-like presence will send literal shivers when he comes onto the screen. That mixed with the reveal towards the end is what gave him his legendary status. New characters like Yoda and Lando expand the roster into much more loveable characters that later become their own familiar faces. Yoda’s presence as a puppet made by Muppet creator, Jim Henson, incorporates all of his usual magic into the puppet that always makes him feel alive.

The visuals are again very impressive for their time and provided the movie with even more amazing set-pieces than the first movie had to offer. Outside of the final Death Star mission, the rest of the film didn’t have any strong moments of scaled action, this movie offers two of different styles; the fight on Hoth which features some very believable effects with the use of bluescreening and stop-motion, as well cinematography that made it feel like an actual war fight, and a light saber duel between Luke and Vader which is set in an amazing set with great pacing and dialogue. The writing for the movie Is heavily improved upon as well, with the script being handed off to Lawrence Kasdan after the previous writer, Leigh Brackett’s, sudden death. The dialogue feels a lot more organic and more believable, but while still featuring the traditional Star Wars mystical and entertaining side as well. It still has a decent balance between its light and dark sides, so it never feels too unbalanced. The characters have much better chemistry with each other, the plot takes some legitimate twists throughout and features some pretty cool set-pieces, and its just overall more engaging material that does not make people laugh unwillingly. The force is also developed in a big, but still vague enough way where its been given more establishment but not enough for it to lose its vagueness; its explained what it is, but not why it is, how it can be felt, but not always felt, etc.

The Empire Strikes Back still to this day is regarded as the peak of Star Wars quality that hasn’t been matched and it became pretty evident when none of the remaining films ever fully reached the same level of impressive darkness and ambiguity that this film reached. Nevertheless, the film is an amazing sit that perfectly encompasses everything there is to like about Star Wars; it has an interesting, engaging and constantly moving story which is still very easy to follow, the characters are far more defined, likeable and better portrayed, the effects are still fantastic, its still a nice blend of funny and incredibly threatening, and its deviation from its perfect sunshine fairy-tale set-up made the source material far more believable and more in-depth than where that set-up was originally used. There is not much else left to say, its Star Wars’ finest and is also worth several different watches. The force is definitely strong with this one, and it’s always one that will keep you coming back for more.