Best of the Star Wars Franchise, and Most Fun to Watch

Rating: 8/10 (4 March 2007)

Some spoilers ahead
"Empire Strikes Back" is the best of the "Star Wars" movies, and a vast improvement over the original. This may have to do with the absence of George Lucas as director, but the most conspicuous examples of this film's qualities are the improved acting of the leads since their appearance in the original, new memorable and interesting characters, and a compelling storyline.
Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher are slightly better than they were in the original. Luke Skywalker still seems a bit green and immature, but he undergoes some transformation as he undergoes his Jedi training with Yoda. For a rubber puppet, Yoda is a magnificent character. He embodies the mature spiritual and moral characteristics that Lucas wanted the Jedi to embody. He warns Luke not to yield to his dark visions of his friends' suffering, and that he must instead complete his training. It is Yoda, rather than Obi-Wan, who truly leads Luke down the long and arduous path to being a Jedi. Frank Oz, despite sounding like one of his myriad Muppet characters, brings a calm, almost dispassionate persona to Yoda. This great Jedi Master is a welcome addition to this movie.
Another new interesting character is Lando Calrissian, played elegantly by Billy Dee Williams. Calrissian, like Han Solo, is morally ambiguous, and is forced to betray his old friend after Han and Leia have been intercepted by Darth Vader and the mercenary Boba Fet. He is a almost a mirror image to the roguish Han Solo, though his switch to the side of the good guys seems rather abrupt. Overall, Williams plays his rather secondary role admirably.
One of the few characters to improve is Lord Vader. James Earl Jones has trained his voice to match Vader's ruthlessness and lack of empathy. He plays the bad guy as calm, cool, contemplative, and almost emotionless, which matches Vader's spiritual nature (his devotion to the Dark Side) and which amplifies the character's ability to intimidate audiences. If Vader were some cackling, maniacal supervillian, no one would take his menace seriously. The scriptwriter deserves some credit for making Vader far more sadistic and evil than he was in the original, e.g. his willingness to risk his own men's lives in an asteroid field, and his penchant for strangling a series of Imperial officers for simple mistakes. David Prowse, the man in the Darth Vader costume, also does very well here.
The story is better than the first because it moves beyond the simple "damsel in distress" and "good-triumphs-over-evil" themes of the first. The good guys do not triumph either in the beginning or the end, and we also learn that the Force is a more complex power than the original movie suggested, e.g. that yielding to one's emotions, even to save one's friends, is a dangerous gamble. The actions scenes and special effects are equal, if not better, than the first movie's. The settings of the ice planet of Hoth, the swamp world of Dagobah, and the glittering white Cloud City mining camp are beautifully rendered. This, like the first movie, is not high art, but it is a very competent and mature science fiction movie.