A near perfect masterpiece of a movie

Rating: 9/10 (17 January 2016)

The Empire Strikes Back is a 1980 epic space opera/space fantasy film directed by George Lucas and direct sequel to Star Wars. As a brief summary, The Empire Strikes Back is a classic example of a movie that the critics of the time got very wrong. Initially receiving mixed reviews and being slammed by some is nowadays considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time and the best Star Wars film overall...and its not hard to see why! The Empire Strikes Back continues on from the events of Star Wars revisiting the characters of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo. The Empire Strikes Back is known to be the much darker sequel, with much more character depth, vulnerability and emotion. Lucas continues to develop his beloved characters in all the right ways with the Han-Leia relationship, the more powerful feeling of friendship and of course the biggest, most shocking twist in cinematic history with Vader and Luke in the final act of the film. The Empire Strikes Back also continues to evolve the world introducing us to new places, new characters such as the legendary Jedi master, Yoda, improving the special effects and an even more beautiful soundtrack, provided by John Williams. The Empire Strikes Back is a perfect example of a sequel done right, equal and at times even better than the original. Epic battles, intense space chases, powerful emotional character development, shocking twists, thought-provoking ideas, themes and messages and finally groundbreaking sequences and special effects. In terms of flaws The Empire Strikes Back virtually has none whatsoever, other than an unfortunate twist which has had a negative response later on in the franchise, a few unnecessarily long scenes of Luke's training, and in my opinion a slightly weaker general plot than the original story. These however barely affect this near perfect masterpiece of a movie. 9/10