Not that good... (take three)

Rating: 4/10 (7 May 2014)

I saw The Empire Strikes Back (TESB) when I was 13 or 14, and I didn't like it back then. I've seen it many times since, and in my later views I really wanted to like it, but I ended up disliking it even more. The first sign of silliness in my eyes was the snow-speeders equipped with harpoons and towing cables. Why should anyone install a harpoon to a flying machine? It turns out to topple AT-ATs. But how did they know they'd fight against walking moto-quadrupeds? Well, they didn't. It dawned on me that that was nothing more than lazy storytelling. Create the outcome first (tackle walking machines), invent how to generate it (using cables) later. And do it again, this time with Luke.
Why did Luke flee the cave into the cold snow storm instead of killing the wampa? Because he had to come to the brink of death. And why is that? Because just before passing out he needs to see Obi-Wan's ghost. And what's it doing there? Obi-Wan's spirit is there to tell Luke where to find Yoda. Sorry but this is nonsense. First, the flow of the story is backwards, because at the time Luke leaves the cave, he has no reason to do so; he should have killed the wampa and stayed inside. Second, this part of the story must be about setting our main character in motion. Luke needs a motivation to pursue his Jedi training. One may argue that this must be the natural outcome of the first film. But still, Mr Lucas owes the viewer a decent sequence showing how Luke discovers where Yoda lives. The way Luke is informed of Dagobah in TESB is simply bad storytelling.
That also leads to a hollow first act. The action in there has nothing to do with Luke's storyline. The Battle of Hoth is completely pointless. The first act must be all about sending Luke to Dagobah. Luke will go there anyway with or without this useless battle. But instead of watching Luke discover Yoda and Dagobah, we have to watch some silly battle.
As a consequence, we have a first act disjointed from the rest of the film. The action is isolated from, and not related to, the further events. You can start watching the film 35 minutes into it, when Luke gives R2 the coordinates of the Dagobah system. There's nothing that makes sense before, explaining why Luke wants to finish his training, or how he knows where to go. For further study, compare this to how the story unfolds in A New Hope.
Things don't go well in the second act either. The story forks, and I have the feeling that Mr Lucas didn't know what to do with Han Solo and Leia, and decided to hide them inside the stomach of a giant space eel. Luke in Dagobah scenes don't fare better. Luke is a pilot and is supposed to be top physical form. Why all the physical training? And it contradicts with what Yoda says: luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. Actually the problem is deeper. Jedi training is obviously not well thought of. It may look impressive on paper, with stream of consciousness and the like, but all we see on screen is a guy running with a backpack full of rocks, or trying to levitate things around him.
The film is sort of alright 75 minutes into it, after Yoda moves Luke's X-wing out of the swamp. But not enough to make it more than 4 stars out of 10. Don't forget that some of the things the fans pan in Return of the Jedi and in the prequels are present in TESB some way, though not as pronounced as in the prequels. I have to come back to that but the first act of The Empire Strikes Back is a disaster. I've tried to make objective points anyone could check for themselves, you like this film or not. If you think that TESB is flawless, please think twice.