The best in the original trilogy

Rating: 9/10 (8 January 2007)

It's wonderful that Lucasfilm has finally consented to release this film in its original format without new additions and alterations. Now we can see the original matte work and effects, which are quite beautiful accomplishments and stand among the best of their era.
The film is the best directed of the entire series, suffering from none of Lucas' poor directing of actors and Marquand's tentative camera handling. That said, Kershner himself is not an exceptional director except insofar as how he works with actors and his light comic touch. This film relies heavily on storyboarding and sticking fairly closely to its script, which was penned by Lucas himself from a draft by the great Leigh Brackett, with further refinement by Lawrence Kasdan.
The story takes the characters from the original film, with the addition of the charming Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), further along their personal and political quests. The film does a good job of developing these characters far beyond what their potential in the original film or their treatment in the disappointing subsequent "Jedi" were able to suggest, and of tying in the development of the characters' relationships with each other parallel to the plot of the film. The only unfortunate aspect in terms of the film's pacing is that the most exciting battle sequences fall so early in the film, leaving us a bit let down by the film's dialog-heavy middle section until we get to the stirring (and somewhat dark) conclusion in Cloud City.
It's notable that this is almost the only Star Wars film that does not feature the desert planet Tatooine. This can be seen as symbolic of the fact that this was the film that George Lucas had the least to do with -- Tatooine represents his hometown of Modesto in the other films. I also do not consider it a coincidence that this, almost universally acknowledged by fans as the best in the series, was the one with which George Lucas had the least involvement. I've always believed that a lot of the credit for the success of these first 2 films should belong to the producer Gary Kurtz, a fellow USC grad who cut his teeth working with Roger Corman (producing Monte Hellman's first films) and who developed these 2 films' concept of "used space" visual design which was later abandoned in favor of a glossy more standard "new space" look. These 2 productions are on a higher level overall than anything that Lucas did after the partnership ended, which is particularly striking in that the excessively bright and shiny "Jedi" followed only a few years later. Kurtz went on to produce "The Dark Crystal" -- a superior production IMHO to any of Lucas' solo (read: non Spielberg/Kurtz) efforts.