The best episode of the saga

Rating: 10/10 (8 January 2017)

I remember watching a Star Wars documentary called Empire of Dreams which is about how the first trilogy came to life and his tremendous success which is still going on today. During one of the many interviews George Lucas gave for this doc, he remembered the huge deal of pressure he had to bear on his shoulders while filming Empire Strikes back.
He produced it with his own money he earned thanks to the huge success of the first movie as he wanted to keep his independence from the big studios. The fans had also a lot of expectations about the upcoming movie so George Lucas wanted it the same level if not better than A new hope. And it is.
While a new hope was focused on this small band of young people and their struggle to destroy a devastating weapon of mass destruction, Lucas has dedicated this movie into developing each one of the characters as well as the relationship between them with its lot of surprises. That famous scene when Luke learns the terrible truth about his father's fate is one of them and to me this is the knockout moment of Empire.
The other big novelty is this romance between Han and Leia. It's a great addition to the story line which allows us to discover another entirely hidden side of both of them. It's fun and sweet to see them teasing at each other. It adds some lightness too in a very dark plot.
We are also introduced to three main new characters who are part of the Star Wars Legacy: Yoda, The Emperor and Lando Calrisian. There's no need to introduce Yoda, the cunning and wise Jedi master, who is maybe small by this height but awesomely powerful with the Force. In the first movie, Obi-Wan introduced us to this powerful invisible superpower but Yoda is the one who tells everything about it while we follow Luke in his Jedi Training. He shows us the true meaning of the Force. This was what made this character so important to the general story. About the Emperor, even if we don't see much of him in Empire, we understand that he's the main villain of the story and that in fact Darth Vader is one of his victims.
Of course we still see a lot of epic combat scenes like the Battle of Hoth with those imperial walkers advancing towards the rebel base, the pursuit in the asteroid field or of course the duel on Bespin between Luke and Vader which climaxed with the surprising revelation of Darth Vader to his son.
All of those made this movie incredibly awesome. To me Empire Strikes back is the best episode of the entire saga and it's not surprising that so many are seeing it as the movie to compare each time a new star wars movie is released.