Second Act's the best!

Rating: Null/10 (28 June 1999)

Empire is definitely the best of the three SW films, and that's the general concensus, not just my humble opinion. The plot in ESB is much more complex than in SW, which was basically much running around and shooting the bad guys. The light saber battle between Luke and Vader is unparalleled, as is the Moment of Truth when Vader 'fesses up to fatherhood. The suspense builds here like in no other SW movie. We also care about the characters and what happens to them; that is the key to creating a good movie. Action sequences miss their mark if we don't mind if the guy fighting gets sliced or not. Here, Han and Leia *finally* get together, Luke begins to act like a man and not a high-flying whiner, and Alec Guiness is thankfully back as the ghost of Obi-Wan.
In addition to the captivating characters, the movie is enhanced by stunning visual effects that are still highly revered even after 16 years. Cloud City is mystical yet seems real in all its splendid detail. And it's hard to believe that Yoda's swampy home was really just a soundstage in London. I read somewhere that ESB is the best because it has the most plot elements mentioned in the opening paragraph that scrolls famously into space. That is true, now that I think about it, and ESB is the darkest and most powerful of the trilogy.