The Empire Strikes Back

Rating: Null/10 (24 August 2010)

For the sequel to his highly successful 1977 space opera Star Wars, George Lucas decided to forgo writing the script and to hand directorial duties over to his friend and professor Ivan Kershner. This is widely regarded as a pretty good move: As with its predecessor, The Empire Strikes Back contains many moments of dialog and acting that are highly, uh, stylized, but an effort is clearly being made to bring some humanity to these characters. To give Lucas credit, he continues to do some truly excellent model work and costuming, and his story work on this film expands the Star Wars universe in a number of crucial ways, including the additions of Emperor Palpatine, Vader as (spoiler!) a human and a father, and a batty little lunatic named Yoda. Empire's sense of expansion is sometimes packaged in flashy spectacle--the revelation of the space slug is a particularly great moment-- but often in its more serious tone: as explained by Yoda, Jedi are not just magical flying swordsmen, they are people with a fairly interesting philosophy and worldview as well. For its character and thematic work, it is a crucial step in the series's evolution. Whatever our culture owes to the Star Wars franchise, Star Wars owes to Empire. -TK 8/25/10