The greatest of the entire saga!

Rating: 10/10 (12 November 2012)

When this movie came out in 1980, people were unsure of how it can live up to the hype due to the success of the previous film. But it did deliver! This movie went to even darker places this time around, and the characters are left at the lowest point by the end of the film. Great action sequences, great acting and above all the biggest twist of all time!
Story: The Rebels have built a new base of operations called Echo Base on the ice planet Hoth after the Empire chased them off Yavin IV in response to the Death Star being destroyed. It's not long before the Empire discovers their new hideout and force the Rebels once again to flee from the invasion of Imperial AT-AT walkers. Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca and C-3PO escape in the Millennium Falcon, but are later captured by Darth Vader on Cloud City with Han Solo being frozen in carbonite and handed over to Boba Fett who takes him back to Jabba the Hutt. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker travels to the swamp planet Dagobah to continue his Jedi training but this time from former Jedi Master Yoda. During his training, he sees visions of Leia, Han and Chewbacca being kidnapped by Vader and sets out to Cloud Cit to rescue them, only get into a confrontation with Darth Vader where he discovers the most shocking secret about Vader.
Everything in this film is close to perfect as you can get: The battle of Hoth is one of my favorite movie battle scenes ever, and the music once again makes it awesome. The asteroid field pursuit is entertaining as hell, and the light saber fight between Luke and Darth Vader... it's basically indescribable.
The acting once again is fantastic with Mark Hamill once again giving another solid performance as a young impatient Luke Skywalker who fails every task given to him by Yoda, Harrison Ford once again owning the role of Han Solo and his interactions with Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) make for some really entertaining dialogue. I also like seeing how their relationship actually grows from love/hate to a love relationship, especially since Han grows throughout the trilogy. Billy Dee Williams as Lando brings his own brand of charm to brighten the mood up until he is forced to betray Han, but redeems himself by turning against the Empire and helping Leia attempt to save Han.
As for Yoda, he is so awesome in this one! Frank Oz's puppetry is so terrific that it's better than anything CGI can do today (not that I despise CGI). I love the scenes where he's training Luke on Dagobah, especially the part where he goes "Not this crude matter!" Darth Vader is more evil than he was in the first one. He's killing lieutenants left and right that it makes me go, "I'll do whatever you want, just please don't choke me!" As for the big twist where he says "I am your father" to Luke, it still gets me every time. I can't remember the first time I heard him say that line because I was like 5 or 6 years old when I first watched "Empire" but when he says it and you hear that music playing in the background and the look on Luke's face... you still feel that shock that Luke feels.
It goes without saying that this is not only the best Star Wars movie ever, this is one of the best MOVIES ever made. As for sequels surpassing the predecessor, for me it's right up there with "The Godfather Part 2", "The Dark Knight", "Spider-Man 2" and "T2 - Judgement Day". Even with the foul taste that a lot of people have in their mouths from the prequel trilogy, they need to watch this again to be reminded that George Lucas gave us a great saga. Final grade: A+