The best of the six

Rating: 10/10 (7 October 2008)

Like most children who loved Star wars when it was first released I looked forward to the next big screen instalment of the saga. I was not disappointed. The action started almost immediately and keeps up throughout the film till the climactic light sabre battle. We are also introduced to the new interesting characters Yoda, Lando and the Emperor himself.
As the film begins the rebels are on the run, hiding on the barren ice planet of Hoth and the empire is dispatching droids to search the galaxy for them. One lands not far from Luke and he sets off to investigate but before he can get far he is attacked by a yeti-like creature which drags him off to an ice cave. Luke manages to escape but it is too late for him to get back to the base and it looks like he might freeze to death. Luckily for him Han is out searching for him and eventually finds him just after he has a vision of his old friend Obi-Wan Kenobi who tells him to seek a Jedi master called Yoda on the planet Dagobah. Once back at the base the soon learn that the Empire has discovered where they are and start to evacuate. While this is occurring they must hold off an attack by imperial walkers which are attempting to destroy the shield protecting the base. Eventually the base falls but not before our heroes can escape.
At this point the action splits, Luke and R2 fly to Dagobah and Han, Chewie, Princess Leah and C3PO flee in the Millennium Falcon. When Luke arrives on Dagobah he discovers the planet is one huge swamp into which his X-wing sinks. He and R2 soon find a strange creature who says that he can take them to Yoda, of course it turns out that he is Yoda, after some persuasion he begins to train Luke. Meanwhile back on the Falcon things aren't going according to plan; when ambushed by imperial star destroyers they discover that the hyper-drive isn't working so must hide in a dangerous asteroid field. Flying into cave on one of the larger asteroids the attacked by strange creatures that feed on the ships power cables, when they go outside to remove them they discover that the cave itself isn't what they thought it to be so must flee once more into the path of the imperial forces. Being a crafty pilot Han manages to escape from them but is pursued by the bounty hunter Boba Fett.
Needing repairs they head to Cloud City in the nearby Bespin system. Here they are met by Han's old friend Lando Calrissian who offers to help them. Unfortunately for them Darth Vader got there sooner and made a deal with Lando. Meanwhile Luke has a vision that his friends are in danger and ends his training early to go and help, despite Yoda's warning that he is at risk from the dark side of the force and could make things worse. When he gets there he confronts Vader who tells him something that goes against everything he thought to be true... in the very unlikely event that you don't know already I'll avoid spoiling it.
Like the original film this is full of excellent special effects but isn't swamped with excessive CGI like the more recent prequels. The acting and direction are both pretty good. Being the middle act of the original trilogy it is much darker in tone than the first film and the ending can hardly be called happy. I'd certainly recommend this film to anybody regardless of their age, it is one of the few sequels to improve on the first film of its series.