As good as a 'middle' can be!

Rating: 8/10 (18 March 2014)

Many people think that 'The Empire Strikes Back' is the best of the original three, but I still vote the original higher. Still, for a film without a real beginning, middle, or end, this one is darn good.
Frank Oz' puppetry really reached an apex in the early 1980s, with films like 'Dark Crystal' and 'Empire.' No wonder Yoda made the cover of Time magazine (as Star Wars did several times). The original Yoda is much more whimsical and playful than the 'earlier' Yoda of Episodes I-III. He toys with Luke while dispensing vaguely Confucian wisdom. The facial articulation is very good, and there is a certain palpable reality in physical special effects and good puppetry that the later digital Yoda just did not quite reach; besides the fact that Oz was obviously instructed by Lucas to keep it more serious.
Then there is the Oedipal turn the story takes: "Luke, I am your father." I was actually surprised in 1980 when I saw this, and over the years I have gone from judging it corny to a masterstroke. It's probably both. For those who saw Star Wars pre-1980, it's clear that this was not the original plan. Interestingly, George Lucas has done some cleaning up of older movies to conform to the later canon (all but cutting a Luke-Leia kiss in the original that was just not quite brotherly-sisterly enough), but left a lot of it alone, like Obi Wan providing minimal explanation for his 'subterfuge' in the original Star Wars movie. Like in a good Charles Dickens novel, everyone turns out to be related to everyone or have met the person who did the thing who helped the other who...
Other than Yoda and that revelation, the story that takes Luke from ice planet Hoth to be trained by Yoda and finally confront his Dark Side in the form of his father for the first time, does not have too many exciting turns or characters. Calrissian was planted in it for political correctness as a Han Solo scoundrel duplicate (I'm grateful though because Billie Dee was a pretty good scoundrel). Han literally gets frozen while Lando takes over for a while, as though there's not room for two of them.
Still, I have to give it an 8. It is skillfully crafted for a middle piece, and Lucas really honed his special effects magic some more since the first installment. It's as enjoyable to see now as in the 80s, and its lower density special effects are almost prophetic of what is to come again: special effects that serve the film, not the other way around.