The Empire Strikes Back

**The Empire Strikes Back** is a 1980 film starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, David Prowse, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew and Frank Oz, directed by Irvin Kershner, written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan and produced by Gary Kurtz.

The film was a financial success as it generated a profit of $233 million.

## Plot

Three years after the destruction of the Death Star, the Rebel Alliance, led by Princess Leia, has set up a new base on the ice planet of Hoth. The Imperial fleet, led by Darth Vader, continues to hunt for the new Rebel base by dispatching probe droids across the galaxy. Luke Skywalker is captured by a wampa while investigating one such probe, but manages to escape from the wampa's lair with his lightsaber. Before Luke succumbs to hypothermic sleep, the Force spirit of his deceased mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, instructs him to go to Dagobah to train under Jedi Master Yoda. Han Solo locates Luke, and the two are rescued by a search party the next morning.

Meanwhile, the probe alerts the Imperial fleet to the Rebels' location. The Empire launches a large-scale attack using AT-AT walkers to capture the base, which forces the Rebels to retreat. Han and Leia escape with C-3PO and Chewbacca on the Millennium Falcon, but the ship's hyperdrive malfunctions. They hide in an asteroid field, where Han and Leia grow closer amidst tension and briefly kiss. Vader summons bounty hunters to assist in finding the Falcon. Luke, meanwhile, escapes with R2-D2 in his X-wing fighter and crash-lands on the swamp planet of Dagobah. He meets a diminutive creature who reveals himself to be Yoda; after conferring with Obi-Wan's spirit, Yoda reluctantly accepts Luke as his student.

After evading the Imperial fleet, Han's group travels to the floating Cloud City on the gas planet of Bespin, which is run by Han's old friend, Lando Calrissian. Unbeknownst to the group, the bounty hunter Boba Fett has tracked the Falcon; shortly after their arrival, Lando betrays the group to Darth Vader. Vader plans to use the group as bait to lure out Luke, intending to capture him and take him to Emperor Palpatine. Luke experiences a premonition of Han and Leia in pain and, against the wishes of Yoda and Obi-Wan, abandons his training to rescue them.

Intending to hold Luke in suspended animation by imprisoning him in carbonite, Vader selects Han to be frozen as a test subject. Han survives the process and is given to Fett, who plans to collect the bounty on him from Jabba the Hutt. Lando frees Leia and Chewbacca, but they are too late to stop Fett from departing with Solo aboard. They fight their way back to the Falcon and flee the city. Meanwhile, Luke arrives and engages Vader in a lightsaber duel that leads them over the city's central air shaft. Vader severs Luke's right hand, disarming him, and tempts him to join forces. Luke accuses Vader of murdering his father, but Vader reveals that he is Luke's father. Horrified, Luke drops into the air shaft and is ejected beneath the floating city, where he hangs on an antenna. He reaches out telepathically to Leia, who senses him and persuades Lando and Chewie to turn back. After Luke is brought aboard, they are chased by TIE fighters towards Vader on his Star Destroyer, but R2-D2 reactivates the Falcon's hyperdrive, allowing them to escape.

Rejoined with the Rebel fleet, Luke's severed hand is replaced with a robotic hand. Lando and Chewbacca depart in the Falcon to save Han.