Cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford

Director: Irvin Kirschner

Screenplay: Leigh Brackett

Running time: 2 hrs 7 mins

Genre: Sci-Fi/Action/Adventure



CRITIQUE:


Let’s admit, the Star Wars series is not exactly cerebral cinema. Of the science-fiction genre, it is built up on light entertainment with big, loud explosions in a post-Kubrickian intellectual prodding of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is conceived in an era when Hollywood was moving towards another age, the blockbuster syndrome with the movie brats as the then-deities, when the reversal of counterculture was frenziedly needed, hijacking Saturday matinee concepts and slapped on silverscreens. Call it postmodernist pastiche. Star Wars is really the Arthurian opera in space, with lightsabers instead of swords. And it doesn’t need rocket-science intellect to be able to enjoy these films. Honestly, even Yoda speaks a lot of grammatically irreverent language and a load of twaddle. But for all its cynic comments, there is absolutely no denying that they are visually exhilarating, with astounding effects that broke many grounds, and we have George Lucas to thank for that. And there’s also no refuting that Empire Strikes Back is easily the best in the franchise.


Before your Alien and Terminator sequels, Star Wars had pretty much set the template that franchise sequels should be darker. Now an established sequel truism, if follow-ups turn out to be weightless and thematically fluffy, or just plain nosedive into bonkers territory, they flop. Ask the Wachowski brothers or Michael Bay, as they seem to specialise in shoddy sequel-making. However, this second-part of this undisputedly legendary space saga remains an icon in the halls of sequels. Empire Strikes Back tops its predecessor by a meatier, meaner, darker storyline whilst not ignoring the adventure aspects that made the first one a hit. This is where all backstories are laid out and the characters are given full rein to their interactions, the visual wizardry more astonishing and polished (see the opener’s Hoth’s battle sequence in an ice landscape). Irvin Kirschner, replacing Lucas in directing duties, is also able to polarise the action sequences with character moments, Luke’s apprenticeship with Yoda in Dagobah, and the final revelatory sparring of Darth Vader and Luke in a visually rich tone, moody, menacing and dramatic. There are probably five people left in the world who doesn’t know about the revelation, but Vader’s declaration of his paternalism is still one of cinema’s most memorable moments.


VERDICT:

A massive step-up from its predecessor and arguably more sophisticated. Although still ridden with clunky dialogues, Empire Strikes Back is remarkable for setting the yardstick for the now-clichéd “dark sequel”. This is technically groundbreaking stuff, with characters that has deeply imbedded the pop culture.



RATING: A-