Review of The Empire Strikes Back (1980) by Marwan T — 13 Dec 2015

Spoilers.

After the masterpiece that is the Star Wars I'm sure everybody thought that a sequel wouldn't even be half of the film it is. However the Empire Strikes Back is an amazing sequel, one of the best ever made in fact and might just be the best Star Wars movie as well as one of the best movies ever. The acting in this film is a lot better than the first movie. Mark Hamill is much better and I love Luke's character in this movie. Usually in a sequel our lead will be so much stronger and more powerful, however in this movie Luke is still a weak character, he constantly messes up and fails in the movie, he doesn't listen to Yoda about taking his weapons into the cave, then he decides to ignore Yoda again and go and confront Vader. He's still learning throughout this film, his character is brilliantly handled and Mark Hamill does a great job. Carrie Fisher is really good, she remains a very strong female character and her acting is a lot better than last time. Harrison Ford is excellent as Han Solo, he's charismatic, funny and has a load of great lines. David Prowse and James Earl Jones are both excellent as Darth Vader. Darth Vader is an absolute badass in this movie, he's absolutely ruthless. Throughout the film he kills anyone who messes up, he also tortures Han Solo without asking him any questions and then freezes him in carbonite just to make sure it won't kill Luke, he's such a great villain, especially in this movie. Billy Dee Williams is great as Lando, he's very suave and charismatic. In this film we also get one of the best movie characters of all time, Yoda he's a fantastic character and Frank Oz does a great job voicing him and the Yoda puppet still looks really good. Irvin Kershner did a fantastic job directing this film, I think he might have even done a better job than George Lucad and even though Irvin Kirshner might not have directed loads of great films he made this amazing one. One of the things I love about this film is there is always something happening. There's never really a dull moment and all of the action is great. The battle of hoth is great, it's intense, entertaining and looks great. It's also quite funny seeing a walker get toppled over by a wire. I love the battle between the tie fighters and millennium falcon in the asteroid field. Also the bit when the millennium falcon is nearly swallowed by the alien slug is great. I love the lightsaber battle between Darth Vader and Luke, it's intense, really well choreographed and leads to one of the best movie twists of all time. The music for this film is great, Darth Vaders theme is one of the best pieces of music ever composed for a film. The cinematography is also amazing, this film is beautifully shot. This film is also really funny, there are a lot of good jokes and laugh out loud moments. However this film has the darkest tone of the trilogy. The end of this film is not some happy ending which makes everyone smile. There's a lot of dark stuff in this film, as I mentioned earlier a lot of bad stuff happens to Han Solo, the dark tone fits this film perfectly. This film also introduces Bobba Fett, who's great and I also noticed they never mention his name on the film. I don't really have any problems with this film, the film has very few special edition changes which is great. Overall this is a fantastic film and the best Star Wars movie. A+.