Star Wars
Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
(1980)
(SPOILERS) Perhaps the strangest take away
from Star Wars Episode V: The Empire
Strikes Back is that its director created something so artful, so
captivating and impressive, yet the rest of his filmography goes virtually
unnoticed. Irvin Kershner even helmed entries in three other movie series (The Return of a Man Called Horse, unofficial
Connery Bond return Never Say Never Again and Robocop 2, as well as attempted M*A*S*H cash-in S*P*Y*S), all of which were mediocre to disappointing. Lucas himself
recognised that The Empire Strikes Back
(just consider the lack of finesse of that title for a moment, and how the
picture’s actual content redresses it as something more elegant) had far more
substance and resonance than he ever intended. It’s the high water mark of the
saga, and it’s unlikely it can ever be equalled, not least because anyone trying
for that Empire “thing” will more
than likely fall victim to producing a poor imitation instead of striving to
make their own beast (which is also why the picture stands out from 90% of
sequel fare).
We got that with JJ Abrams and his spin on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek into Darkness, in a series which
already had a prior spin on the same in Star
Trek: Nemesis. To an extent, Lucas has already looked back to Empire with Attack of the Clones. It’s best not to be referencing other entries
in a series really, at least not in such a studious manner; strike out for new
territory, if your fumbling imagination or fanboy urges permit it. It remains
to be seen if JJ has realised this with The
Force Awakens.
The
Empire Strikes Back was viewed as something of a
disappointment at first shout, of course, criticised (even by genre fans) for
being exactly what Lucas intended it to be; a second act, with a cliffhanger ending
(or “no ending”) and a structure that
was one long chase (well, Luke aside). As Lucas said, everything goes wrong in
a second act (or problems are set up to be resolved) and closure comes later; at the time Starburst’s John Brosnan (always a great, opinionated read) this was
exactly the picture’s failing. That, and its indebtedness to the “magical grab-bag” of the Force.
In contrast, the ever-wilfully iconoclastic
Pauline Kael loved it. It’s interesting
that the fundamental resistance in some quarters to Lucas’ design (even the box
office was markedly down on Star Wars,
while still markedly huge) has since become a readily adopted narrative form,
and not just by the generation that grew up on his galaxy; it’s there in the
mini-trilogy Star Trek began a couple
of years later, and Back to the Future
Part II is fundamentally indebted to unsatisfied momentum that promises to
be paid off at a later date.
The notion that a movie in a designated
series of movies must also be fully functionally stand-alone, making it more
integral and respectable (just like other movies), is one of the takeaways from
this. One would assume, if you concur with such a view, that you have problems
with serialised storytelling at its core. The
Empire Strikes Back fully embraces its opportunity not to adopt the accepted cinematic form, while encompassing that
rare thing for a mainstream blockbuster (let alone a science fiction or fantasy
offering); the chance to be a character piece.
The picture runs at a fair clip, its two
hours flying by, yet as far as traditional action sequences go, there are only
really two, and they are bookends (the Hoth battle and the Vader-Luke
confrontation; the asteroid sequence might also be argued for). This isn’t to venerate
The Empire Strikes Back as superior
for eschewing wall-to-wall action (although it’s successor is undoubtedly
inferior for abandoning much of the hard work put into character development),
but to identify how completely it succeeds on its own terms. It often takes
time for a movie that does something different to be embraced (provided it has
essential merit, of course), and when people say they want to make a sequel as
good as The Empire Strikes Back, the
things they shouldn’t be pointing to are its “darkness”, the twist (which is
fundamentally character-related), or the lack of closure, but rather the
majesty with which it allows its characters breathe and grow.
Pauline
Kael: Though
Empire, released in 1980, didn’t have the leaping, comic-book hedonism of the
1977 Star Wars, and, as the middle film of the trilogy, was chained to an
unresolved, cliffhanger plot, it was a vibrant, fairy-tale cliffhanger. The
director, Irvin Kershner, brought the material a pop-Wagnerian amplitude; the
characters showed more depth of feeling than they had in the first film, and
the music – John Williams’ variations on the Star Wars theme – seemed to
saturate and enrich the intensely clear images.
As Kael attested, this aspect is all down
to Kershner. Which isn’t to diminish the contributions of Lucas and Kasdan, or
Leigh Bracket (who gets a screenplay credit, but whose draft was felt to be
tonally quite wrong), but you only have to look at (again!) its successor,
which had the two story/screenplay central players and was entirely lesser (“in Jedi the effects take over”, Kael
opined), to identify the someone who was taking painstaking care over what they
were doing.
You can see this in the annotated
transcripts of discussions in The Making
of The Empire Strikes Back; how Kershner gave Ford his head (and had to
deal with Fisher’s insecurities – a stock-in-trade for an actor, and no doubt
fuelled by coke, but also understandable, as Leia, even though her arc here is
a memorable one, is positioned entirely reactively to Han, rather than embodying
the motivated force of A New Hope)
and generally wanted to get everything just-so, most conspicuously with the
characters and performances, but also on through every aspect of the production
(in contrast, Lucas’ “That’ll do” approach is writ large across the prequels).
Luke Skywalker: No! That’s not true. That’s impossible!
The revelation concerning Luke’s parentage
still has an enormous impact, despite being probably the number one movie secret
for which everyone knows the reveal (yes, even more than Soylent Green or The Sixth
Sense), and one where any future generation watching the series in episode
order won’t have the faintest inkling how it might have sent their aged
relatives reeling. That it continues to pack a punch is largely down to Mark
Hamill, the unsung hero of the Original Trilogy, who by this point is granted
the opportunity to move from stock-type innocent to troubled, conflicted young
man.
Leigh Bracket’s first draft, based on Lucas’
treatment, didn’t feature this revelation, and instead posited Anakin as a Force
ghost materialising to instruct Luke; Michael Kaminski, understandably
unconvinced by Lucas’ protestations regarding a mapped-out lineage from the off
(you only need look at the flux state of names, places and attributes to see
how, on a vast scale, this wasn’t the case) proposes in The Secret History of Star Wars that Vader only fell into place as
Luke’s dad post- the rethink arising from the rejected Bracket draft. In
particular, he seizes on the lack of reference to such an idea pre-1978. That
may be true but, given the swarm of ideas Lucas was entertaining, it had probably
at least occurred to him by then, as one of the many different mythical
configurations that might be explored.
Whatever the truth of the matter, it filters
remarkably well into the pre-existing surrounds of Star Wars. The idea that Jedi tell white lies isn’t really so
astounding, given they go about the place manipulating weak-minded
stormtroopers and slicing off arms in bars willy-nilly; it’s only with Vader
that one might argue A New Hope fogs
up the old visor. One so Force adept can’t even twig when he’s in the presence
of his own daughter (of which, Lucas hadn’t even set on Leia as Luke’s sister
by The Empire Strikes Back, as he
would never have included the sibling snog under such circumstances). But I do like
that he’s merely the lackey in A New Hope,
shifting to take centre stage, and James Earl Jones’ essentially considered
tones ensure the revelation of hidden depths and reasoning, come the
confrontation with Luke, aren’t nearly the shock they might otherwise be.
Aside from (some of) the Special Edition
changes, I’m hard-pressed to find anything in The Empire Strikes Back that doesn’t work; I’m always surprised by
how effortlessly it flows. It feels like no sooner have I sat down than it’s
over. Sure, the Empire really needs decent pilots for its Star Destroyers (ones
who can avoid collisions with other Star Destroyers).
And one point might be the return of
Obi-Wan. Lucas and Kasdan fundamentally disagreed on killing off characters
during the script conferences for Return
of the Jedi (Lucas: By killing someone, I think you alienate the
audience); Lucas remarks on Kasdan trying to make the story more realistic,
which is what he tried when he killed off Ben “but I managed to take the edge off it”. You can hear the regret
there, and the willingness to pull punches is an attitude that has led to one
of the worst aspects of genre storytelling today (be it Marvel, Doctor Who, Star Trek or whichever), where no one stays dead, where life isn’t
ephemeral, where there is no permanent or lasting impact and consequence to actions.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to see Alec
Guinness again, and his thoughtful pronunciations (especially in Return of the Jedi, funnily enough) are
welcome. They even link neatly into his fancy portentous talk from A New Hope (“Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly
imagine”), but they also take away death’s sting. And it’s only a short
step from there to the cosy entourage of Force ghosts on a day trip from Force
Heaven to the Ewok camp (if Lucas still held the reins, he’d probably keep
tinkering with new editions to the point where there were thousands; every Jedi
he’d ever conceptualised would be smiling benignly at Luke).
Perhaps the most crucial point where The Empire Strikes Back could have gone seriously
awry is Yoda, though. Revisiting him here, a green muppet who isn’t Kermit,
it’s seems almost like a no-brainer, because Frank Oz invests him with so much
life, gravitas and idiosyncrasy. Imagine what it might have been like if Hamill
hadn’t been granted the chance to share the same physical space as the little Jedi
muppet master, if he had been added in post-the-fact? How much integrity would
he have exerted then? While the prequels produce a decent enough CGI surrogate,
it can’t compete with an actual tangible force, and the subtleties and nuances
that come from imperfection.
And also, the tentative ground of spiritual
import, one Lucas took much flak for when he got his galaxy up and running (see
John Brosnan’s reaction above) rather has the air sucked from the room when
delivered by digital characters or ones bereft of personality. It creates an
oppositional state; instead of wonder at the unknown, there’s the sinking
feeling of being played. Yoda as embodied by Oz is a shaman, a trickster, a
fool, and the wisest “man” you’ll ever meet; even by Return of the Jedi we have forgotten the side of him that will
wrestle R2-D2 for a pen torch.
Yoda: No, try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.
Unlike Brosnan, I can very much get behind
Luke’s training on Dagobah. The content may be platitudinous, with Yoda a
stand-in for Carlos Castenda’s Don Juan Matus, but Yoda’s universal teachings,
be they construed as Xen, Christian or simple philosophical nuggets regardless
of leaning, come down to one’s own ego being one’s own worst enemy, rather than
any external force that may seek to infringe on one’s essential rectitude. Be
it self-doubt or self-recrimination, Luke only holds himself back (“I don’t believe it”; “That is why you fail”).
By the time of the prequels, Yoda’s
ruminations have become banal; they go nowhere and frequently make him look
rather stupid (“Evil this is where?” “Behind you it is!”) It’s also the case
that the prequels entirely fail to get to grips with the business of being a
Jedi; they’re caught up with the iconography (right down to dozens of kids
battling remotes) rather than the essence of internal becoming. Hence Mace
Windu.
This internal becoming is summed up by the wooziest
scene in the saga (complete with atypical slow motion), the moment the series breaks free from its narrative
confines and enters the realm of the meaningfully surreal. Luke is sent into a
dark tree (why Yoda lives near a tree consumed with the dark side I don’t know,
as you’d have though he would disinfect it; perhaps for this very moment left
it he did) to face his demons; Luke stares into the abyss, and the abyss stares
back at him. He encounters Vader, whom he fells, and his own face is revealed
behind the shattered helmet (the pre-emptive aspect here is also crucial; when
facing both his phantom and the real Vader, Luke flames up first).
The familial, oedipal angst of The Empire Strikes Back rocked the
series to its core, of course, and all manner of speculation ensued in the
three years until the docking of Return
of the Jedi. Who was the other? Was it Han – because Han fans wanted him to be special, even if that would
defeat the point of his character, and as proof he used Luke’s lightsaber, didn’t
he? Was it Leia – because she heard Luke’s call? Or was it someone else? It’s
been suggested that, as initially conceived, Lucas had a character from Episode III in mind, although evidently
not the Episode III that eventually
came into being, and definitely not Kit bloody Fisto. Without doubt the
strongest element of Return of the Jedi
is the confrontation between Luke, Vader and the Emperor, but the actual
execution can’t equal the eerie, artful foreboding with which Kershner realises
Luke’s first face-to-face with dad.
From passing along the all-but-abandoned
corridors of Cloud City, to the meeting with Vader in silhouette above the
carbonite chamber, to the duelling through darkened rooms with flying bric-a-brac
and out onto wind-lashed platforms, there’s an elemental progression to the
encounter that matches Luke’s burgeoning state of emotional turmoil/ disembowelling.
If Vader can’t have him, he’ll leave him as a shell, which is pretty much where
he’s at when rescued. It’s also interesting to see how straight-up Vader is
about the Emperor’s chances with Luke on board (“You can destroy the Emperor. It is your destiny”). But then, the
Emperor is about the only element of the saga Lucas managed to tackle with
consistency across his six films.
Han Solo: Afraid I was going to leave without giving
you a goodbye kiss?
Princess
Leia: I’d
just as soon kiss a Wookie.
Han
Solo: I can
arrange that. You could use a good kiss.
Luke is on the back foot in The Empire Strikes Back, disabused of
his face (by a Hoth Wampa), his abilities (by Yoda) or his preconceptions and
extremities (by Vader). The real hero plotline, one Lucas consciously invested
in but subsequently left to stagnate, is Han’s, and it’s the one audiences instantly
respond to; the rogue and scoundrel who does the right thing and becomes the
hero, the average guy (not a Force-user) who relies on wits and cunning to
evade the Empire and can even fire off repeated shots, on target, at Darth in a
one-on-one encounter. Han isn’t even in the last half-hour of the picture, but
it feels like his movie start to finish. Ford’s finessing of the script with
Kershner pays dividends, and the romance with Leia absolutely works.
Princess Leia: You have your moments. Not many of them, but
you do have them.
Han’s also a bit of a doofus amid the
effortless cool, though, and it’s this goofy charm that helps ensure The Empire Strikes Back doesn’t tip into
an outright downer. From the constant problems of entropy (the Falcon just
won’t work, even when it’s been fixed, leading to the only response Solo can
give; “This isn’t fair!” – a very
different tone to the way Skywalkers say it, though, as we actually chuckle at
his childishness) to his interaction with C3P0 (the latter interrupting his
wooing Leia; “Thank you. Thank you very
much”).
Most iconically, his hardboiled response (improvised on set) to
Leia’s “I love you”; “I know”, is the ultimate self-assured
admission of reciprocity, delivered through the armour of casual indifference.
As mentioned, though, it might be argued
Leia comes up short in all this. She is, essentially, there to be impressed and
wooed by Han. In the opening scenes, the ice princess needs to be thawed by the
man-of-the-world (“You like me because
I’m a scoundrel. There aren’t enough scoundrels in your life”). Leia is
still allowed to be right about stuff (she knows Cloud City is a bum deal from
the start, fundamentally distrusts Lando, and doesn’t doubt that Luke’s
distress cry is real, rather than a figment of her imagination), and Carrie
Fisher brings an assertive personality to bear that is at least the equal of
anyone else in the room.
But Leia isn’t really proactive in Empire. And, aside from a couple of
early scenes in Jedi, she won’t be
there either. The difference here is you don’t really mind, as regressive as having
her “lighten up” might be; the Han and Leia romance is affecting, and you’re
invested in both characters. One might expect JJ to ensure his new trilogy female
characters have proper arcs, until one recalls he decorated his last big screen
science fiction movie with Alice Eve, who was there entirely for a cheesecake
disrobing scene.
I tend to forget how well-introduced Lando
is, because he’s so immaterial to Return
of the Jedi (while Lucas does this virtually across the board in Jedi, everyone else had two movies to
get dug in). He has a really strong mini-character arc here. And however cocky
Han is, Lando is the same to the max, the “old
smoothie” making it look easy. Billy Dee Williams juggles a difficult role
with deceptive ease, required to navigate from betrayer of our favourite
character to hero in a fraction of the picture’s running time, and bring the other protagonists on
board too. He must also sport a cape stylishly (Larry David knows how difficult
that can be). Williams manages to manoeuvre Lando into a place where, like
C3P0, we’re willing Chewie and Leia to forgive him, and by the time he brings
Luke into the Falcon he pretty much is, but for that pesky hyperdrive.
The conception and visualisation of Cloud
City, a Tibanna gas mining colony, is stunning, and also a tricky narrative
move, as the relief that comes with light and airy surroundings, after the oppressive
space pursuit, conceals dark secrets around every corner. It’s an environment
populated by its own set of briefly sketched characters, including another group
of diminutive scavengers (Ugnaughts, as opposed to Jawas).
And John Hollis’s Lobot (he played
Sondeergard, who obviously rocks, in Jon Pertwee Doctor Who story The Mutants,
which also featured Biggs Darklighter; who knew Lucas was such a devotee of those
six episodes?), Lando’s major domo, doesn’t even say a word, but is established
as an intriguing persona through visual cues in a handful of scenes.
The
Empire Strikes Back does a couple of interesting
things through mixing and matching its characters; splitting R2D2 and C3P0 for most
of the duration does, to a great or lesser extent, compound C3P0 becoming the
extended comic relief of the episode; at any given moment, cut to the droid
being wholly self-involved and bemoaning the situation in a shrill manner. It
works here because it’s self-conscious (characters put their hands over his
mouth, tell him to shut up, shut him down, and ignore him when he actually does have something important to say)
but you only have to look at Attack of
the Clones to see how this kind of thing can go horribly wrong (that too sees
C3P0 being taken to bits).
Darth Vader: Take the princess and the Wookie to my ship.
I do wonder slightly at the droid’s
relentless maligning of “overgrown mop
head” Chewbacca. Is it a function of “human-cyborg
relations” that C3P0 respects and behaves with servility only towards human
beings? Is he species-ist? And why doesn’t Vader also want a reunion with the droid
he created? I can see that he’d want Leia, even still blind to her parentage, for
the political aspect, but Chewie? Perhaps he wants to reminisce concerning
their one-time good buddy Yoda?
There are some nice Imperial touches here,
following from Star Wars, as
prospective victims of the Sith choke show wariness around Vader, or
foolishness. Future foes of Indiana Jones Julian Glover and Michael Sheard get
off lightly (General Veers) or not at all (Admiral Ozzel), with Captain Needa
(Michael Culver) also falling by the wayside. It’s left to incumbent Admiral
Piett (Kenneth Colley) to look about nervously every time something goes wrong
with their pursuit of the Falcon (somehow he survives to Return of the Jedi; it’s a shame he didn’t make it to The Force Awakens too, as that would be some
survivalist tendency). Mainly, though, the Imperial side is as much a supporting
arm to Vader now as Vader was to Tarkin in A
New Hope.
Darth Vader: Test it on Captain Solo.
As with Star
Wars, it’s with the minor characters and creatures that Empire most fires the imagination, and especially
so with the bounty hunters. Boba Fett derives from early Vader designs, and was
one of the first conceptions for the sequel (to the extent that he shows up in
the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special).
He’s surely the most stylish design of the trilogy (although I like all the
assorted bounty hunters, and was particularly taken by Bossk and IG-88’s adventures
in the Marvel comic strip).
It’s probably inevitable that a design
(rather than a fully-formed character) taking on a life of its own in the fan
consciousness should be then fundamentally misused, but it’s still peculiar how
very wrong Fett has gone. As originally portrayed by Jeremy Bulloch and voiced
by Jason Wingreen, Fett’s minimalist presence enabled the viewer to project on
him as an equal and opposite cool character to Han Solo; Solo’s Vader, if you
will (more Lee van Cleef than Lucas’ idea of Clint Eastwood). He shows the same
kind of lateral thinking and cunning (getting into his prey’s head such that he
too dumps himself and Slave 1 with the garbage), and he’s also no one’s stooge,
standing up to Vader when his pay cheque is threatened (“He’s no good to me dead”).
There’s a whole backstory of Mandalorian
warriors the prequels appear to have disinherited, while creating a fundamental
imbalance by instilling all this motivation in the son of Jango that leads to him…
doing very little in the Original Trilogy. Lucas, at that time – I guess
because he didn’t have the Internet, the clot – was unaware of how Fett had
seized the popular imagination, and proceeded to dispatch him in the weakest of
ways in Return of the Jedi (killed by
accident). Then, rather than redress that amongst the
various crappy Special Edition additions to Episode
VI (he thought about having Boba escape the Sarlacc pit) he added a few
unnecessary additional shots of the bounty hunter, including a flirtation with
a couple of dancers that makes Lucas comes across as the most hopeless fan boy.
But Fett’s cool here. He anticipates Luke
and shoots at him, the way Han does Vader. He has a cool spaceship he has to
stand up in. He has a cool jet pack (and a cape, not a wise combination, but
he’s cool, so it works). What isn’t so cool is having Temeura Morrison overdub
Wingreen. There’s no reason, unless one ascribes to nurture being entirely
absent, that a clone of Jango should grow up with the exact cadence of “dad”,
but Lucas just cannot resist.
Generally The Empire Strikes Back gets off lightly from Special Edition
changes. Indeed, I go as far to say that – in the main – it benefits. The
attempts to reach beyond the original’s grasp in the Hoth sequence (model work
and matte lines abounded) benefit from the clean up. I don’t mind the new Hoth
Wampa, the new shots of Cloud City, or even the (entirely superfluous) shot of
Vader boarding his shuttle. I’d prefer it if swapping in McDiarmid for Clive
Revill’s Emperor had the former looking like he did in Return of the Jedi rather than the Pruneface look of Revenge of the Sith (the Jedi make-up looks better, and less
like prosthetics), but the change at least makes sense (for ones that mostly don’t,
see Jedi).
Generally, though, the lack of overt amendment
to The Empire Strikes Back is a sign
of how immaculately it holds up, and the care that went into it. The texture
and variety encompassing Lucas’ galaxy is added to immeasurably, from ice
worlds to asteroid fields occupied by giant worms, from cities in the clouds to
swamp planets (Dagobah looks amazing, a sign of what can be done creating a
planet in a studio if sufficient time and love is put in).
It furthers that thing Star Wars does so well, of having multiple suggestive things going
on around the edges, but never becomes too busy the way the prequels do. The
strange pockets and asides of the universe continue to capture the imagination,
but to lesser effect in Return of
the Jedi, and by the preequels, where anything is possible, there’s no
longer any wonder left.
Kershner brings elegance and opulence to
the proceedings, and Williams’ score, the On
Her Majesty’s Secret Service of Star
Wars scores, that even offers a new iconic theme (the Imperial March) you
didn’t know was essential until he came up with it, adds majesty and moments of
pure visual poetry (the Falcon looping into the asteroid cave, or dropping into
the garbage trail, Yoda levitating the X-wing; go to any scene and there’s
probably something there that Williams has enhanced).
To top Star
Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (which, despite what I’ve said, does have a beginning, middle and end;
it just doesn’t offer that there closure), a Star Wars film would have to do something fairly comprehensively
amazing. It would have to advance the series core story while not appearing to
do so in a cynical manner, it would have to add layers and depth while not
repeating itself or resorting to mimicry, and it would have to do something
fresh and emboldening with its characters rather than ingraining them.
These things aren’t impossible under the
Disney mantle, but a $4.5 billion investment leads less to taking chances than
it does ensuring what comes forth is echoing what already exists. Since the
generation that grew up with these movies is now making them, there’s very
rarely the necessary distance to make such choices. Kershner and Kasdan had the
eyes to see what the saga needed to advance, in the same way Nicholas Meyer did
with the second Star Trek movie. It’s
more the pity that such storytelling (and filmmaking) finesse is now so few and
far between.
