#STAR WARS EPISODE 5 BOUNTY HUNTERS SERIES#
But rather than find the massive ship in active pursuit of the heroes, it is deploying “thousands of remote probes into the far reaches of space,” as the end of the opening crawl explains, setting up Darth Vader’s “obsession” with finding Luke Skywalker as central to the film’s structure as a series of chases, traps, and feints. The film opens as Star Wars does with an Imperial Star Destroyer after a pan down from the star field of the opening crawl. Rather than simply repeat the beats of the first film, as so many sequels do, The Empire Strikes Back jumps ahead and drops the viewer into the middle of the action, expressly setting it up as a continuation rather than a repetition. Later cliffhanger sequels, such as The Matrix Reloaded (2003) or Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006), leave viewers hanging, but play more like the first part of a two-part film than self-contained narratives with unresolved elements. But in many other ways Empire bucks the trends of most sequels, of its time and today, while also introducing narrative elements that have become almost de rigueur, even if Empire does them better and with greater finesse than its imitators over the years. Once Lucas had made the decision to make Vader Luke’s father, which he would one day explore in a prequel trilogy, it necessitated the renaming of the film as Episode V. It’s not only a phenomenal twist, but transformed the entire trajectory of the series. Many of these decisions hinged on Empire’s most famous moment: Darth Vader’s climactic revelation to Luke Skywalker that he is his father. This episode titling would first appear in print for the 1979 release of the screenplay for Star Wars and was then appended to the opening of the film for its 1981 re-release. In the interim between the two films, Star Wars, originally simply the name of the original film (the series in 1977 was referred to as The Adventures of Luke Skywalker) was retitled Episode IV – A New Hope. Between summer 19, the film (titled simply Star Wars II in the early screenplays and treatments) would evolve from its original conception as a more straightforward sequel into to a film that critically expanded the scale, themes, and ambitions of the series.
On that note, it’s worth thinking about how The Empire Strikes Back plays as a sequel to Star Wars. It signalled a shift in George Lucas’s ambitions for the Star Wars films, transforming them into a mythic saga that would shape cinema for good or bad for the next four decades. Empire would end up being more than a sequel to a well-loved 1977 cinematic phenomenon. But like so many commonly held notions, it’s worth revisiting exactly what makes The Empire Strikes Back so good. I don’t disagree that The Empire Strikes Back is both the best of what has now become known as the Star Wars saga, nor do I disagree that there is a maturity and character development present in the film that is central to making Star Wars what it is today. The Empire Strikes Back is also the “darkest” film in the original trilogy and many equate the film’s dark atmosphere and the lack of clear victories for the good guys with complexity or maturity. Additionally Empire’s cliff-hanger ending was a major gamble, leaving audiences without resolution until the release of Return of the Jedi in 1983. The shift in tone from the first film was confusing and disappointing to many fans and critics who had praised the first film for its sense of swashbuckling adventure. It’s commonly held today that The Empire Strikes Back is the best of the Star Wars films, but it was not heralded as such immediately upon its release.
The battle for the Death Star may have been won by the Rebels, but the war to restore freedom and justice to the galaxy is far from over.
The Empire is, as the title of the sequel film indicates, striking back, once again ascendant and on the move. The destruction of the Death Star has provided only a short-lived victory, belying the fairy tale ending of Star Wars. After the triumphant finale of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back opens with quite a reversal.
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