Star Wars Day V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Impressions from the fifth movie. Just in case you’ve managed to not see the movies, here be spoilers:

The hands-down favorite of all six according to most surveys, including the Celsius1414 poll. Darkest of the second trilogy (though perhaps not the darkest of all six), with much to recommend it.

• Ice Planet Hoth! Snowtroopers! AT-AT Walkers! Snowspeeders!
• I made more than a few cents selling accurate line drawings of AT-ATs to my fellow 8th graders. ;)
• Training on Dagobah, Luke confronting the Dark Side.
• After the X-Wing is lifted out of the swamp… Luke: “I don’t believe it!” Yoda: “That is why you fail.”
• One of the best movie lines ever, by Darth Vader: “Apology accepted, Captain Needa.”
• Everything that can go wrong does — Luke is lost in the ice world, the Rebel Base is found and attacked, the Millennium Falcon is all but useless until the very end. Luke’s losing his arm, finding out who Vader truly was, that Ben had lied to him, and his choosing his friends over his training.
• Back in the day, I remember after the third time of the Falcon’s hyperdrive failing, I could physically feel the frustration. And when it finally worked…phew! You feel exhausted after this movie.
• Han and Leia’s burgeoning romance. Another great bit of dialogue — Leia: “I love you.” Han: “I know.” as he is lowered into the carbonite chamber.
• Boba Fett! I forgot to mention his cameo at the end of the additional Jabba the Hutt scene in Episode IV.
• The sly and smooth Lando, betraying his “friends,” but saving them in the end as his deal falls through.

I think the DVD player is overheating as we start Episode VI — it was showing signs of overexertion during IV. We may have to switch to watching VI on the computer instead. Either that or our communications are being jammed by the Empire.

There’s something I’d like to explore more later about how the Force folks (Jedi and Sith) screwed things up for the Republic and everybody else. ;)