Just hear me out for a minute. No one is saying Empire is a bad film. Far from it. In terms of quality of film in terms of writing, acting, visual effects and pathos, it might be one of the greatest sequels ever made to a film in the history of American Cinema. But therein lies the ultimate problem. The Empire Strikes Back set a quality standard by which all Star Wars movies henceforth would be judged and not a single one has met the level of. Not any of the films George oversaw after this one and most certainly not the films produced by Disney. The original film (AKA Star Wars) holds a place in the hearts of those who were young and saw it for the first time in 1977. It had an undeniable impact on mass media, culture and the world at large. But when you get down to it, the film is still a bit of a clunky mess. The dialogue can be very cheesy at points, Darth Vader's voice in comparison to Empire and Jedi sounds bizarre and there is a distinct lack of visual quality to some of the film's action scenes (thanks to George's struggles with the cinematographer in London) that look strange. The fact that it still resonates with people today (myself included) is a sign that we can look past the technical marvels of the later Star Wars movies and appreciate this one for starting the whole series.
The Empire Strikes Back is a different beast altogether. It upped the quality of the acting, sound and visual effects and took the story in a natural progression from the first instead of replicating the original story. The film is much darker than the first, with more moral and ethical dilemmas added onto the world instead of just having another Empire vs Rebels movie. Luke, Han, Leia and Darth Vader (chiefly the main cast of this movie) are all pushed and pulled into new directions with their characters. Luke begins to realize just how strenuous the life of a Jedi would be, Han starts to put aside his selfishness as he finds love, Leia tries to balance her life as a Rebel Leader with her growing affection for Han and even Darth Vader comes to some shocking conclusions about his life and the confrontation he has with Luke on Bespin is easily one of the greatest in the series.
Yoda is introduced as well in this film, further subverting our expectations of what the Force was. We all had a preconceived notion that the Jedi Master who trained Obi-Wan Kenobi had to be some incredible warrior (as Luke did), but Yoda is there to remind us that the Force cannot simply be judged based on a character's physical attributes. He is able to lift Luke's X-Wing out of the swamps of Dagobah because his faith in the Force is so unyielding in comparison to Luke, who thinks of it as a means to an end. The Force helped him destroy the Death Star and escape from the Wampa on Hoth, what else did it need to do? Yoda tries in vain to instruct his pupil about sacrifices for the good of the galaxy, to understand and oppose the Dark Side of the Force and to prepare him for his inevitable confrontation with Darth Vader, only to fail when Luke chooses to protect his friends over completing his training, much to the chagrin of Ben and Yoda.
We're introduced to new characters beyond Yoda, including Lando on Bespin. Lando adds another bit of moral grayness to the world that's definitely been needed with Han slowly showing signs of being a full blown hero instead of a self-absorbed smuggler. He betrays Han and Leia to Darth Vader purely out of self interest, only to find that Darth Vader could give less than a damn about Bespin's safety and more about how he could exploit the gas mines to his own advantage, constantly changing deals with Lando and showing he truly could not care about the safety of Lando's people on the Cloud City station, thus prompting Lando to triple cross Vader and help Leia and Chewbacca escape the new Imperial Base.
But the confrontation we'd all been waiting for comes when Luke is drawn to Bespin to try and save his friends from the Empire, only to fall right into Darth Vader's trap. Despite the best efforts of Luke, Vader is essentially toying with him and trounces the boy in a vicious Lightsaber Duel where the most famous revelation in cinematic history is revealed, that being that Darth Vader truly was Luke's father, Anakin Skywalker. But rather than submit to Vader, Luke allows himself to fall from his precarious ledge to what he could only assume would be his death, only for fate to intervene and for him to be rescued by his friends. The movie ends on a very somber note as none of the central four characters got what they wanted. Luke now faces a moral dilemma about his father's fate, Leia has lost the love of her life, Han is frozen in carbonite and being shipped to vile gangster Jabba the Hutt and Vader realizes his one and only chance of swaying Luke to his side against the Emperor has failed and he simply walks off the bridge of his Star Destroyer defeated. The characters are all in a dark place, but there is a clear light at the end of the tunnel for them all to go down. And we eagerly anticipate the finale to this masterstroke of writing and directing from Leigh Brackett, Lawrence Kasdan and of course the late Irvin Kershner.
Return of the Jedi...well...I named a movie syndrome after it so you can bet it didn't meet the expectations of it's predecessor. Sure, it was a big hit, but this was the beginning of some of the changes in Star Wars that made it go from something the whole entire family could enjoy into something that was becoming more and more for kids. The Wookie planet that was in the original script soon became the planet Endor with the Ewoks. The original John Wayne ending of Luke essentially riding off into the sunset after the destruction of both the Jedi and the Sith was replaced with a happy celebration about the destruction of the Empire. Luke and Leia's relationship is confirmed to be simply siblings, which the actions of both characters in previous films seemed to make as a retcon. The film is loaded with comic relief and fun, lighthearted adventure the likes of which Empire never once had.
The most drama from Jedi stems from the final confrontation between Luke, Darth Vader and The Emperor. With Yoda gone, Luke is essentially the last of the Jedi. Vader simply wants to do as the Emperor bids, while Palpatine himself wants Luke to replace and destroy Vader. Luke has been told the entire time by both the Dark Side and the Light Side that destroying Vader or submitting to the Emperor were the only inevitable outcomes, but Luke invents for himself an alternative path. He defeats Vader in a rush of rage, but refuses to kill him and tosses his weapon aside to show to the Emperor that he was and would always be a Jedi Knight as his father had been. Palpatine torments Luke with his powerful Force Lightning, only for Vader to realize how much his son truly meant to him and for him to throw his master into the power core of the Second Death Star itself and destroy himself and Palpatine in the process. Vader is redeemed, only to die in his son's arms a few moments later after Luke unmasks his father. While Luke seems to come to terms with the fact that his father had been bad but also redeemed, Leia comes to the conclusion that Luke is her brother and she too possesses the power of a Jedi. While the everyone celebrates ending is hokey, you can accept it given that there was some kind of payoff to what had been set up so well in Empire.
The Prequels and Sequels attempted to replicate the formula for the original three films with the same kind of darkness lingers with a small fragment of hope in the end recipe that Empire was now extremely famous for, but none of them managed to reach those levels of success. Both failed in different ways though, fortunately for those of us who aren't too keen on either series in general.
The Prequels failed because the majority of things that made Empire so good wasn't the story bits George added, but the additions the members of the crew made. Irvin Kershner was able to get to an emotional core of the characters that George couldn't hope to get on his own. The achievements of Frank Oz's puppetry and even the adlibbing of Harrison Ford all contributed to what made that film so good. But when George removed many of those facets and took complete control of the Prequels, we got the same mess of a film that the first Star Wars was, only this time without the endearing factor of there not being another film like it. The Prequels had laughably bad dialogue (again, the first film wasn't very innocent either), relied too heavily on CGI and had some of the lousiest acting from some very fine actors. Revenge of the Sith ended in roughly the same way that Empire did, and many praise it as being the greatest film in the saga because of this. I raise two objection points to that. Firstly, when it came out in 2005, we all knew what this would lead up to. We didn't care about the Jedi who walked into an obvious trap throughout the entire series, nor did we care about whiny Anakin Skywalker who might as well have been a Sith the entire time, and we knew exactly what was going to unfold in Episodes IV through VI. You can make the argument that with all of the films out now that this sort of saps the wonder out of the ending of Empire, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Empire still leaves you with a sense of wonder if things will end up well for it's four main characters. Sith just ends with Vader helping the Emperor build his Galactic Empire and Obi-Wan going into hiding while taking Luke to his Aunt and Uncle. We're not left to wonder what will happen now, because was know what will. It's an unfortunate fact that Sith is a prequel and not released first, but that's life. You don't always get what you want in the end.
The Sequels failed because they tried way too hard to be the Original Trilogy. The characters weren't interesting enough. None of them. Kylo Ren, Finn, Phasma, Poe, they all lacked the kind of charm simplicity to the acting performances in the OT and even the awkward and stilted acting of the PT. Rey is obviously the only character we draw any interest in and they thoroughly botch her place in the universe as well, first by Rian Johnson attempting too hard to subvert expectations and then by JJ Abrams trying way too hard to retcon it. If they had stuck to their guns about which path they chose for Rey, the stories might have been salvageable, if only because they were soft remakes of the OT. Even the idea of Rey being a nobody would have worked because then she has a crisis of identity in Episode IX where she feels like she genuinely belongs nowhere and must make the decision between ruling with Kylo Ren or opposing him. But we didn't get that. We got the worst of both worlds, with inconsistent writing and an absolute bonkers revelation that still makes no sense no matter how you look at it.
Both the ST and the PT failed to understand what made The Empire Strikes Back so good. They put the emphasis on the tone or the emphasis on the M Night Shyamalan twist instead of the characters themselves. We care about Han and Leia's relationship as it falls apart when Han is frozen in carbonite. We care about the revelation of Luke's heritage and how truly screwed the Galaxy was if the Empire prevailed. We see the distress in Luke and feel it in his words. The characters are what drives this masterpiece, not the twist or the tone of the story as the new crew and George all failed to see.
And then that's when it hits you. No matter how you look at it, with all twelve theatrically released Star Wars Films (including Rogue One, Solo and The Clones Wars), the vast majority of the films range somewhere between Good and Poor in terms of quality. There are only three or four outliers in these same terms, with Empire being in the superb category and arguably The Phantom Menace, Rise of Skywalker and Attack of the Clones all being in the garbage category. But the rest of the films sit there in the middling category of passable to very mediocre. No matter how you look at it, Empire sits at the top of the list on it's own.
Empire was a mistake. A colossal one. Not in the way you'd think of a theatrical mistake, but in that it heightened the expectations for all Star Wars films so dramatically that anything short of that would be considered subpar and disappointing. But when eight of the twelve films fall into a middling category (that doesn't necessarily mean the film is bad, just not a masterpiece), does that make the rest of the series an outlier, or is Empire the one that sticks out like a sore thumb? There hasn't been a film like Empire since in the Star Wars saga and I suspect there will not be again until Star Wars is no longer in the hands of people in it solely for the money. And no, that person is not George Lucas. The next Star Wars series needs to be put in the hands of someone who will place characters first and spectacle second. Obviously spectacle is important, but so is having characters we care about, or did we learn nothing from Rogue One? Is that person Jon Favreau? I doubt it, due to his spectacle driven films in the remakes of The Jungle Book and The Lion King. Is it Rian Johnson? Nah, I think he lost that chance when he veered way off the path for his film (which I respect enough to defend The Last Jedi but has since become redundant thanks to Rise of Skywalker). I think the person best suited to fix and save Star Wars will come, but not for a long, long time.
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