Chapter Two: The Empire Strikes Back
By Brett Ballard-Beach
November 24, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Originally, this week’s column was going to be a three-way standoff between Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, but after personal events of the past week, and the realization that I was not going to find 464 minutes of free time - or, if you extended me your unwavering optimism, 493 minutes, to allow for the extended/special versions of Empire and Two Towers, which if you did, I humbly thank you for your naïve foolishness - I realized I would have to set aside the cage match theatrics that I pulled out in my last column and apply a laser-trained focus on just one of the three. So, with no digressions into sex, drugs or rock n roll this time (well, I will grant you the Weird Al quote but nothing more), some thoughts, tangential and otherwise, on The Empire Strikes Back, 31 years after its release.
The Empire Strikes Back was the first film my parents took me to see in the theater. This sounds more impressive and wow-worthy than it actually is. I am relying on their word because I have no recollection of this event. It is possible I was so scarred by the revelation of Luke’s lineage that I repressed the knowledge for the remainder of my childhood. The summer of 1983 (I was seven) is the first time period I vividly recall seeing films on the big screen so Return of the Jedi (the first Star Wars film to go directly into a 1,000+ screen release) does fall into this epoch. I was thrilled beyond words at the time as I recall.
I also mark this era as my limited-time experiment with collecting action figures, mostly of the Star Wars variety. I had the discombobulated C-3PO packed up in his little sack for Chewbacca to carry around on his back. I had Han encased in his carbon crypt and I had black robed Skywalker (which among all the sartorial stylings of the SW characters, I think I liked the most, even more, so I must admit, than Leia’s bondage/captive-of-Jabba outfit). I even had the carrying case in the shape of Vader’s head. But this didn’t last long. I often ponder why exactly I lost interest so quickly with action figures/dolls and video games and later on, comic books (more on that next column). They seemed like things, I guess, to outgrow. (For me, anyway).
I fell into reading heavily at an early age and lost the desire (or maybe patience?) to be able to focus on most other game-playing endeavors for anything more than a few minutes at a time. And this goes for outdoor activities as well. I broke my grandfather and father’s hearts by expressing no interest in fly-fishing. My thought then as now: I cannot fathom how standing in freezing water whipping a fly dangling from a line attached to a rod back and forth in the hopes of enticing a fish to bite is supposed to be calming or edifying. For those like my antecedents, for whom it attained a level of Zen satisfaction, I can only humbly submit that I am glad it provided them with so much pleasure.
I watched Star Wars endlessly on cable between the ages of five and six (the trash compactor scene stands out the most from those early viewings, as does many a Vader-fueled nightmare), and saw Empire and Jedi multiple times growing up. But before this past weekend, the last time I had seen any of the original trilogy was in the winter of 1997 when the Special Editions of each of the films graced the big screen. Two years later, I was in line for the midnight screenings of The Phantom Menace and was so underwhelmed that... I haven’t watched it since and still haven’t seen Attack of the Clones or Revenge of the Sith. Well, that’s not entirely the reason. I also got tired of Lucas’ endless tweaks to his early films (the clear sign of someone with too much money and time and power on his hands) and his dictatorial imposition that only theaters with digital projectors be allowed to screen Clones and Sith.
I understand that my adverse reaction may have been partly spurred by my sadness at how quickly the idea of physical, tactile film was being swept away (and a decade later things are pretty much at the point George wanted them to be) but I also had no strong desire to see the fifth and sixth films. I have also calculated that based on the number of times Lucas has rereleased them in my lifetime, my son can expect to see them tweaked anew somewhere in the neighborhood of six to eight times, starting with the yearly 3D retro-fittings that look to stretch out from 2012 to 2017. From a standpoint of selfishness, I am glad that Lucas is releasing them plot chronologically as this means I may yet avoid having to see the second trilogy on the big screen, before my son undoubtedly discovers all things Star Wars.
And so I found myself watching the 2006 Limited Edition DVD release of The Empire Strikes Back (not the ’97 Special Edition but the original 1980 theatrical version on Disc 2) on a crappy 22 inch screen at my father-in-law’s house this past weekend, actually having to wear my glasses as my eyes strained and complained after becoming accustomed to the 42 inch HD widescreen my wife and I bought earlier this year. I am somewhat ashamed to reveal that I only made it halfway through on my first viewing attempt and had to finish it the following morning. Since I haven’t seen both trilogies, I can’t fairly claim it as the best of the series and (also somewhat ashamedly) since I was unexpectedly underwhelmed with this first viewing in 15 years this isn’t going to be a simple singing of its praises. All I can really do is attempt to hold on to some of the glow and offer up a few thoughts on what I think about when I think about Episode V:
The Title
It has the best title in the series, even if it is really just an episode title. There is something fatalistic about it. I always envision it as something one would encounter preceding a lost B-movie on some obscure cable channel in an era before home video. Not even the co-opting of it and the idea of “star wars” in general by our 40th president dims its B&W (for it is certainly not an “in color” title) luster.
The Screenwriters
For the first of only two times in the six films, Lucas allowed outside hands to write from his original story, with separate credit going to legendary noir and science fiction author/screenwriter Leigh Brackett (her final screenplay, she turned in her draft before passing away from cancer in early 1978) and Lawrence Kasdan (his first, soon to be followed by Raiders of the Lost Ark and later, Return of the Jedi). From what I can gather (which isn’t easy as the script exists in only two places with no allowances to be copied or checked out) a lot of changes were made between what she submitted and what wound up on screen, but the feel of the film to be is already palpatine... er, palpable (Yes, that will be my one and only attempt at any SW-related humor, verbal or otherwise). Between her credit for this and on Altman’s The Long Goodbye in 1973, her writing was used as the springboard for two of the more distinguished films from that decade that managed to cover her dual genres of interest.
The Feel
Empire Strikes Back doesn’t have a beginning, middle or end, precisely, which is perhaps what makes it appealing to my tastes. It starts and stops in the middle of action and doesn’t build to the demolition of a Death Star (or the introduction of furry forest critters to accomplish this task). It features matter-of-fact heroism (Han riding off into the endless driving snowstorms of Hoth to rescue Luke), matter-of-fact entanglements (Han and Leia’s true feelings for each other bubble up quite naturally) and matter-of-fact earth-shattering revelations (Yoda’s tossed-off line “No. There is another” in response to the claim that Luke is the last Jedi and um, oh yeah, that issue of paternity I referred to earlier).
Star Wars and Return of the Jedi build to great spectacles of destruction and contain many thrilling chase sequences but Empire’s most notable chase sequence - the pursuit through the asteroid field - occurs at the midway point and seems to be there mostly to set up the film’s best visual joke, the revelation that the Millennium Falcon hasn’t quite landed in the cave its crew thought it had. And yet, I hesitate to credit it entirely with an existential feeling of despair and helplessness. Rather, it seems to owe as much to the sci-fi as to the hardboiled noir that both Kasdan and Brackett dabbled in (he with his directorial debut Body Heat, she with the classic The Big Sleep, among others). The film is as much about characters and attitude as it is about plot, and although it certainly has a lot of the latter, the why of what happens seems almost arbitrary alongside the effect these incidents have on the characters.
The Locales
Although it isn’t precisely a one-third, one-third, one-third split, the film seems roughly to spend an equal amount of time on the ice planet of Hoth, the swampy Dagobah (or the asteroid field) and the luxurious Cloud City. These may not be the most memorable or aesthetically pleasing of the series’ locations (I am a sucker for the lush green forests of Endor) but there is a common theme in the film that unites them: that of a hidden malignancy or threat that rests just under the surface. The asteroid cave revealed to be the mouth of a space worm is the most obvious but consider the traitorous actions of Lando in betraying his guests, Luke’s capture and near death at the claws of the wampa before escaping and making his way to the even worse prospect of freezing to death, and Luke’s descent into the swamps on Dagobah, where his vision of Vader presages their meeting, Vader’s revelation, and Luke’s loss of his hand. More importantly, after the coming together of the various heroes and heroines in the first film, Empire goes out of its way to keep them apart, or in the case of C-3PO’s separation from R2-D2: separate, and in parts.
Yoda
I don’t know how to precisely capture Yoda’s appeal. Frank Oz appears to have envisioned him as a really old shriveled-up Grover, cuddly and yet badass at the same time. Even though his speech patterns could have become as immediately polarizing and infuriating as Jar Jar Binks’, there is a calm and stillness at the center of the ancient Jedi Master that both soothes and commands respect. Plus, the screenplay and Irvin Kershner’s direction use Yoda precisely as much as he needs to be and not a minute extra. And, loath though I am to turn to The Empire Strikes Back for life-guiding philosophies, “Do or do not, there is no try” contains a central truth. If someone tells me they are going to “try” their best, rhetorical device though it may be, all I hear is someone who isn’t going to come at the situation with 110%. They have already committed to “try” which is significantly less than all they’ve got (maybe 65-70% but certainly no more). Okay, end of inspirational sidebar. If you want something more, Who Moved My Cheese awaits you at your local library.
The Final Shots
There is a desolate beauty in the simplicity of the shot and reverse shot that ends the film. Luke and Leia stare out the window of a medical center looking off into the vastness of space, bidding farewell to Lando and Chewbacca in the Falcon as they set off in search of Han. The film ends with a view from the outside looking in, rendering the two as little more than stick figures in the distance, regarded by the abyss that threatens to swallow up the Resistance.
Next time: The first of two non-movie related Chapter Twos. In anticipation of next summer’s The Avengers and its place in the recent string of interconnected Marvel-produced features, I look back 25 years to a nine-issue comic book sequel that encompassed pretty much the width and breadth of the Marvel Universe at the time.