Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back

Release Date: May 21, 1980

Watch Date: June 17, 2024

“Discover the conflict between good and evil in the electrifying Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. After the destruction of the Death Star, Imperial forces continue to pursue the Rebels. After the Rebellion’s defeat on the ice planet Hoth, Luke journeys to the planet Dagobah to train with Jedi Master Yoda, who has lived in hiding since the fall of the Republic. In an attempt to convert Luke to the dark side, Darth Vader lures young Skywalker into a trap in the Cloud City of Bespin.”

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   Don’t ask me why, because I couldn’t tell you, but our toddler fell in love with this movie.

   She was home sick that day, with a cold she can’t seem to shake for the past two weeks, it just keeps coming and going and making everyone’s life difficult. And we really are going to try to finish all these movies this month – we are so close – so we thought, why not? At best, she naps through it, at worse she pays attention for a few minutes.

   She watched every single second. She asked questions, constantly. She cheered, she cared about the princess, she encouraged people to run away from Hoth, she wondered why Baby Yoda was so old. This girl was engaged, far more then I think she had any right to be. It did, at least, put me in the position of being the one to answer constant questions about Star Wars, since almost all questions were directed at me, giving me no time to ask my own and giving Bob a much needed break.

   I think this movie is stronger than the last, we explore what it means to be a Jedi more, Han and Leia’s relationship develops, we discover more about Darth Vader, Lando is in this film – and I’m just going to have a soft spot for him after Solo no matter what I do, he’s just such a fun character. There’s no massive thing to destroy, it’s just the Rebellion trying to survive, Luke trying to train and then mounting a rescue mission. It doesn’t even end happily for every character, with Han Solo not even conscious by the end, and Luke permanently damaged. Unlike the previous film, there is no giant defeat of the Empire. It’s just people surviving, building towards a war and an ultimate climactic battle but not quite getting there.

   There’s also a lot more variety of locations, which I appreciate. I don’t know how big the budget for the first film was, and there were quite a lot of space battles, which explains why you only get desert and internals of space ships. But this one we go to Hoth, and Dagobah, and Cloud City, and an asteroid. There’s variety. There’s life. A whole galaxy is beginning to build out now.

   So, as I hoped, now that I’m actually investing into this world, and these characters, over a much larger time frame, I’m starting to see why this franchise means so much to so many, and I’m starting to appreciate what it has to offer – and not just in a, I’m partnered with a man so I better understand what Star Wars is about. Let’s see if ‘Return of the Jedi’ will cap off this trilogy before, according to Bob, this all goes majorly downhill.