Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back
Director: Irvin Kershner
Writer: Leigh Brackett, Lawrence Kasdan
Sequel to: Star Wars
Cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, David Prowse, Frank Oz, Alec Guinness, James Earl Jones
Seen on: 7./8.11.2025

Plot:
The Rebel Alliance has found refuge on a distant planet and is trying to plan for their next steps against the empire. As the Empire is preparing their own plans, Luke (Mark Hamill) is called to Dagobah to train his Jedi powers. Meanwhile Darth Vader (David Prowse & James Earl Jones) has set his sights on Han (Harrison Ford) and Leia (Carrie Fisher) to attempt to lure Luke to the dark side.

The Empire Strikes Back is, of course, a cinema classic, but I didn’t think it was all that great as a film. It’s not bad to watch, but after my Andor high, it reminded me why I wasn’t a big Star Wars fan until now (and probably will continue not to be).

Okay, it is official now: I had never actually seen The Empire Strikes Back, and I realized when I went „YETIS????“ pretty early on in the film. I am damn sure that I had never seen the yetis before, and thus, one of the things I knew to be true about myself – that I had seen Episode IV through VI as a kid – was disproven. And while it is only a little thing, it is still unsettling to realize something like this. Another moment of “uh-oh” came when my friend said that Empire Strikes Back is the best of the original trilogy (I was about halfway through at that point) and I thought, “well that’s not really very good, is it?”

I continue to stand by this assessment. While I am still very much in awe of the special effects that still hold up incredibly well, especially Yoda (whose role is much smaller than I would have thought) (and, goddamn, he is an annoying fucker for the most part). The visuals have seeped into our collective consciousness by now but must have been something entirely great, back when the movie came out.

I did like the plotting overall that splits up the central characters into different narratives and covers more ground that way. But the foreshadowing/mysterious remarks by Yoda call attention to the many ways the plot is also very flawed. Especially when you have a rough idea where things are headed. But at least there is Lando (Billy Dee Williams) who feels like the better acted Han Solo (sorry, Harrison Ford, but it’s still not your best performance by far).

Overall, I can’t say that it is a bad film, though its underuse of Carrie Fisher is practically criminal. But it still isn’t one that resonates greatly with me. Too much happens to fast with too little character interiority for my taste.

Summarizing: worth seeing for sure, but I am not at risk of becoming a Star Wars superfan.