by Edward Gross
But what finally happens is he dumped so much money down that pipe that he’s got to go back and get a line of credit for The Empire Strikes Back. And that’s when Fox was like, “Ha, ha, ha. Okay, we’ll get to sign off on that.” So it was him again, trying to take control of his own destiny in that way, but he constantly risks everything. That, to me, is really incredible and one of the big surprises of his narrative. He does it probably for the first time as a young man when his father is like, “George, just come run the company,” and he’s like, “Nope, Dad. I’m going to be a millionaire before I’m thirty and I’m off to film school in Southern California. See you later.” A really bold move.
JEANINE BASINGER
(film historian, founder and curator of the Cinema Archives of Wesleyan University)
The Empire Strikes Back is like a whole new movie. It’s a whole new world and it doesn’t feel like a sequel. It does give you the things you wanted or liked from the first one, but you’re getting in a totally different experience. Remember, The Godfather II was a huge success also for the same reasons. Usually, sequels are a less good version of the first one, with the characters and actors a little bit older, everybody a little bit more tired. Your anticipation, when you went to the first one you maybe didn’t expect a lot and you got a lot. Now you’re going to the sequel and you’re expecting everything, and maybe you don’t get so much. But the great thing that The Empire Strikes Back did give you was a new and different level of story and it took you in a deeper and more character-driven direction. And it didn’t count on the technology that had made the first one so wonderful. Not that the first one didn’t have other things, but it didn’t rely on that. It had to give you something more. It knew that to really keep this going, you would have to involve the audience at a deeper, more character-driven level. I think that’s what worked there. That would be my sense of it. But it began to drift after The Empire Strikes Back. I liked what would be the completion of the trilogy with Return of the Jedi, but, again, I started to drift.
BRIAN JAY JONES
Look at a film like The Last Jedi and people shit all over it until the next one came out and suddenly everyone’s like, “Oh that middle piece was such a great one; the dark one. It’s sad.” And remember there were probably not critics as much as fans, but fans who were just as pissed when Empire came out because it ended on a cliffhanger. Well, that’s called a story arc, but I remember as a thirteen-year-old walking out of there without any closure. My brain hurt.
RAY MORTON
Lucas decided to end Empire on a cliffhanger—on several cliffhangers, actually. The story ends with all of its central narrative threads unresolved and leaves us wondering if Vader is really Luke’s father; if Luke will be able to resist temptation, complete his training, and become a Jedi; or if he will turn to the dark side and become an even greater villain than Vader; what will happen to Han; how the romantic triangle between Luke, Leia, and Han will be resolved; who the “another” is; and if the rebels will defeat the Empire or will the Empire vanquish the Alliance?
ALAN DEAN FOSTER
Nobody saw the cliffhanger coming, and for what they wanted it to do, it worked perfectly. It set everybody up who wasn’t already set up to come to Jedi. It’s like, “Wait a minute, I want to see what happens.” So it did everything it was supposed to do from the standpoint of getting people to want to see the third part. Whether it works 100 percent as a story, I don’t know. But it’s not my universe.
RAY MORTON
Leaving the audience hanging like this was a risky move—on the one hand, it was completely in the tradition of the Saturday morning serials that were part of Lucas’s original inspiration for Star Wars. On the other hand, ending the movie with so many plotlines unresolved and making viewers wait three years for the answers could cause the audience to reject the film. That didn’t happen of course, but in the conception stage, it was quite a gamble.
HARRISON FORD
(actor, “Han Solo”)
What obligation is there to tie up every question with an equal answer? [Empire’s] cliffhanger is because the trilogy is really constructed in the classic form of a three-act play. Naturally, there are going to be questions in the second act which have to be resolved in the third. I figure that there was at least $11 worth of entertainment in Empire. So, if you paid four bucks and didn’t get an ending, you are still $7 ahead of the game.
RAY MORTON
One of Empire’s greatest achievements is that it expands and deepens the world of Star Wars. The first picture introduced us to a unique new galaxy and this sequel shows us there is much more to that galaxy than we previously realized—more worlds, more races, more cultures, more creatures, more weapons, more intrigue, more dimensions—and invites us to imagine that there is even more to come in the next movie. Empire leans more into pure fantasy than its predecessor; the Dagobah scenes especially have a Tolkien-esque feel to them and Luke’s trial in the cave is more mystical than anything seen in the parent picture. We are in a land of dreams (and nightmares) in this picture and it is in The Empire Strikes Back that George Lucas’s ancient space-age fairy tale transcends its Flash Gordon/space opera origins and moves into the realm of myth and magic.
JOHN KENNETH MUIR
(author, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films of the 1970s)
This film works so beautifully, in part, because it eschews the pastiche approach of Star Wars. It proceeds from the notion not that the film is a combination of old elements reshuffled in a new setting, or pattern. Rather it proceeds from the assumption that the universe is real, and the characters themselves exist not as stand-ins for serial heroes like Flash Gordon, but on their own two feet as real characters. The pastiche approach is gone, and the characters take on new depth and meaning. Solo and Leia find that they have more in common, perhaps, than they would have thought possible, and that these qualities are the basis for a romantic attraction. Luke’s journey, he discovers, will not be as easy as he had hoped or believed it would be. In every way, the characters are deeper, and challenged to a greater extent in The Empire Strikes Back. Sure, it was tough to destroy the Death Star at the end of Star Wars, but in The Empire Strikes Back, Luke learns the real battle will be to overcome his own character limitations, biases, and beliefs. The universe in The Empire Strikes Back becomes a whole lot more grounded, and real, and less about the “movie-ness” of the enterprise.
RAY MORTON
The characters are more complex in Empire than they were in Star Wars. Thanks to strong writing and more confident, nuanced performances by the actors, Luke, Leia, and Han transcend their archetypal origins and present as real, three-dimensional people. The supporting characters have also been better fleshed out, Chewbacca especially (his poignant howl as the doors of the rebel base on Hoth close, stranding his friends Han and Luke out in the fatal cold, is one of the most touching [and human] moments in the entire trilogy). Yoda combines humorous eccentricity and dignified wisdom to create a truly memorable character (that this multifaceted persona is portrayed completely convincingly by a puppet makes the accomplishment even more impressive). Darth Vader, an unforgettable but undeniably one-dimensional villain in the original movie, becomes a much more formidable personage in this film—one with a surprising and complicated backstory and a complex Machiavellian ambition hitherto unsuspected.
STEVE SANSWEET
Empire is absolutely my favorite. It was a dark, complex, initially trusting movie that made me think of more than the other two ever did. And it was unexpected, because I had planned on seeing a thrill ride like in the first one. I wasn’t expecting to put much thought into it. Suddenly, there was a whole new layer of complexity. The mysticism that Yoda added to Empire really made it a more adult picture that stayed with me a lot longer.
RAY MORTON
Many critics and fans describe Empire as being a “dark” film, certainly when compared to its predecessor. I’ve never liked this description—to me, dark implies something that is
grim, violent, and depressing. Instead, I see Empire as a film that plays for keeps: it’s a fantasy, but it takes itself seriously. The stakes in the story are high and consequences are not backed away from. It’s a scarier film than Star Wars, more subterranean and primal and much more psychologically complex. Many consider The Empire Strikes Back to be the best film in the entire series. For the most part, I tend to agree. My only hesitation is that Star Wars is the original movie—the prototype—and therefore can stand alone, whereas Empire can’t exist without Star Wars. Therefore, the first movie may have an edge in claiming the title. With that said, Empire is certainly my personal favorite of the bunch.
IRVIN KERSHNER
I felt Empire was the best film. And that’s not meant to be disrespectful to George with Star Wars, because that was the first one, which is usually the most difficult. I give him a lot of credit. It’s his concept.
* * *
If there was a “casualty” in the success of the growing Star Wars franchise, it would undoubtedly be Alan Ladd, Jr., the executive who believed in George Lucas and, because of it, fought to have it brought into existence in the first place. Yet, with no small sense of irony, it was that relationship with Lucas that ultimately cost him his job at Fox.
DALE POLLOCK
George couldn’t have kept his vow of independence if Alan Ladd had not said yes, or fought his board of directors to protect the project. How did Lucas reward him? “I never want to make another movie for you again.” And Alan Ladd tried like crazy when he was at Orion after he left Fox to get Lucas to do something for him, and Lucas wouldn’t. And yet it was Laddie who protected his movie from the Fox board of directors, who would’ve shut the film down. Obviously, loyalty to people in the business was not very important to him. And without Laddie there would not have been a Star Wars, or at least not the Star Wars we came to see. Might’ve been a very diminished, not very good film given that he wouldn’t have been able to realize his entire vision. Alan Ladd went on to his career as a producer; he didn’t need Lucas, but I believe he was deeply hurt when he wanted to have Lucas come and help make a film for his company and help put it on the map, but he wouldn’t. After the book [Skywalking] came out I heard from many of the people I interviewed, and Laddie in particular said, “I’m so glad you showed the way that he really just dumped all of us.”
BRIAN JAY JONES
Lucas had other problems as well. You have to remember that Empire was all of Lucas’s money. He’s the one paying every crew member on that set and for every minute that they run overtime. You read that little paperback on the making of Empire … The movie’s not even done yet, and Lucas is already grumbling about how much time this thing is taking. So I think he knew that Kersh was the right director, but at the same time he’s kind of like, “What are you doing, man? Stop being an artist and just finish the goddamn film!” I think he was pleased with the way it came out, so there were no complaints on that front. But he was really angry as far as I can tell that the thing just kept going. What’s funny is that unlike other directors there isn’t a studio breathing down his neck; Fox will take it whenever they can get it. The timeline at that point is Lucas’s timeline, but, again, it’s his money.
* * *
In between The Empire Strikes Back and the ultimately-titled Return of the Jedi (after some dalliance with the name Revenge of the Jedi, which was dropped when someone realized that the Jedi don’t seek revenge), the Star Wars universe had begun an expansion in a new medium. NPR (National Public Radio) debuted a thirteen-part radio dramatization of the first film (broadcast between March 9 and June 8, 1981), with Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels vocally reprising their respective roles of Luke Skywalker and C-3PO. They were joined by Ann Sachs as Princess Leia, Perry King as Han Solo, Bernard Behrens as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Brock Peters as Darth Vader, and Keene Curtis as Grand Moff Tarkin. The Empire dramatization, which was broadcast between February 14 and April 25, 1983, added Billy Dee Williams voicing Lando Calrissian and John Lithgow as Yoda. Return of the Jedi, produced by Blackstone Audio, made its debut on November 5, 1996, after a thirteen-year delay due to NPR abandoning the radio drama format due to budget cuts, and saw cast changes in the form of Joshua Fardon as Luke and Arye Gross as Lando, with the additions of Edward Asner as Jabba the Hutt, Paul Hecht as the Emperor, Ed Begley, Jr., as Boba Fett, and David Birney as Anakin Skywalker.
The radio dramas got their start when Lucas “sold” the rights to his Star Wars films to National Public Radio station KUSC-FM, which was connected with his alma mater, the University of Southern California, for the exorbitant fee of … one dollar. With rights to the scripts, the trilogy’s myriad of sound effects, and John Williams’s score, NPR in turn went after science fiction author Brian Daley, whose credits include a trilogy of novels focused on Han Solo, as well as other radio dramas, to take on the adaptation. But rather than doing a straight adaptation, Daley expanded the original story, adding new elements and reinserting old ones—expanding Star Wars to a six-hour radio drama, and The Empire Strikes Back into a four-hour drama (minus three to four minutes per episode for credits). Years later Return of the Jedi was also produced, no longer under the aegis of the not-for-profit NPR, and as a result Mark Hamill, who had been so great in the first two radio adaptations, bowed out.
KYLE NEWMAN
(director, Fanboys)
The Brian Daley radio dramas were something massive for me, because there were these gaps in the movie, but you could listen to these things and they filled them in. They’re well performed, and what they do is they showed you extra little corners of the galaxy, ancillary parts of the story, little expanded bits—like, the scene ended in the movie, but, “What? I can hear more about this about how Princess Leia got the plans to the Death Star?” and there’s all these back stories, and Luke’s friends? I’m like, “What’s going on?” I just thought that was incredible. That’s what made you realize Star Wars was more than a series of movies. It was a story. It was a legacy. We even did a radio drama at Star Wars Celebration. I wrote an original Han Solo thing, a throwback. That was, to me, so magical, hearing it and realizing that your mind just filled in all the gaps. Once you had those key Ben Burtt sounds and—anything that could bring me closer to Star Wars, I just gobbled up.
PETER HOLMSTROM
(cohost, The Rebel & The Rogue podcast)
The radio shows are a fascinating look into what could have been with Star Wars. The Jabba deleted scene, the Biggs/Luke backstory, even hearing Mara Jade appear in the Return of the Jedi adaptation due to it being produced after the Thrawn trilogy was done—these were real treats for fans. I love radio dramas, and it’s a shame they didn’t stay popular in America like they did in Europe. NPR took a chance on this old medium with their adaptations—as well as a few other radio dramas at the time—in the hope of boosting NPR’s ratings, so they could receive more funding, but they didn’t boost the ratings like NPR hoped they would, so they abandoned the concept before Return of the Jedi was produced.
BRIAN DALEY
(writer, Star Wars radio dramas)
It was like exploring different corners of a room you already knew well and finding different things. I had a copy of the script and some pictures from the film. At first, I had three meetings with Lucasfilm per script, but that eventually became three scripts per one meeting. They really trusted me with the material.
ANTHONY DANIELS
(actor, “C-3PO,” Star Wars radio dramas)
Brian really expanded the films. It sometimes seemed that we cut out portions of Brian’s scripts to make the movies, rather than the radio scripts being adapted from the movies. When I do advertising or other projects with C-3PO’s voice, I often have to stop and say, “Threepio wouldn’t say that line of dialogue,” but never with Brian’s work. He knew Threepio at least as well as I do.
MARK HAMILL
The Star Wars radio show appealed to me, because it wasn’t money-oriented. I feel bad that all kids can’t afford to buy a
glow-in-the-dark Yoda or whatever. This was one way to pay back the fans, since it was free over radio. The radio shows are great because you can take them into your mind. For visual effects, you need a budget of millions of dollars. There is no budget on imagination. And you don’t have funny matte lines in your imagination.
BRIAN DALEY
The first time around it reminded me about the joke with the two boxers. The ref says, “I don’t want to see any gouging, biting, or kicking.” And one fighter sighs, “There go all my best punches.” When you’re writing a novel, you have all sorts of time for expository prose. With this medium, it’s the dialogue, music, and sound effects that really make it.