Okay, now we can get to what many people consider to be the best Star Wars movie. It’s definitely up there for me, taking either the first or second spot depending on my mood. It’s also the first Star Wars film to have huge plot twisting revelations and a cliffhanger ending, things that nowadays seem overdone to death. Let’s jump right in!
After the destruction of the Death Star in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, the Rebellion is hiding out on the frozen planet of Hoth. Luke immediately gets ganked by a yeti wampa (prevailing theory is this was to give an in-universe reason to explain the real life scars on Mr. Mark Hamill’s face after a bad car accident) and in his clawed up and frostbitten state he sees the ghost of Obi-Wan telling him to go to Dagobah and learn the ways of the Force from Yoda, Kenobi’s old master. Han–who really wants to get out of here and pay back Jabba before more bounty hunters come after him–takes time out of his busy schedule of negging Leia to rescue Luke. But oh no! The base is spotted by Imperial probe droids, and now Darth Vader knows where they are! The invasion of Hoth is less a battle and more the Rebellion stalling for time to escape while the Empire destroys their base. But while everyone else goes to a rendezvous point… somewhere not mentioned, Luke and Artoo travel to Dagobah while Han, Chewie, Leia, and Threepio are unable to escape at light speed due to a faulty hyperdrive. They hide out in a cave on an asteroid before realizing the “cave” is actually the stomach of a huge hand puppet space worm. Over on the swamp world of Dagobah, Luke is pestered by a Muppet a weird little green guy who is actually the Jedi Master, Yoda (voiced by Frank Oz). Luke begins his training while Han and Leia start developing actual feelings for each other. But right as the Millennium Falcon is able to escape the Empire’s gaze, they’re followed by a bounty hunter named… well he’s not actually named in the movie, but pop culture osmosis tells us this is Boba Fett (Jeremy Bulloch in suit, Jason Wingreen as original uncredited voice, and Temuera Morrison as post-2004 uncredited voice). Oh hey, speaking of changes to the movie, Vader also has a conversation with his boss, the Emperor. More on that later.
Luke continues to train as Han and crew head to the gas giant Bespin which houses Cloud City, a mining facility run by Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams). He used to own the Falcon but lost it to Han while gambling, something he holds no grudge over, really! Instead he sells our heroes out to the Empire because Vader threatened to take over his operation. The heroes are tortured but never asked questions, because Darth doesn’t want anything from them–he wants Luke to try and rescue them. And after sensing his friends are in danger, Luke indeed abandons his training to go save them. Realizing their best shot at defeating the Emperor could die, Obi-Wan and Yoda vaguely discuss that they have another hope. Ooh, I wonder who that could be! Cloud City turns out to be a trap for Luke–shocking–who is too late to stop Han from getting cryogenically-ish encased in a block of carbonite. And he just had an emotionally vulnerable moment with Leia, too… But while Lando fights back and gets most of the gang out of there, Luke faces down Vader, the man who murdered his father. But no, Vader is his father. No… That’s not true! That’s impossible!!! But instead of joining Daddy (ew, note to self, don’t do that again) and ruling the galaxy as father and son, Luke follows his severed hand in falling down an open chamber. But he manages to save himself at the last second, using the Force to call out to Leia. So our band is mostly back together, but Han is out there, somewhere. Maybe Jabba’s base on Tatooine, but who can really say. The movie ends on a bit of a cliffhanger while still feeling somewhat hopeful.
So let’s talk about the Emperor. In the original cut of Empire, the holographic Emperor was played by Marjorie Eaton (pretty sure of that) and voiced by Clive Revill. He’s a dude with a weird eye and talk about how great it would be for the Dark Side if Luke Skywalker was turned to evil. In the 2004 rerelase, he was fully replaced with Ian McDiarmid, who played Sheev Palpatine in Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi as well as the prequel films. In this new version, he tells Vader that the Rebel who blew up the Death Star is the son of Anakin Skywalker, news Vader is shocked to hear. But like… humor me for a moment… who the fuck is Anakin Skywalker? Yes yes yes, we all know that Vader is Anakin, but imagine someone who has never seen Star Wars, somehow has avoided all pop culture-infused plot points, and is watching the films in release order. Under that–admittedly flimsy–framework, we have no idea who Anakin is. Obi-Wan never mentioned Luke’s father by name in A New Hope, and in the original release Vader’s real name wasn’t spoken until Return of the Jedi. Changing the dialogue to include namedropping Anakin is made for people who watch the films in episode order, which apparently reveals the film order preferred by Lucas. Not me, though!
But as much as I sometimes like this franchise, there’s a lot of that going around. Boba Fett isn’t named here, meaning depending on what you watched and when, people might’ve first learned his name from Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones or The Star Wars Holiday Special. Bit of a difference, there. But so much of the Star Wars lore is not in the films. Here, Vader collects six bounty hunters. Do you know their names? If I said the other five were named IG-88, Zuckuss, Dengar, Bossk, and 4-LOM, would you know which was which? I learned about them–as well as their ships and preferred weapons–from the Star Wars Customizable Card Game made by Decipher Inc. Most cards had a little bit of lore text above the card art, and it turns out just about every unnamed extra in this franchise not only has a name, but a history that may or may not still be canon after Disney bought it all up. Sure, you don’t need knowledge of all that to enjoy the films, but it does start to stand out that we have a lot of characters who never get fleshed–or named–out in the main medium. I don’t believe anyone knows the name of the lesbians that kiss in Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker! I’m gonna rewatch them soon enough, but I just know that the names “Larma D’Acy” and “Wrobie Tyce” are never said. Honestly, this is one of Star Wars‘ biggest flaws: introducing ideas and never fleshing them out in a way that mainstream audiences will see.
All this is to say that C-3PO’s original flavor text said he was 112 years old and never memory wiped, so that’s absolutely not canon since Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Back in my day, we used to–ack, my back just gave out. Never mind, I’m gonna go lie down.
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