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Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is a 1980 science fiction film directed by Irvin Kershner. It was the second film to be released in the Star Wars saga, but it is the fifth part of the series by chronology of events. Among fans, it is commonly referred to as TESB or ESB.

The film concerns the continuing struggles of the Rebel Alliance to resist and fight the Galactic Empire. The Empire learns that the Rebels have established a new base on the ice world of Hoth. Following a suggestion from Obi-Wan's spirit, Luke Skywalker begins his major Jedi training with the wise Jedi Master Yoda. In an emotional confrontation with Darth Vader, Luke must face his destiny.

Debuting on May 21, 1980, the film initially received mixed reviews, but over time, has proven to be one of the most popular films in the series among many fans and critics. It was re-released with changes in 1997 (all cinema), 2000 (VHS), and DVD (2004). A 3-D release is planned for 2007. A novelization was released in 1980, and a radio adaptation was broadcast on National Public Radio in the United States.

Plot summary

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The opening crawl reveals that the Galactic Empire has pursued the Rebel forces across the galaxy, forcing them to establish their base on the ice planet Hoth. Darth Vader has sent probes into space in search of Luke Skywalker.

On Hoth, Luke is patrolling when he is knocked unconscious by a Wampa. When Luke regains consciousness, he is held captive in the Wampa's icy cave. Using the Force, he draws his lightsaber and uses it to free himself and escape, only to be overcome by the cold. While lying in the snow, a vision of Obi-Wan Kenobi tells him to go to Dagobah for further training by the Jedi Master Yoda. As the vision fades, Han Solo (who went out searching for him after he didn't check in) finds Luke barely conscious. After Han's tauntaun dies, he cuts its stomach open with Luke's lightsaber and places Luke inside its still warm body to keep him warm until he can set up a survival shelter. It is in this shelter where the two will wait until the storm passes for rescue.

Rebel ships discover and rescue Han and Luke the next day. They are brought to the Rebel Base where Luke recovers. When unusual signals are picked up by sensors, Han Solo and Chewbacca investigate, and discover an Imperial Probe Droid. The Empire has found the Rebel Base; an evacuation begins.

Having found the Rebel base, Darth Vader orders the fleet to Hoth. Admiral Ozzel jumps in too close to Hoth, allowing the Rebels time to prepare an offense. After killing him for his failture, Vader orders for ground troops to land on the planet. Rebel ground forces engage the Imperials, who are armed with agile AT-STs and gargantuan AT-ATs. Led by Luke, the group commences the attack. Realizing the AT-AT armor is too strong for blasters, they instead cripple one using a tow cable. Luke's fighter is shot down by the Imperials, and crash-lands in the snow. Luke manages to destroy another AT-AT by using his cable and lightsaber to put an explosive charge into the belly of the transport.

Imperial Snowtroopers storm the base, forcing Han, Leia, Chewie, and C-3P0 to flee. They reach the Millennium Falcon in time to escape, pursued by Imperial fighters. Flipping the switch to take them to lightspeed, Han realizes that the hyperdrive has been damaged. While trying to fix the hyperdrive system, they approach an asteroid field. Desperate to elude the Imperials, they enter the field. After a dangerous chase, Solo evades his pursuers long enough to land inside one of the larger asteroids to hide, rest and find a way to fix the ship.

Meanwhile, Luke heads for Dagobah to search for Yoda. There he discovers a strange creature who offers to help, and invites Luke to his home. Luke becomes impatient and irritable. The creature then reveals himself to be Yoda, who was only testing Luke's patience. Luke is suddenly apologetic and insists he is willing and unafraid to undergo training as a Jedi.

In his private quarters, Vader receives a message from Emperor Palpatine, who alerts of a new enemy who could destroy the Empire: Luke Skywalker. Vader suggests that if Luke could be turned, he would become a powerful ally. He declares that Luke will join the Empire or die.

The Millennium Falcon escapes what turns out to be the mouth of a space slug that resided in the asteroid the Falcon landed in. An Imperial commander, Captain Needa, spots the Falcon, leading to another pursuit. The Falcon escapes by attaching itself to the Star Destroyer, making it invisible to the Star Destroyer's sensors—a failure that Needa dies for at Vader's hand. When the Star Destroyer performs its regular release of waste, the Falcon detaches to float away with it. They set course for Cloud City, a colony run by Lando Calrissian, an old friend of Solo. However, they are followed by Boba Fett, a bounty hunter hired by Vader.

Luke undergoes rigorous training with Yoda, including lessons about the dangers of the Dark Side of the Force. Yoda reminds Luke of the things the young Jedi will see in his mind. This causes Luke to break concentration, as he has a vision of his friends in danger. He wants to rescue them, but Yoda warns of the dangers of leaving before completing his training. Luke decides he cannot allow his friends to die, and chooses to depart from Dagobah.

Upon arrival at Cloud City, Han's party is welcomed by Lando. However, they find themselves betrayed by Calrissian, who was approached by the Empire before the Rebels' arrival, and forced to cooperate. They become captives of Darth Vader. A carbon-freezing chamber is prepared, intending to freeze Luke once he arrives, and Vader uses the opportunity to test the device on Han Solo. Han is entombed in carbonite and handed over to Boba Fett.

While escorting the Rebel prisoners, the Imperials are overpowered by Lando's security, who set Lando and company free. They attempt to rescue Han, but arrive just in time to see Fett's ship take off. They then engage in a fierce battle with Stormtroopers. During the gunfight, Lando orders an evacuation of Cloud City; they find the Millennium Falcon and escape.

Luke arrives at Cloud City and engages Darth Vader in a fierce lightsaber duel. The battle brings them to a narrow platform in the middle of a deep shaft. Vader manages to cut off Luke's right hand. With Luke defenseless, Vader reveals that he is Luke's father. Luke screams in denial. Vader attempts to persuade Luke to join him and embrace the Dark Side, but Luke jumps off the platform into the abyss of the shaft. Luke is sucked into an air vent, exits the underbelly of the city and lands on an antenna beneath Cloud City.

Sensing Luke's distress through the force, Leia orders Lando to bring them back to Cloud City, as she knows where Luke is. They return to Cloud City and rescue Luke, and are again pursued by Imperial fighters. The ship's hyperdrive system again fails, as it was deactivated by the Imperials. R2-D2 manages to fix the ship in time, however, allowing them to escape the Empire. Vader is left uncharacteristically drained; he does not even kill Admiral Piett for his failure to recapture the Millennium Falcon. In the DVD commentary, Lucas states that this is because Vader feels ambivalent about his son, Luke.

Later, on a Rebel medical frigate, somewhere in space, Luke goes into surgery at the hands of a medical droid, and is given a prosthetic hand as a legitimate replacement for his original one. Lando and Chewie un-dock the Falcon from the frigate, and head for Tatooine to locate and rescue Han. Luke, Leia, and the droids look on to the stars, as the Falcon departs.

Cast

Filming

Filming lasted from March 5 until September 24, 1979. Some of the Hoth sequence was filmed in Norway, in the area from the railway station Finse to the Hardangerjøkelen glacier. The scenes on Dagobah, Cloud City and inside the Hoth base were shot at Elstree Studios in London.

On July 29, 2003, during the production of Revenge of the Sith, Lucas returned to shoot new footage of Palpatine for The Empire Stikes Back. This footage he directed himself, as evidenced by the filming clapper.

Release

The Empire Strikes Back, the long-awaited sequel to what was then known as Star Wars, was released on May 21, 1980.

Reaction

The Empire Strikes Back initially only received mixed reviews. Many critics had problems with the story, but said the film was a technical achievement. To give examples Janet Maslin in The New York Times provided a largely negative review while Pauline Kael writing in The New Yorker was enthusiastic called the film "neo-sophoclian" in its sophistication. In later years the film became considered to be the greatest in the Saga by many Star Wars fans.

The acting is arguably stronger than in any of the other Star Wars films. The direction is arguably the most operatic and confident, and has been suggested to be not over-reliant on editing in order to maintain drama, although this can be disputed by pointing at the large number of very short scenes. According to the actors, Irvin Kershner would encourage group discussions and improvisations from the actors, and would do many takes of each scene, in contrast to Lucas, who would always stick to the script and offer little direction to the actors.

The film's visual style, however, is simultaneously more expressive than the original while remaining uniform with the series and Lucas' overall oeuvre. Images are built using combinations of classical linear composition and abstract, even avant-garde techniques, keeping in the same style of epic tableau work with which each Star Wars film is constructed. These visual motifs, as well as Lucas' meticulous storyboarding of each sequence with artist Joe Johnston, and original reports of conflict between Kershner and Lucas over the latter's interference with the former's direction suggest that the film's visual aspects fall more into the authorship of Lucas than of Kershner although the static-camera 'documentary fantasy' influence/approach of Akira Kurosawa is less pronounced here than in any other Star Wars film although it is admittedly both absent from, and distinctly present in, the movie depending on the individual scene.

While this distribution of work is usually assumed, considering that Lucas is known widely as a visual stylist with little interest in performances and Kershner vice versa, the contributions of cinematographer Peter Suschitzky often goes overlooked by fans of the series and filmgoers in general. Empire's palette of subdued, sculptorly colors and lighting designs throughout are indebted to Suschitzky's artistic touches, and reportedly were among the motivating factors which persuaded director David Cronenberg to work with him.

It is also worth noting that Empire is a film containing sequences shot by at least five live action directors. As well as Kershner and second unit director John Barry (who was hired for the production late, having left Saturn 3 after a dispute with Kirk Douglas and who died of meningitus during production), records at Elstree show both George Lucas and producer Gary Kurtz as directing some scenes and photographs of Lucas directing scenes in Yoda's house exist. London based American filmmaker Harley Cokeliss, who worked on The Muppet Show was hired as an additional director as the film's budget and schedule spiralled out of control. He had only visited to the set to meet with friends who were workin on the production but became a credited Second Unit Director on the film as a result. There was also a roughly one month period between the film's official wrap party on 31 August 1979 and the actual completion of principal photography on 24 September during which Lucas was the only 'director' from the project still working in London.

In retrospect, it is believed to be the most morally ambiguous and darkest of the original trilogy. With the release of Revenge of the Sith, however, some have compared Sith's dark themes to those of Empire, some even considering Sith superior.

Critics had various reactions to changes introduced in re-releases of this film, which were instated for the 1997 and 2004 re-releases.

Budget and box office information

• The estimated budget was $18,000,000.
• The opening weekend in the USA generated $6,415,804
• When it was re-released in 1997, its opening weekend in the USA made $21,975,993
• In the USA, as of 1997, the gross revenue is $291,158,751
• Worldwide, as of 1997, the gross revenue is $538,375,067
• In the USA, rentals generated $173,814,000
• Worldwide, rentals generated $577,200,000

Awards and nominations

Awards

• In 1981 it won an Oscar for "Best Sound". The recipients were Bill Varney, Steve Maslow, Greg Landaker, and Peter Sutton.
• In 1981 it won the Saturn Award. Mark Hamill received "Best Actor". Irvin Kershner receieved "Best Director". "Best Special Effects" went to Brian Johnson and Richard Edlund. It was called the "Best Science Fiction Film".
• In 1981 it won the BAFTA Film Award. John Williams recieved "Best Original Film Music".
• In 1981 it was awarded with the Golden Screen Award
• In 1981 it won a Grammy Award. John Williams received "Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Special".
• In 1981 it won the Hugo Award for "Best Dramatic Presentation".
• In 1981 it won the People's Choice Award for "Favorite Motion Picture".

Nominations

• In 1981 it received an Oscar nomination. "Best Art Direction-Set Decoration" went to Norman Reynolds, Leslie Dilley, Harry Lange, Alan Tomkins, and Michael Ford. "Best Music, Original Score" went to John Williams.
• In 1981 it was nominated the Special Achievement Award for its visual effects. Brian Johnson, Richard Edlund, Dennis Muren, and Bruce Nicholson were the recipients.
• In 1981 it was nominated the Saturn Award. "Best Costumes" went to John Mollo, "Best Music" went to John Williams, "Best Supporting Actor" went to Billy Dee Williams, and "Best Writing" went to Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan.
• In 1981 it was nominated a BAFTA Film Award for "Best Sound". The recipients were Peter Sutton, Ben Burtt, and Bill Varney.
• In 1981 it was nominated a Golden Globe award for "Best Original Score- Motion Picture." The recipient was John Williams.
• In 1981 it was nominated for the WGA Award (Screen) for "Best Comedy Adapted from Another Medium". The recipients were Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan.
• In 2005 it was nominated a Golden Satellite Award for "Best Classic DVD" and "Best Overall DVD." Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope and Star Wars: Episode VI- Return of the Jedi were also nominated.

Re-release

Special Edition

The Empire Strikes Back was re-released in 1997 as part of the "Special Edition" of the original trilogy. Lucas took this opportunity to make several minor changes to this film, including actually showing the wampa creature, rather than having it implied, creating new and more elaborate scenes of cloud city on Bespin, and replacing certain lines of dialogue. The film was also heavily restored and remastered from its original print.

2004 DVD Special Edition

In 2004, for the DVD release, Lucas and team made even more changes, this time more drastic, and mostly in order to ensure continuity between this film and the prequel trilogy, as well as between this film and the others of the original trilogy. These changes include a new scene of Palpatine's conversation with Vader (where Palpatine is now played by Ian McDiarmid), slight improvements on lightsaber effects, as well as slight removals of dialogue. With this release, Lucas supervised the creation of a high-definition digital print of this film, as well as the other entries of the original trilogy.

Trivia

• According to the documentary Empire of Dreams, the movie originally had a budget of $25 million, which was considered big-budget at the time. However, certain production problems (especially while filming the Hoth scenes in snow-stricken Norway) caused the budget to rise to $33 million, making it one of the most expensive movies of its day.
• It is the only one of the six Star Wars films in which no major character dies.
• Many people believe that Darth Vader's famous line is "Luke, I am your father". In actuality, Vader says: "No, I am your father". However, in the NPR radio adaptation, Vader's actual line was, "No, Luke, I am your father".
• Great secrecy surrounded the fact that Darth Vader was Luke's father. David Prowse, who spoke all of Vader's lines during filming, was told to say, "Obi-Wan killed your father", and, until the film premiered, only George Lucas, Irvin Kershner, Mark Hamill and James Earl Jones knew what would really be said. Jones later reported that his reaction to the line was, "Oh, he's lying!"
• The Imperial March is heard for the first time in the Trilogy in this movie, right after the Opening Crawl as the Imperial Star Destroyer is seen. The ominous and menacing musical theme soon becomes associated with Darth Vader and becomes his leitmotif.
• During the Falklands War which took place in 1982, two years after the film was released, when the British task force sailed from Britain, a number of newspapers and magazines carried the headline The Empire Strikes Back!.
• When the first TIE Fighter explodes in the asteroid chase, a small black object can be seen flying out and breaking apart. If someone looks closely, it almost looks like the pilot of the fighter.
• The famous 80’s Swedish rock group Imperiet took their name from this movie. Imperiet means “the empire”.
• Clive Revill (Voice of Emperor) is the only actor to be involved in an episode of Star Trek and a Star Wars film: he played Sir Guy of Gisburne in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "QPid". However, in the DVD version, Revill is replaced by Ian McDiarmid.
• The platform the Millennium Falcon lands on at Cloud City is numbered 327, the same number as the bay the Falcon lands in on the Death Star in A New Hope. In The Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon Jinn identifies Queen Amidala's ship as a "J-type 327 Nubian."
• Boba Fett was the first character whose first appearance in a Star Wars film was predated by an appearance in some other medium, in this case an appearance in an animated short included in The Star Wars Holiday Special from 1978.
• The new version of the scene between Darth Vader and The Emperor (on the DVD) was filmed during principal photography of Episode III.
• The Empire Strikes Back is the only Star Wars film in which the teaser trailer features conceptual artwork by Ralph McQuarrie.
• Empire was the only episode not to have at least one scene on Tatooine, although it is mentioned.

Soundtrack

A special edition 2-disk soundtrack was released on September 21, 2004. The music is composed and conducted by John Williams and is performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. There is a little over two hours of music in this set.

Track listing

Disc One

• 1. 20th Century Fox Fanfare
• 2. Main Title/The Ice Planet Hoth
• 3. The Wampa's Lair/Vision of Obi-Wan/Snowspeeders Take Flight
• 4. The Imperial Probe/Aboard the Executor
• 5. The Battle of Hoth (The Ion Cannon/Imperial Walkers/Beneath the At-At/Escape in the Millenium Falcon)
• 6. The Asteroid Field
• 7. Arrival at Dagobah
• 8. Luke's Nocturnal Visitor
• 9. Han Solo and the Princess
• 10.Jedi Master Revealed/Mynock Cave
• 11.The Training of a Jedi Knight/The Magic Tree

Disc Two

• 1.The Imperial March(Darth Vader's Theme)
• 2.Yoda's Theme
• 3.Attacking a Star Destroyer
• 4.Yoda and the Force
• 5.Imperial Starfleet Deployed/City in the Clouds
• 6.Lando's Palace
• 7.Betrayal at Bespin
• 8.Deal With the Dark Lord
• 9.Carbon Freeze/Vader's Trap/Departure of Boba Fett
• 10.The Clash of Lightsabers
• 11.Rescue from Cloud City/Hyperspace
• 12.The Rebel Fleet/End Title

Novelization

A book version of the movie was written by Donald F. Glut.

Radio drama

A radio drama of the film was written by Brian Daley and produced for and broadcast on the National Public Radio in 1983. There were 10 episodes that were each 22 to 24 minutes long. 750,000 people tuned in to listen to the series on February 14, Valentines Day. The Los Angeles times decribed it as a "fun, spine-tingling, mind-bending piece of escapist entertainment that doesn't miss the visuals a bit."

Main Cast

• See-Threepio(C-3PO).......Anthony Daniels
• Luke Skywalker............Mark Hamill
• Han Solo..................Perry King
• Yoda......................John Lithgow
• Darth Vader...............Brock Peters
• Princess Leia Organa......Ann Sachs
• Lando Calrissian..........Billy Dee Williams

Credits

• Written by Brian Daley
• Based on Characters and Situations Created by George Lucas and on the Screenplay by Leigh Brackett and George Lucas
• Directed by John Madden
• Sound Mixing & Post Production by Tom Voegeli
• Music by John Williams
• Sound Design for Lucasfilm by Ben Burtt

DVD release

The Empire Strikes Back was released on DVD in September 2004. It was bundled with A New Hope and Return of the Jedi along with a bonus disc in a boxed set. It was digitally restored and remastered, with more changes made by George Lucas, detailed in List of changes in Star Wars re-releases. The bonus disc included, according to the official site, "all-new bonus features, including the most comprehensive feature-length documentary ever produced on the Star Wars saga, and never-before-seen footage from the making of all three films."

Features

• Available Subtitles: English
• Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1 EX), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
• Commentary by George Lucas, Irvin Kershner, Ben Burtt, Dennis Muren, and Carrie Fisher

Bonus disc features

• Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy
• Featurettes: The Legendary Creatures of Star Wars, The Birth of the Lightsaber, The Legacy of Star Wars
• Teasers, trailers, TV spots, still galleries
• Playable Xbox demo of the new Lucasarts game Star Wars Battlefront
• The making of the Episode III videogame
• Exclusive preview of Star Wars: Episode III

External links

• The official Episode V site
• Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back at IMDb

• Star Wars episodes
• Action films
• Adventure films
• 1980 films