Deadshirt

THE SFXPLOSION: Nerd-o cinephiles and Deadshirt contributors Patrick Stinson and Max Robinson watch and discuss the most important sci-fi or action blockbuster for a given year. Sometimes it’s a game changing hit, sometimes it is a career-destroying bomb (Sometimes a flop changes things more than a hit). These aren’t so much straightforward movie reviews as they are stream of consciousness observation and analysis. Our primary goal: pinpointing how these special effects-ridden movies influenced future films. TAKE OUR HAND AND WALK WITH US THROUGH THE HALLS OF CINEMA HISTORY, WON’T YOU?

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

Directed by Irvin Kershner
Lucasfilm/20th Century Fox

“I feel like I could take on the whole Empire myself!” -Redshirt #1

MAX: The latter half of the 1970s gave us the model for the modern summer blockbuster: Jaws, Star Wars, Superman: The Movie. With 1980, we got another –vastly different–Star Wars to set a new tone.

PAT: To get it out of the way: The Empire Strikes Back was the Star Wars Lucas had least involvement in. It’s the best and I don’t believe in coincidence.  BUT he did create all characters, situations, plot arcs, and locations, so he gets either too much or not enough credit depending on who’s speaking.  He can’t be trusted with dialogue, but he’s overflowing with creative…juices?

MAX: Lucas has always felt like a great-ideas-man to me more than a great director. But then again, Star Wars (or A New Hope, if you’re nasty) is a well-directed film. American Graffiti is, too.

PAT: Back when the first movie came out it could have gone anywhere.  Lucas didn’t have any idea what the future was for his franchise for at least the first year. At one point he was going to have his “New Hollywood” friends like Spielberg and Coppola make non-connected films in the same universe to create a vast anthology series.  Somewhere along the line the decision was made to treat movie 2 as the next part of an epic, so they re-released Star Wars as Episode IV: A New Hope. That’s why right away in The Empire Strikes Back you get the same characters, same props, and models, but a different environment.  Progression. We got the yellow text, again, episodes IV and V, the use of the word “saga” in the marketing, the stuff that carried through all the way to the prequels. This movie made it the pattern. It’s the only Star Wars movie that could have been ANYTHING.

And the choices he made reverberate through Hollywood and culture in general to this day.  Empire and Return of the Jedi (more on that one coming!) are a two-part story that continues from Star Wars and transform a self-contained movie into a first act.  Sound familiar?  It’s done constantly now.

MAX: I like the subtle ways Empire establishes their less optimistic, darker tone. Luke’s scarring at the hands of the Wampa and near-death, the hopelessness of the base doors being shut for the night. Han and Luke barely survive the movie and Vader hasn’t even shown up yet. Luke, Han, and Leia really feel like underdogs this time around. When Vader DOES show up, he’s personally stalking our heroes to their ship. The opening battle sequence is a draw for both sides. Fittingly, so’s the end of the movie.

PAT: In terms of spectacle and action beats, I think Star Wars in general quickened up the pacing of these and vastly improved their use of music and sound effects.  I mention this because since then they’ve become a little too fast, and dropped out much of what makes them interesting in the first place.  It’s not the spectacle itself that’s the point. It’s conflict, delivered in a spectacular way.

PAT: Story-wise, the Empire must score a tactical victory because of their overwhelming power.  But the Rebellion must score a strategic victory because hey, they aren’t done making sequels!

 

PAT: So they quickly, elegantly establish that the base can fight off the Star Destroyers.  That little moment there where the ion cannon lets the transport escape is better than any space battle Hollywood’s filmed in years.  Directors don’t understand anymore that a great battle is give and take, of expectations fulfilled and subverted, of pacing and emotion.  Of course now we almost always see FIGHTS in Hollywood, BATTLES are out of style.

PAT: So anyway, how does Vader win?  GIANT WALKING TANKS.  What is more creative than that?  The audience must have been picking up their jaws in 1980.  It’s just so DIFFERENT from the Death Star battle they must have expected more of the same of.

MAX:  It’s interesting that this movie switches the formula in regards to the last movie; the big dogfight is at the beginning.

MAX: I think what also really distinguishes Empire from the other two Star Wars entries is that the characters feel more three-dimensional. Leia and Han’s angry flirting, even though it’s occasionally cornball, has an almost uncomfortable heat to it that was lacking in the first movie. Luke is no longer a corn-fed farm hand, nor is he a seasoned warrior. He’s left childhood behind but has some harsh lessons coming about being a man.

PAT: Exactly. The Empire Strikes Back and its contemporary The Godfather Part II are the films that made Hollywood into a sequel industry, a franchise-maker.  But unlike the Godfather, which was more of the same, ESB darkens the tone and ups the realism from its predecessor considerably.  Just look at the toned-down hairstyles and clothes.  Look at the color palette.  It’s only 1980, but we’re in the ’80s rather than the wild ‘70s of Star Wars.

But we’re also in a new and unique place.  Empire really fleshes out the fantasy world that Star Wars introduced.  Rather than cartoonish buffoons or sneering villains, the Imperials in this movie are quiet, professional, and dedicated.  The vocabulary of the Star Wars universe is starting to take shape, with first names like “Lando” and “Dack” instead of “Luke,” “Han,” and “Owen.”  One subtle thing is that the characters persistently use the noun “system,” as in solar system, where most people and franchises would say “planet.”  But there is also an easy, idiomatic English in play, such as “our first catch of the day.”  A far cry from the alien, but really just awkward, phrasing in the prequel trilogy.  Presumably credit for this goes largely to Laurence Kasdan, who wrote the script (after outlining by Lucas and a first draft by the late Leigh Brackett).

Kasdan’s script almost entirely eschews aliens, but for a few wild animals on Hoth and the pig-folk of Bespin.  This does wonders for grounding the proceedings, though one could argue that it’s not terribly realistic in-universe.  Yoda is about it.  As the franchise started to grow more child-friendly in 1983 Lucas did not allow this element of spectacle to flag again…but I’m getting ahead of myself!

It is probably Lucas, though, who deserves the credit for centering the plot around Darth Vader.  Vader was an extremely memorable but somewhat ancillary bad guy in ANH, but he’s rather obviously preserved for a sequel.  This let ESB benefit from his significant mystique and relatively undefeated record of Getting Shit Done.  ANH had a stroke of bad luck wing him into space like a pulp villain…no such thing will happen here.  ESB is a pulpy movie, but it’s elevated by a bad guy who is an elemental, unstoppable force.  David Prowse’s body language and James Earl Jones’ delivery are tweaked a bit to reflect Vader’s more central and threatening role.  Once he finally appears at the end of the first act, he is never not on the heroes’ ass.

Eventually this movie does let us glimpse a crack in Vader’s facade.  In their final conversation he clearly shows compassion for Luke, and an honest desire to replace Yoda as his mentor.  The villain’s character developed along with the heroes’ since he survived and even triumphed.

MAX: I think a lot of my love for this movie comes from its focus on Han.

PAT: Hollywood’s been trying to make another Han Solo ever since. He’s just all Harrison.  The setting just frees him up to be as intense as he likes.

MAX: Even though he gets some amazing lines/moments in the first movie, this is the movie that establishes the Han Solo we all know and love. It’s one of those characters where he’s so linked with Ford, all the improv.

PAT: Han Solo fights ‘cause he loves life. That’s why being frozen is the worst fate for him.

MAX: Solo getting frozen is a great move because you can’t really kill him off like that. But by freezing him, making him a trophy, it’s humiliating.

PAT: This is how to do exposition, screenwriters: Vader doesn’t blink an eye at a guy dying from an asteroid right in front of them.  But the Emperor dials him up?  MOVE THE SHIP AND GET FOUR BARS.

MAX: Luke comes off as so fucking dumb in this movie. It’s perfect. He doesn’t know shit, he’s training to be a concert pianist but he’s like 20 years old.

PAT: Hollywood really got its Joseph Campbell crush at this point in time, and to this day there’s at least a dash of outright fantasy in a lot of sci-fi now.  In this mix it’s the warmth to the sterile coldness of Hoth and Cloud City.  Speaking of, I love how the city is clearly vast by our standards but it’s a “little operation” in this universe.

LOVE Vader’s show of power here against Solo. This is really the first time it doesn’t feel like a mortal man could possibly kill him.

MAX: It’s a nice follow-up to Han’s “Hokey religions and ancient weapons…” shit from ANH.

Alright, so we’re at the big centerpiece: The Luke / Vader fight. It feels pretty fucking sadistic on Vader’s end. He’s toying with Luke the entire time.

PAT: He’s playing with him sure, but he’s actually feeling compassion too.  I don’t agree that he’s sadistic towards Luke, he’s a pretty all-business character for a villain.  He just straight-up doesn’t care about anyone but Luke.

MAX: That’s true, he’s holding back.

PAT: Hurting his pride. Not, you know, torturing him with his mind like he could do at any time.

MAX: If it’d been anyone else, fight would’ve lasted like 2 minutes.

PAT: Like we see that Luke’s outclassed but we get these little moments where Vader’s not immortal or infallible. Perfect setup for next movie.

MAX: I like that the “rebel victory” is escaping with their lives. No heroic explosions in this movie.

PAT: Yeah I don’t know if they could end with such a whimper today.

MAX: I’d argue it set the precedent for the kind of ending we got with The Dark Knight or that second Pirates Of The Caribbean movie.

PAT: And what movie were those compared to, pray tell?

 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

MAX: Empire is generally regarded as the best Star Wars installment because it’s “dark,” but I don’t think that’s quite right. It is the best one, for sure, but I think that’s because explores new and dangerous territory: the central characters are all in pretty interesting, even surprising places by the end of the movie. It’s a brave choice to have Luke Skywalker just straight up lose or to leave Han’s fate so uncertain. Empire is a movie about characters we know and like making very hard choices, it’s a pretty big leap forward from the first film where, say, Alderaan blowing up doesn’t ultimately change Leia one way or the other. Also, Han Solo gets a really bad ass jacket.

PAT: That’s what’s most important!

I think this is a movie made by and for smart folks, which of course we still don’t see enough of.  Any time you see a sequel that “raises the stakes,” “continues the trilogy,” or “has the villain win,” you’re feeling reverberations from what Lucas, Kershner, and Kasdan did here.  But don’t take my word for it…when was the last time you DIDN’T see an interview about a new blockbuster sequel where the writer didn’t invoke The Empire Strikes Back as one of their inspirations?  It’s like a prayer to the Box Office Gods.