This is nearly a week late but Pac-Man overshadowed much of the week with an awesome tribute from Google. We almost forgot that the very best of the Star Wars movies had a monumental birthday last week as well. Yes, the Empire Strikes Back turned thirty.
A little history for you…I watched Empire probably more than any other movie ever. EVER. Oh sure, I watched it in the theater a couple of times, but when I really started to pile up repeated viewings was years later when we would get our satellite dish. This was back in the time when a satellite dish wasn’t some little twelve inch disk you attached to the south side of your house with two wood screws. Oh no. This was the real deal. The “dish” was eight feet in diameter and had it’s own mechanical servos which would point it towards the various satellites in orbit. Each satellite had twenty four channels and it’s own fun designation. G1, G3, S1, F4–G was for Galaxy, S was for Satcom and unfortunately I cannot remember what F stood for.
We got the dish just before everyone started scrambling their signal and charging you for access. HBO and Cinemax were already scrambled, but everything else was wide open including premium channels like Showtime and The Movie Channel. That summer, they showed Star Wars, Empire and Return of the Jedi on their regular movie rotation. I mostly like Star Wars (sorry for those of you too young to understand that we never referred to it as “A New Hope”…sheesh) and RotJ, but it didn’t have the same impact on me as did Empire.
That summer, my brother and I watched Empire many, many times. At first we would catch it on the East coast feed and enjoy it thoroughly. Then there was an hour break until the West coast feed would start up and we’d watch it again. Sometimes it was on that night as well and we’d watch it on both feeds once more. This continued all summer. It was all Empire, all the time at our house. We loved that movie.
Empire was special. It was such a downer of an ending which really set up the last film nicely. It had the best dialogue, the best interplay between characters and some truly tense moments. Ars had a very nice write up on the movie last week and makes a great point about how some of the speeches were fantastic. Yoda’s speech to Luke about the Force made it special…magical. You forget these things over time and remember the whole of the Empire chasing the Millennium Falcon.
It was also the film which Lucas had the least direct control. Lucas is a wonderful idea man, a man to frame the big picture. But when he’s in control of everything, you get the awful prequels, stilted dialogue and CGI loaded remasters of the originals. The original Empire has grand ideas from Lucas, executed sublimely by his writers, actors and director.
Empire is a good example of a second act done well. The heroes are at their lowest point, beaten and wounded, but not completely defeated. The challenges ahead seem daunting and dangerous. One wonders what will happen next. Whether or not Return of the Jedi fulfilled the questions set in Empire is a matter for debate, but the trilogy could not have asked for a better setup.
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