It''s been a long time ago and I've been far away (shut up) so let's wrap this movie up and get on to the third.
Okay then: got your sunglasses? Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you - we’re going in!
Although there’s not a space battle going on, this is still the second of the movies to open with a shot of space, downward camera to show an imperial star destroyer, albeit coming towards the camera instead of going away from it, but really: couldn’t Lucas come up with a different opening? And is there some irony in a world that is covered in ice being called Hoth? Well we’re into action straight away as Luke is the main course for some version of the abominable snowman and Han decides to make that exit he had delayed to help wipe out the Death Star, but as usual there’s something stopping him. I mean, it’s one thing or another isn’t it? Either a megalomaniac is threatening to destroy the Alliance, someone has encased him in carbonite or Luke has gone missing. How’s a guy expected to go pay his debts and get that price off his head?
Good to see there’s realism in the fact that Leia and Han have not just settled down to raise little space pirates; she’s pissed at him for leaving and he’s pissed at her for refusing to acknowledge her feelings for him. Hey, what is it with Lucas and severed arms? Vader loses one, Luke loses one, the guy in the cantina, now the abominable snowman. Even C3PO lost one of his. Is it some sort of fetish of his? Does nobody cut off legs or heads anymore? And now it’s time for Alec to earn his wages by putting in another ghostly appearance. I swear, agents: once they have you on contract… I find this one a little more visceral than the previous, perhaps proof that Lucas believed his movies were appealing more to adults than kids. The cutting open of the belly of the beast Luke was riding and his being put inside it is, well, yuck. Interesting how Han has been demoted from general back to captain. Maybe that’s because he’s now about to leave, and his Alliance rank only applies while he’s under their command?
Well it’s time to evacuate once more. Must suck to be a kid of one of these rebels, always moving, always on the run, never a chance to settle down. Ah, the life of a rebel scum huh? Those new uniforms the stormtroopers have for snow work are damned scary: make them look just like members of the KKK! Well I see one woman operating a communications console in the rebel base - typical! Only work available for the girls is to answer the phone! - but so far I don’t believe I’ve seen one single female in the entire imperial army! Not one! What is this? A boys only club? Suppose it saves on those specially-made breastplates...
This is the first time we see the ground assault troops, with walkers and AT-ATs, which kind of helps to underline how damned powerful the empire is. It also makes a clear distinction between the men (and occasional woman) of the Alliance and the machines of the empire. A trip through an asteroid field provides more scope for the many video and computer games that were to follow, but there’s time for a little humour when they accidentally land on a living organism, taking it for an asteroid. Meanwhile it’s time to slow everything down and bore everyone with the unwanted introduction of a muppet. Damn Yoda. This is a little like the later scene with the Architect in one of the Matrix movies - was it the third one? Interestingly though, there are parallels between the two scenes, the big monster in the swamp with Luke and R2D2 and the strange monster in the asteroid with Han, Leia, C3PO and Chewie.
Looks like this is the first time we see the emperor, the guy who runs things, and the only person who has any sort of command or control over Vader. A third mention of “I have a bad feeling about this”, coming from Leia this time, so now all we need is Luke to say it and we have every character - who can speak or at least whose speech can be understood - having voiced that opinion. Meanwhile, back at the swamp it’s gone all existential, as Luke seems to battle Vader but finds it’s himself he’s fighting, a foreshadowing, did we but know it at the time, of the relationship between the two.
Time to bring on the one black man in the Star Wars universe. Of course, being a black man he’s immediately “where the white women at?” And not to be trusted. That’s established pretty quickly, when he hands the heroes over to Vader. No choice, my ass. Time for Han to experience the big freeze. Quite surprising how Lando expected Vader to keep his word, after all, what leverage has the guy got? Now that the Dark Lord has what he wants, what’s to stop him destroying Cloud City if he wants to? Idiot. And now, the classic, iconic confrontation between Vader and Luke, and the revelation to shake all revelations since, well, maybe the end of Planet of the Apes. Ah, the world before the internet, huh?
So then we have the classic split as the heroes undertake two missions, and the first time, as I say, at least in my experience, when a movie ends, not only on an almost literal cliffhanger, but continues into the next one. This would of course become standard for this genre, and others, as time went on, but TESB set the precedent, and after this all the other movie writers could do was follow the trail Lucas blazed across the galaxy and through motion picture and science fiction history.