Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1980
	Director: Irvin Kershner (Eyes of Laura Mars, Robocop 2)
	Actors: Mark Hamill (Sushi Girl, Body Bags), Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones 1-4), Carrie Fisher (The Blues Brothers), Billy Dee Williams
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF, Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 16.04.2015, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: The fleet of the Galactic Empire led by Darth Vader finds the rebel base hidden on the ice planet Hoth. Luke (Hamill), Leia (Fischer) and Han Solo (Ford) will go their separate ways to meet their destiny.
Review: Craving Space movies after watching 2001: A Space Odyssey and misled by the title of Stardust, I came to watch this Star Wars to start completing the set of reviews for this saga that already includes Episode IV: A New Hope and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. As much as I like Episode IV for setting up a incredibly rich Universe, it is this Episode V that really uses its potential to the maximum. What I find amazing with Star Wars (at least the original trilogy) is that it could have looked completely ridiculous and quickly outdated like most of the other SF movies of the time, but for a reason I cannot fathom it does not. Come on: Droids that sometimes look like garbage cans, teenage heroes, the plastic costumes of the Empire troops and of the leader Darth Vader, the 70's haircut, a princess, a mentor in monk's robes, aliens with improbable anatomy... I really don't understand how this all works, but it does. A bit like the Elves in The Lord of the Rings could have easily looked like a bunch of tree-hugging hippies, only they don't. One of the reason why it works is maybe that the movie displays scene after scene instant classic SF moments. Just by listing them I justify my choice of giving Episode V the highest rating: escape from the planet Hoth, imperial walkers, the Dagoba system, Yoda, the Millennium Falcon in an asteroid field, bounty hunters, Lando Calrissian in Cloud city, Han Solo in Carbonite, "I am your father". I would be curious to know what a 20-25 year-old thinks of those old movies, because as I was born with them and I started to watch them in the 80's, I am biased and may not judge the quality of those scenes objectively. Another reason why it may work is the music, deliberately orchestral at a period when this was not done much anymore (since the golden age of the 40's). I often praise Basil Poledouris' soundtrack of Conan the Barbarian as the best existing, forgetting this fantastic one composed by a John Williams at his best, and that culminates with the imperial March. It still gives me shivers. Finally an important contributor to the perenity of this movie is the story. In Episode V the characters have strong motivations for going where they go: The Millennium Falcon crew trying to escape from the clutches of the Empire during the whole movie while Luke is aspiring to become a Jedi. The movie cleverly puts in parallel Luke's Quest (for the mystical aspect) and the Millennium Falcon's fleeing (for the action), and all of this is very well balanced. At a time when we start to discover trailers of the upcoming Episode VII: The Force Awakens, I was glad to learn that its screenplay has been written by the same Lawrence Kasdan that wrote then ones of Episodes V and VI. A word about the story of modifications that Georges Lucas did to its movies since they originally went out. I discovered the movies on TV as a kid, i.e. in their original edition but with an extremely poor quality (I remember that at some point Episode IV was not even shown anymore because of too poor image quality). Thus I welcomed the Special Edition that I bought in VHS back in 1997 (waw, almost 20 years ago already!), and in the midst of the debate about the changes (mainly new scenes and new special effects) I was quite content with the movies, I found this Edition refreshed them. Then when I bought the Blu-ray box-set I learned that more modifications were done to improve continuity with the new trilogy and that bothered me more. Actually when reading the dedicated Wikipedia page you find out that the modifications have been numerous over the years. In the end, only one modification really bothers me in Episode V: it is when Darth Vader communicates to the Emperor from near the asteroid field, and the original Emperor has been replaced by Ian McDiarmid (playing this role in Episodes I-III), which I find overplays it a lot. When watching Episode V I also realize how much this Star Wars movie in particular has influenced the pop culture. I am thinking about the funny short Georges Lucas in Love for example, the animated TV-series Robot Chicken and its three Star Wars special episodes, or the Star Wars Kinect video game, in particular the Dance Off mini game that keeps creeping into my mind as soon as I see Lando Calrissian.
Rating: 10 /10