Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back

My Grade:  A

While Star Wars V:  The Empire Strikes Back isn't as highly acclaimed as the original, A New Hope, many Star Wars fanatics argue that it is a superior film.  It only won one Oscar (Best Sound) rather than A New Hope's six.  Maybe it's because A New Hope was so shockingly different than anything else that had come out recently so The Empire Strikes Back wasn't as awe-inspiring.  Whatever the case, The Empire Strikes Back has some of the most important reveals in all of Star Wars and builds the tension to massive levels in preparation of the final chapter:  Return Of The Jedi.

Much like A New Hope, this second installment is very good.  It has similarly epic music (scored by the masterful John Williams), and the story is highly engrossing.  The thing this film doesn't have to worry about that A New Hope did, though, is developing the characters.  That had already been done very well in the first film so this one can focus entirely on the story and building relationships.  It does introduce a few new characters, though, and those characters are very well developed.

The interesting thing about The Empire Strikes Back is that is essentially serves as the second act in a really, really, really long screenplay.  But it also has to have it's own first, second, and third acts.  George Lucas hands the writing reigns off to Leigh Brackett (El Dorado, The Big Sleep) and first time feature scribe, Lawrence Kasdan who would later go on to write Return Of The Jedi and Raiders Of The Lost Ark.  According to IMDB.com, Brackett wrote a first draft, then died of cancer.  After Lucas retouched her first draft, he hired Kasdan to finish it.  After all of that, they got a very strong product that isn't quite as good as A New Hope, but still is quite good.

Being a second act in a massively epic story makes this film different from most films because it allows for a negative ending.  Going into this film, you are acutely aware of the possibility that the Empire could come back very strongly... just look at the title.  So it leaves you unable to guess what will happen and keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout.  Also, being a second act, this film is able to (and supposed to) keep amping up the tension making it harder and harder for the heroes to succeed.  And that just makes for an exciting movie-going experience.