How to be the 'Empire Strikes Back' of Sequels

Last week we talked about A New Hope, and how to open a franchise. Now we see how we might develop one.

As I began collecting stills for this article, I was shocked at just how quickly I began to amass classic stills. Everything in this movie is gorgeous, and I don't think it gets enough credit for that - especially compared to A New Hope's blander cinematography.

We are people of comparison by nature. It changes through the year, but there’s always some sort of baseline to work off of. You can see it in video games – whether its Dark Souls, Skyrim, etcetera, there’s always some big title to fall back. Dark Souls is particularly relevant because it’s become the de facto ‘oh, we want to emphasize how hard this game is? Uh… Dark Souls comparison,’ despite the difficulty being of a completely different nature, if the game is really that difficult at all. And that’s kind of been the way Empire Strikes Back has been referred to in popular culture. It’s the sequel to compare your movie to. Oh, your movie is darker? It’s more ambiguous? It’s the Empire Strikes Back of X!

Now, there are accuracies to that, sure, but I think more often than not the comparison is made flippantly. The fact is, Empire Strikes Back had made its place in history for good reason. In many ways, it earned its stance as a sequel to compare things to, but to limit its legacy to being the ‘dark’ middle chapter seems reductive. Rather, Empire Strikes Back plays a major role in making Star Wars the franchise that it is. It’s not just that the move is ‘darker’ than its predecessor is, it’s that Empire Strikes Back takes care to challenge its characters in new and interesting ways, and raises the stakes on nearly every level.

You feel the reversal of A New Hope so strongly in these shots. We're figuratively starting at the end of the last movie, and it spells coming disaster.

It’s May 1980, and after a troubled production, the sequel to the highly acclaimed Star Wars releases. Lucas hires Irvin Kershner, someone known for smaller character-driven films, to direct, and hands his script treatment to Leigh Brackett, and then Lawrence Kasdan after Brackett’s unfortunate passing. With the previous movie becoming a surprising cultural phenomenon, Lucas took a clear effort to focus on production while others carried his ideas out through writing and directing. Its initial reception was alarmingly mixed, compared to what we might expect. Critics accused it of being ‘overly ponderous’ and not having ‘the spontaneous energy of the original.’ Generally, it had a lot of ‘middle film’ criticism, with people just feeling like it wasn’t as wholly satisfying as A New Hope was. So, what happened? How did the mixed reviews of this movie give way to unabashed love? What is it about Empire Strikes Back that people adore so much?

Okay, the chemistry here is a big factor.

Looking from the perspective of a three-part story, Empire genuinely does everything you want it to do. It systematically takes every major element introduced in A New Hope and builds on it. Before I get into the nitty-gritty of character growth and such, however, I have to point out just how this movie builds the world and the language of Star Wars. So many sequels fall into this pattern of ‘oh, you liked X? Well here’s X, but bigger!’ Or, at it’s most banal, you get straight repetitions of X. But Empire never really stoops to that. Watching A New Hope, you’d assume its sequel would get something equivalent to the Cantina sequence, or maybe the Trench Run. At the very least, you might expect some hints and nods to everyone’s favourite jokes – maybe Chewbacca pulls the arms off of a stormtrooper. But Empire never really caters to anything like that. At most, we get a second lightsaber fight, which I feel is sort of invoked by the genre anyways. And in any case, the duel in Empire is barely even comparable to the one in A New Hope. We don’t revisit any old planets, we don’t recreate any set pieces. Even the core structure of the movie is radically different. A New Hope builds through the whole movie and climaxes with this big spectacle action piece in space. Empire gives us a huge set-piece transitioning into the second act, and becomes increasingly smaller and tighter in scope throughout the rest of the movie, ending with a very personal fight between our two central characters. That radical change of structure sheds a light on the rest of the movie. Everything narrows in scope; everything becomes more personal.

Honestly, Dagobah deserves an article all to itself for how massively it expands the world, and Luke's character specifically.

Where to start? I honestly believe without Empire, we really don’t have Star Wars as a franchise. A New Hope is mostly a typical Campbellian story with some fun schlock carried by strong character dynamics. But Empire doubles down on those character dynamics while diving into deeper themes and ideas than A New Hope ever did. It takes the time to challenge the well-established character in nearly every way possible. They’re challenged emotionally: Han and Leia’s romance drives the B-plot of the film and explores new angles of two of our character trinity. The third member – Luke – is challenged spiritually, as he is sent to Dagobah to learn more about the Force. His lessons with Yoda give us our deepest exploration of the Force in this entire franchise, approached only by The Last Jedi. Both of these challenges lead the characters to deeper explorations of themselves as people. And deeper threats. Luke descends into the tree on Dagobah and sees a vision of himself as his worst nemesis, confronted by the rash darkness that lies within him. Han and Leia’s relationship is strained and tested and ultimately ripped apart. Everything is taken to its limits. We even see this represented geographically; the film ranges from the grimy depths of swampy Dagobah to the cloudy heights of Bespin. And this is pretty much all without talking about the conflict.

Look how threatening the lightning seems here compared to any shot of the cockpit in A New Hope. The directing is so laser-focused in this movie.

Because what makes Empire so good, what makes all of this possible, is the conflict. All of these challenges, all of this character change, is driven by the fact that the heroes are kept on the run the entire time. We open up with the villains narrowing in on our heroes and shortly follow it up with Luke Skywalker being mauled by a local monster. Han charges out into the blizzard in order to rescue him, and the two nearly die in the cold together. Luke and Han get out, but shortly after, the Empire marches onto our heroes’ doorsteps and sends them fleeing. And the heroes stay on the wrong foot for the rest of the movie. Han and Leia and company only find rest in the belly of a space worm, and then in the company of double-crossing Lando. Things don’t get anything better in the film’s conclusion. Luke’s hand is severed off, Han is captured by bounty hunters, and the Rebels are in a far worse position than they started with. All of the status quos established in the previous movie have been overturned. And nothing changes more than our relationship with our villains.

The fact that Empire single-handedly overhauled one of the core features of franchise doesn't get enough credit. We owe every cool lightsaber fight to the team behind this duel.

Something I appreciate deeply about the original trilogy is the way the dynamic between Luke and Darth Vader shifts with every single encounter. When we first see Vader in the gleaming white hallways of the Tantive IV, we’re as much in the dark as Luke is. But then, along with Luke, we get information from Ben Kenobi – Vader is an ex-Jedi, who killed Luke’s father. This information carries us, and Luke, through the rest of the movie, until we witness him strike down Kenobi, our beloved mentor. Now, it’s personal; both for us and for Luke. We weren’t really attached to Luke’s father, but we were attached to Ben. As we begin Empire, we have a clear motivation for Luke (avenging Kenobi) and what appears to be a clear motivation for Vader (tracking down the man who destroyed the Death Star). These drive us through the movie, especially the latter. Largely, Luke doesn’t seem overly concerned with clashing blades with Vader; he’s much more concerned with getting to Yoda and Dagobah. One may assume that he realizes he can’t yet take Vader in a straight match. But conversely, Vader’s obsession with Luke Skywalker pushes everything forward. It leads him to hunt for the Rebel base, and then to pursue the scattered stragglers. It leads to the trap on Bespin, which draws out Skywalker, leading to that famous duel. Vader’s relentless pursuit is what forces all of our characters to face themselves, and it what leads to the newfound stakes. We aren’t destroying planets anymore, but we are putting relationships and our protagonist’s lives at stake. The drama already feels much deeper and more personal than A New Hope, but the movie isn’t satisfied with leaving it there. Luke, pushed by his own hubris and heroic need, runs to Bespin in a vain attempt to save his friends and walks headlong into Vader’s trap. Skywalker pays heavily for his zealous nature, betting thrashed by Vader, and losing his hand. Our protagonist is pushed as far into a corner as he can get, but then the table is turned one last time. And an entire franchise flips on its head. Vader tells Luke that Kenobi didn’t give him the whole truth – Darth Vader is Luke’s father. And their dynamic changes again. Suddenly the stakes are more personal than ever.

This is where Empire Strikes Back leaves us. We know our characters deeper than ever before, and they know themselves better, too. We’ve seen the world and the story expanded in exciting new ways while the focus has gotten smaller and tighter. The villain has led the plot forward and has forced the protagonists to react and change. At the end of the day we have a lot more knowledge, and a lot more questions. Was Vader telling the truth? How is that going to affect his and Luke’s next meeting? How do we get Han back? Is Leia ever going to get the character focus she deserves? Who is Vader’s boss and how do we defeat the Empire?

Blue-orange contrasts can be a bit of a trope but they're done so well in this movie, evoking this beautiful sense of horrific danger.

What strikes me the most about Empire is that, sure, it’s ‘dark,’ but its darkness is not what makes this movie good. The tone is a product, not an ingredient. I constantly see these movies that advertise themselves as being ‘the new Empire Strikes Back’ because they’re darker and edgier than the last movie, but that’s not what makes Empire work at all. What makes it work is how deeply it cares about its characters. The entire goal of the movie is to take all of those characters to the next level, to explore them and tear them apart. They are deconstructed, their failures are exposed. Luke is too eager to act, always five steps away from the present moment. He’s headstrong and, despite meaning well, that gets him into trouble. All of the scoundrelly charm and rotten deals that made us love Han in A New Hope bite him in the rear in Empire, as old colleagues betray him and skilled bounty hunters line up to capture him. And in legitimately challenges our heroes, and letting them fail when they need to, we get far closer to them than we would have where Empire just another fun action-adventure romp. It’s this focus on taking our characters and challenging them in surprising ways that elevates Empire so far above its predecessor. A New Hope sets up all the dominoes, and Empire knocks them down, one-by-one. The stakes are raised, but not through things being ‘bigger and better.’ Empire doesn’t do something ridiculous like make a bigger Death Star. It gets smaller and more focused. We set aside the Rebel Alliance at the beginning to center the attention on our main cast. And, sure, Empire Strikes Back has a darker, more mature tone than A New Hope. The dialogue is less Lucasian exposition and more genuine character drama. The stakes feel more real because they’re more personal and more legitimate. We don’t necessarily believe that the Death Star will destroy Yavin IV, but we do believe that Darth Vader can hurt our heroes – and he does. He almost kills Luke; he leaves Han captured by Boba Fett. And this movie leaves the franchise in a radically different place than it started.

I swear every shot in this movie is iconic.

These are the things a good centerpiece of a trilogy does. It challenges your characters. It raises the stakes for those characters, taking things to new levels physically, emotionally, etc. The key isn’t a big spectacle so much as it is bigger stakes for the protagonists. The key isn’t to be ‘darker’ so much as it is deeper themes and deeper explorations. Increasing the agency of the villain is a great way to do this, as is to tie their motives directly with the protagonist. Think of The Dark Knight – the Joker is created to be a direct challenge to Batman, to be his rival in every way. The movie is darker and bigger than Batman Begins, but what makes it work is the conflict between the Joker and Batman, and how that shows us more of Batman’s ideals and motivations. And Empire does a lot of the same thing. Vader pushes all of our characters, but especially Luke, and brings out character flaws that were always brimming beneath the surface. And it’s this push that develops those characters and expands our world. Any good trilogy revolves around that push.

I could go on about this movie. I haven’t even begun to touch on the psychology of the whole thing, and in truth, there’s a lot to discuss that lies just below the surface. But I feel my central point is sufficiently made. Empire Strikes Back hasn’t become the go-to-favourite Star Wars movie for no reason. It got there because without it, we’d still be working with the same charming yet simple characters in the same charming yet simple universe. Empire doesn’t retread any steps; it splits its world wide open and does the same with its cast. No Star Wars movie has really done anything on that level since… with the exception of a certain other centerpiece to a trilogy, which was also surprisingly divisive upon release. Driving antagonist with a constantly-developing relationship to the protagonist? A plot built off of challenging character ideals and exploiting their failures? …Huh.

And we end with the four characters we started A New Hope with, in a blank white rebel ship. This movie does deconstruction so well.

So, that’s Empire Strikes Back, the definitive Star Wars movie. The movie that took the franchise to new heights, that opened the door wide for a new world. And just how does that story end? Does Return of the Jedi take all of the new stakes established in Empire and bring them to new heights, and a satisfying conclusion? Well… we’ll see.