My Review of Star Wars: Episode 5–The Empire Strikes Back · 9:13pm Aug 26th, 2020
Rating Scale:
12/10—a complete masterpiece; flawless and outstanding
11/10—Excellent, near-perfect film
10/10—the standard rating; awesome film with a couple of flaws
9/10—a wonderful film with several flaws
8/10–a great film with numerous flaws but not enough to ruin it
7/10—a fun and entertaining movie; not great but still enjoyable
6/10—a slightly above average film; might not watch it again but still happy I watched it for the first time
5/10—mediocre movie; not awful but not great either
4/10—a below average film; it could have been much better
3/10—a bad film; poorly written and poorly executed
2/10—a very bad movie; the few good things in the movie overshadowed by the bad things
1/10—a terrible movie; a total waste of time
0/10—a worthless piece of abomination; should have never been made
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Greetings, folks. Here is my review of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. This is actually the best movie out of the Original Trilogy of Star Wars; I found it way better than A New Hope and Return of the Jedi. I think it has something to do with the story, the character development, and the increased power of Darth Vader. He actually felt more of an actual solo threat than he was in the previous movie and in its sequel. The way he displayed his power, his intelligence, his might, and his capabilities made him more threatening and intimidating. It might be just me, but I like him much more here than in the other films of this trilogy. So here are the rest of my thoughts:
The plot: It was actually more interesting than that of the previous one since the latter was more boring. Here, it was more intriguing because it gave the main characters more development and more invigorating adventures. However, there was one particular subplot I did not enjoy: the romance between Han Solo and Princess Leia. Ughhh, I hated how he kept creepily hitting on her which she, of course, found annoying until she eventually liked him and fell for him. Ehhh, it felt more forced than anything else. I wish that it was cut out and that the movie would focus more on good story telling.
The animation: As I said before, I’m not liking the animation that much since it was from the 80s. I also noticed how some parts of the animation were sloppy such as the alien animals (their designs are the worst), the explosions, and the ships.
The action: It is actually quite better this time. The lightsaber battle between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker was more satisfying and more real than his laughable fight against Kenobi from the last movie. You can tell they put more emotion and more passion into the climatic battle. Yes, the earlier action scenes were well done and much more focused as well.
The characters: Lastly, almost all the characters were well written. The ones I enjoyed watching the most were Skywalker and Vader. We see the young Jedi being trained by Yoda in using the force and how to control his strong emotions so that he won’t fall into the same darkness which overcame Vader when he was a Jedi. I loved the struggles, the complex character development, and the journey see Luke take which makes us care for him and cheer for him. Mark Hamill did a great job portraying that in this film. The same can be said for our main villain; Vader was awesome with his memorable lines of dialogue and his personality. Of course I cannot forget the most iconic yet misunderstood scene of all time... the revelation that Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker... Luke’s father.
I say “misunderstood” because we see a number of cartoon shows and movies who reference this scene while misquote Vader’s most iconic line, “No, I... am your father.” He did NOT say, “Luke, I... am your father.” Details are very important. Those people reference it as a joke or a meme, but they don’t recognize it as a turning point of Luke’s life now that he knows that his OWN FATHER is an evil overlord who has slain millions of people across the galaxy. So Luke had to face the hardest choice of his life: choose to walk in the dark side with his father to rule the galaxy or follow the Jedi path. Gosh, I love that scene. That is what made the movie so climatic and satisfying.
In conclusion, it’s the best of the trilogy and definitely worth watching. I give it an 8/10!
Peace!
This is the movie that made Darth Vader one of the best cinematic villains of all time.
Seriously, my two favorite characters in the entire film are him and Boba Fett.