Note: For those grabbing torches and pitchforks, I am giving Empire a good rating. I know here is where people will get upset with me as many want to rank Empire as #1, but it just doesn’t belong there. Yes, the cinematography is a little better, but it was good in Star Wars {A New Hope}. Yes, the acting has improved, but it still isn’t that good. And the SFXs might be a touch better, but that’s insignificant and they were a wonder already in the first film. And I do not give it points for introducing Boba Fett. Why does anyone care about some tertiary character with a so-so costume?
Sure, Empire has some great battle scenes. It also has one of my favorite lightsaber duels. And while character development is shaky and nothing deep is delivered, it isn’t embarrassing either. This is a good film; I don’t think I need to convince anyone of that.
But it has some problems. First, it’s a bridge film. It has no plot, but is only a couple chapters in the larger story. It starts nowhere and ends nowhere. Then there is the reveal where the response is unearned. The only reason anyone thinks it is a big deal that Vader is Luke’s father is if they themselves would find this a big deal in their own life. The film does nothing to sell this. Why does Luke care? Why does he scream out in that pathetic way? If Aunt Beru had been Vader, I can see why that would have had some emotional resonance; he knew her. Luke is a whiny kid with daddy issues, but that isn’t enough to explain it, nor is it a good thing that our hero turns out to be more of a child here than when we started with him. But besides the film not making this moment important, it has the effect of shrinking the universe as well as shifting the message. In A New Hope, the universe is vast and anyone could become a hero. Now everyone you run into is family and the saga has shifted to being one of royalty and chosen ones. It would be a very long time before this failing was repaired.