FilmFlicking

Lucifer_666 · Site Joined: 27 Jul 2007 Posts: 12791

I'm putting it up now

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Catnapper · Site Joined: 30 Jul 2007 Posts: 8906

It was worth waiting for

Lucifer_666 · Site Joined: 27 Jul 2007 Posts: 12791

Shucks

thanks babe

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Lucifer_666 · Site Joined: 27 Jul 2007 Posts: 12791

First of all I'm delighted that it was this version of Empire Strikes Back that ITV decided to show as Lucas has tweaked far too much to a later revamped version changing things that I believe degraded the experience for me and many other Star Wars fans such as changing Boba Fett's voice to that awful guy's in the Prequels who plays Jango (Boba's original voice is far more gritty, aggressive and much cooler) Also he decided to change the scene with Vader and a Holographic Emperor more than likely due to the fact that he thought it may be confusing because in the original scene (shown on ITV) The Emperor is sort of given the idea of turning Luke to the Darkside rather than killing him by Vader..he is also played by a different actor though his face is obscured so you can't really tell.... but in the revamped rubbishy version he gets Ian McDairmuid to reprise the role and inform a much more in the dark Vader of Luke's heritage (I felt there was no real need for this change at all) However Lucas does add other changes which featured in this version ITV shown such as making Cloud City much larger by adding extra sequences during the Millenium Falcon's arrival and also changing the backdrop of the city as they walk through it.....so his changes weren't all bad...he just went too far with them......

Anyway the film begins and immediately you can tell its got a very different feel to 'A New Hope' we see our heroes on the ice world of Hoth and the once naive farm boy now a leader however almost immediately Luke Skywalker ends up in trouble getting attacked by an ice creature. It is here while hanging upside down that a great yet understated moment occurs in Star Wars history....we the viewer get to see for the first time the force used to move objects which really becomes the norm for those with the force through the rest of the films. Luke calls on his power to bring his lightsabre to his hand and make his escape....and ultimately gets contacted by a ghostly Obi Wan (Alex Guinness) While all this is occuring we also get our first glimpse at the new relationship thats developed between Leia and Han Solo yes they are still argumentative like the first film however there is much more going on now and its pretty obvious they have feelings for one another which develops further throughout the movie. The next major scene is one of my favourites the battle when the Empire land and the rebels are trying to hold them off long enough to allow the evacuation to take place....I just love the snowspeeders and they way they take down one of the AT-AT wrapping cables around its legs.....Oh and the bit where Luke takes down one on his own I always thought was cool too.

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Of course our heroes escape but go their separate ways...Luke with R2 head for Dagobah to find Yoda while the rest are being pursued vigoruosly by the Empire dodging them in a asteroid field and nearly getting eaten by a giant worm

....ulitimately heading to Cloud City. Meanwhile Luke and ouselves meet Yoda ..a strange green creature who at the beginning seems cute and has the voice of Kermit the frog yet we soon find out that there is much more to him and that he is really quite a serious Jedi Master who is not completely convinced about Luke's credentials as a potential Jedi but agrees to train him.....I have to say too I love the training sequences.... in particular the part where Luke is doing sommasaults and climbing ropes with Yoda on his back. After various scenes Luke ultimately decides to leave,..cutting his training short after getting a vision of the future and seeing his friends in pain....We also here get the strange words from Yoda when Obi Wan says "That boy is our last hope!" he replies " No...there is another!"
We get introduced to Lando Calrissian at Cloud City who ends up betraying them to Vader, though in fairness his hands were tied and he makes up for it later...Lando is basically just a temporary replacement at the end of Empire for Han as he acts exactly like him throughout the end scenes aboard the Falcon

. Also they weren't sure at that stage whether Ford would return for the third film so I suppose they wanted that back up. I loved the whole carbon freezing scene too... I always thought it was strange that Vader stops Boba Fett from shooting Chewbacca? perhaps it was to display Fett's itchy trigger finger or maybe it was Vader's worry he might hit Solo? Prequel fans may believe it was to do with the fact C3PO was on Chewie's back after all a young Anakin did build him.... Either way it always had me wondering...
I also like the story behind the "I love you" line where Harrison Ford was mean't to reply "I love you too" but him and Kershner thought it wasn't something Solo would have said however they couldn't think of anything else. Later on whiile recording the scene Ford instead replied "I know" and they knew that was it

. And you know they were absolutely right!!..... Oh the prequels would have been so much better had somebody used the same kind of initiative or Lucas handed over more control to others

All this builds up to my favourite scene... the lightsabre duel between Luke and Vader.... everything about this I love..... the environments they travel through, the venom of the fight and of course the dialogue...it was a big risk to have Luke ultimately lose and get his hand cut off too when you take into acount the happy go lucky ending of A New Hope but to then blow a complete mind scramble on the audience by revealing that Vader was Luke's Father aswell was really going out on a limb however it was also an inspired move which really sets the core of the story for all the other movies that follow.
Irvin Kershner I think did a great job on this film ( incidentally Kershner was a former professor who taught Lucas at film College) and ironically I think he was still teaching Lucas how to do it with this film only he wasn't listening anymore which is why we got the Prequels

Empire is darker, grittier, full of surprises and for me arguably one of the best Sci-fi films ever made ,,,its definitely the best Star Wars film of them all....
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Catnapper · Site Joined: 30 Jul 2007 Posts: 8906

Wow you know your stuff Luc.....that was excellent!

You can tell you love watching Star Wars!

I'm a newcomer to Star Wars......or should that be a latecomer?! A New Hope was good, just not as great as I thought it would be going off all the things I've read about it over the years. So, when you all said about The Empire Strikes Back being a better film and one of the best sequels, I half expected you'd hyped it up too much and I wouldn't like it! BUT, I have to say I enjoyed it LOL!

One of the problems I had with New Hope was Carrie Fisher as Leia. She didn't seem right for the role somehow......a bit wooden and understated. In TESB though she's more feisty and we get to see her in a love triangle with Han and Luke (lucky girl

) so her character's more fleshed out and we finally get to see the real Leia.

The film's non-stop action all the way through......which is another reason why I liked it! Straight away Luke finds himself in danger on the ice planet Hoth, where the rebels have built a base as a hideaway from the Federation. A monster attacks him and drags him to its underground lair where Luke finds himself strung upside down like a meat carcass (which is what he is!) He starts to use the force for the first time to bring his lightsaber from the ground and into his hand. He cuts himself free and attacks the ice monster (lopping its arm off in the process

)

From then on the action just keeps getting better......the Federation find the rebels and attack their base using AT AT machines......a very cool sequence with stunning effects.

During the course of the film we see Luke on his way to becoming a Jedi Knight with training from Yoda.....a Jedi Master. I loved the training sequences with Luke upside down, balancing on one hand while moving rocks with his mind! I didn't like Yoda's voice though.....I couldn't tell what he was saying at first but he was still cute!

Luke goes to rescue his friends who've been captured by Darth Vader thanks to Lando's apparent help. There's a great scene where Han is encased in carbonite and we see Leia's true feelings for him. Luke and Vader have an epic lightsaber battle (the highlight of the film) and Luke has his hand chopped off

Another shock is when Vader says he's Luke's father and tried to get him to join the Dark Side.

As Luc said, it's darker and grittier than the prequel film.....which is a good thing cause I didn't like the original film's cheesy ending! A great film and I'm gonna watch my Return of the Jedi vid!

Lucifer_666 · Site Joined: 27 Jul 2007 Posts: 12791

Great review babe I'm delighted you liked it too...oh and definitely watch Return of the Jedi aswell because for me its my next favourite and when I was a kid it was my favourite ,,,I only started to really like Empire as I got older

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Catnapper · Site Joined: 30 Jul 2007 Posts: 8906

Is that the one with Leia in the bikini?!! No wonder you like it then

There was one thing I didn't like in TESB.......the dinosaur type creature thingy (I can't remember its name) that Han rode into the rebels base....the cgi was a bit ropey there! But all the other cgi effects were excellent

Lucifer_666 · Site Joined: 27 Jul 2007 Posts: 12791

Yes Leia has that slave bikini in this one....its when Leia stopped being a Princess and became a woman

Yeah I know the scene your on about babe I thought that too but as far as I remember Lucas left that bit untouched from '83 and of course it was all done with minatures in the similar way as the Jason and Argonauts type of effects....its a wonder they didn't change it because you are absolutely right there? Some Cgi added for that shot would have done no harm at all
Then again in another way I'm not really surprised at Lucas either he recently made a statement saying he thought Empire was the worst Star Wars film of them all...now he could have been joking but I remember, after listening to the commentaries on all the three films last year, and noting that Lucas seemed quite irritated with certain things in Empire...and although he requested Kershner to Direct I don't think he was happy he had to get another in to do it no matter who it was.... In fact if he was serious I think its a bit of jealousy there particularly as the prequel trilogy (Lucas directred them all) got basically slated and personally I thought were very weak character wise...I found it very hard to warm to anyone in the prequels.
In Empire however Kershner who wasn't so keen on selling films on special effects alone was determined to make the film more about characterizations than hardware and spent several months working on the script, pushing the writers into humanizing the characters more (something that Lucas has often been criticized for failing to do).

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