My Favorite Movies: #7—The Empire Strikes Back

7. The Empire Strikes Back (1980) 

Genre: Sci-Fi Fantasy 

Director: Irvin Kershner 

Writers: Lawrence Kasdan, Leigh Brackett 

Stars: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones 

Awards: 2 Oscars—Sound, Visual Effects 

Metacritic score: 82 

IMDB Ranking: #13

The Empire Strikes Back is not simply the best of all the Star Wars movies, it's my favorite science fiction movie of all time, and the competition is really not close at all. This is the movie that made me a Star Wars fan for life, that indoctrinated me into a fandom, and that made me want to see the same movie multiple times in a theater. It still stands as one of the outstanding examples of popular cinema as cultural artistry.

In the wake of the fierce fan debate over this year's middle film in the third trilogy, The Last Jedi, it's no surprise that critics and fans alike were divided over the quality of this original middle entry. While Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both gave it perfect scores of 100, Vincent Canby of The New York Times gave it 50/100 and derided it as vastly inferior to the original movie.

It's no surprise whose side I'm on. From the first time I saw it to the fifth and final time seeing it in the summer of 1980 in the theater, The Empire Strikes Back is the ultimate triumph of the Skywalker story. Many fans disliked the fact that the Empire pretty much wins everything in this film (it's in the title, dumbass), but they missed the same point that The Last Jedi's haters also overlooked—this entire series is not about Luke, or Leia, or Han, (or Boba fucking Fett, for God's sake), but rather about Anakin Skywalker, aka Darth Vader.

You all know the plot, so I'm not going to sum things up this time around, and I'm going to start with the plot twist revelation that blew our young little minds right into outer space: Ben Kenobi lied to Luke; Darth Vader didn't kill Anakin Skywalker—Darth Vader IS Anakin Skywalker, and therefore Luke's father. 

It's still one of the greatest plot twists in movie history, and the drama of the reveal is still as compelling as the first time we saw it. But that's not the only thing that makes this movie truly great. First of all, we have the friendship between Han and Luke, shown through Han's willingness to risk his own life to find Luke in the frozen wastes of the ice planet of Hoth. Luke likewise risks himself to save Han and Leia in the Cloud City of Bespin in the film's third act. The opening act also gives us probably the most tense and thrilling battle sequence of all the movies—the Imperial invasion of the Rebel base on Hoth.

Second is the training sequence, where we first meet Jedi Master Yoda on the swamp planet of Dagobah and watch as Luke learns to harness the power of the Force to become a Jedi as well as deal with the temptations of the Dark Side. These themes, as well as the lesson he learns from Yoda, are crucial to our understanding of the two movies of the new trilogy, but especially what Luke tells Rey in The Last Jedi: the Force does not belong to them.

Third, and what was most thrilling for me, was the romance between Han and Leia. Their constant bickering in the first movie carries over as she is forced to escape the Hoth base with Han and Chewie in the Millennium Falcon. He routinely addresses her sarcastically as "Your worshipfulness," and she constantly criticizes both his strategy and tactics, which do admittedly lead them into a suicidal flight through an asteroid field. The scene where they first kiss—then are interrupted by that insufferable pest Threepio—is the pinnacle of movie romances, comparable to great classics like Casablanca or Gone With the Wind. If you're a nerd like me, you're looking for a girl who'll respond to "I love you" not with "I love you too" but rather, "I know."

Finally, there's that amazing third act in Bespin: Lando's betrayal; Han's carbonite freeze and capture by Boba Fett (never forget—he died like a bitch); Luke's lightsaber battle with Vader; Vader's shocking revelation that he is Luke's father; Leia exhibiting force powers to find Luke below the city; it's a series of dramatic scenes that keep you on the edge of your seat right until the very end.

There is a lot that was disappointing for me with the next movie, Return of the Jedi (mainly Ewoks), but to be fair, there was no way that George Lucas and company was going to top their achievement in Empire. Rogue One comes the closest for me, followed by The Force Awakens, then The Last Jedi. I'm always eager to see whatever comes next in the burgeoning Disney/Lucasfilm catalog, but the pinnacle of greatness was achieved in 1980 and is unlikely to ever be surpassed.