Arguably the best of all the Star Wars films, it couldn’t have had a tougher act to follow, but follow it it did. Here, we rank the 5 greatest moments in The Empire Strikes Back…
“Something’s not right because now I can’t see!”
C3PO gets a pretty raw deal in The Empire Strikes Back, spending most of the movie getting insulted, pushed around and switched off, with his ordeal culminating in getting blown to pieces and nearly melted down in Cloud City. Luckily, Chewbacca has another string to his bowcaster: droid repair. Aside from the comedy value at Chewie chuckling at accidentally putting his head on backwards, it shows of the camaraderie between the Rebels. 3PO may irritate him on a regular basis, but he’s still willing to go all out to help him out.
“My ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is”
Up until this point, the only Jedi we had seen were humans or humanoids, so when Luke is informed of a great Jedi master living in solitude on the planet Dagobah, we assume it’ll be a formidable presence. Therefore, when we come across the diminutive, chuckling green alien, we write him off – until it turns out that this is actually Yoda. One of the strengths of the original trilogy was that almost every major scene opened up the universe in some way, and this is definitely the case here.
“You have failed me for the last time, Admiral”
Cut off from Grand Moff Tarkin’s leash, Vader is free to terrorise the crew of his fleet, starting with the hapless Admiral Ozzel. After his blunder in alerting the Rebels to his presence, thus giving them the time to put up a shield and force the Empire into embarking on a costly ground assault, Vader decides to take matters into his own hands, relieving Ozzel of his post via long-distance Force choke and simultaneously using the opportunity to promote Captain Piett to the rank of Admiral. Now that’s ruthless.
“You must unlearn what you have learned”
Luke may be taking on all of Yoda’s vital lessons, but he fails all the big tests – initially, at least. The first of which being when he goes into the mysterious cave, ignoring Yoda’s instructions to leave his lightsaber behind, where he comes across what appears to be Darth Vader. After decapitating him all too easily, it becomes clear that this is just a vision: in killing in actor, he’ll become just like his quarry. Knowing what we do now about his heritage, it’s more than a little heavy on the foreshadowing on the front, but hey, we weren’t to know that.
“No, I am your father”
Spoiler alert. Honestly, we wish we could go back and watch this scene again, unaware of what was about to transpire. In any case, with Luke defeated and his life hanging by a thread, Vader delivers another hammer-blow by revealing his true importance. Aside from the big revelation, this is the moment that also enables us to see how different Luke is from his father: while Anakin caved in to temptation, Luke instead chooses death over the Dark Side.
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes back can be found on Disney+
