TIME Star Wars by The Editors of TIME

Author:The Editors of TIME
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781547840762
Publisher: TIME
Published: 2017-11-24T05:00:00+00:00

As anticipation ran high for Star Wars’s opening, thousands of stolen transparencies circulated among fans who hadn’t even seen the film yet.

Original Review TIME, May 19, 1980

The Empire Strikes Back

By Gerald Clarke

Star Wars’s return to theaters was more ambitious and darker, dominated by Vader’s fiendish presence.

It took them long enough, but here they come. All the old friends and some favorite enemies have returned to brighten this unhappy spring. There’s Luke Skywalker, that whiz kid from Tatooine, and there’s Princess Leia, that cosmic man-killer. There are Han Solo and his furry eight-foot friend Chewbacca trying to get their beat-up old tub, the Millennium Falcon, to make the jump into hyperspace. And back, of course, are the Laurel and Hardy of the robot set, Artoo Detoo and See Threepio, in fine beep and polish.

But wait. What is that ominous sound in the background, that heavy breathing that strikes terror in the hearts of all those who love peace and freedom? It could only be the scourge of the universe, the nastiest man from here to infinity, Archvillain Darth Vader, the Dark Lord of Sith and leader of the Imperial Forces. It is time, in other words, to hurry up, buy the popcorn, M&M’s or whatever else you like to munch in front of the silver screen, and grab a seat for The Empire Strikes Back.

When Star Wars ended, the Rebels—the good guys—had just destroyed the Empire’s Death Star and were giving their two new heroes, Luke and Han Solo (Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford), some shiny medals to hang on their key chains. Darth Vader (David Prowse) had sneaked out through the back hatch, however, and as The Empire opens, he is sending the forces of the evil Empire to rout the Rebels from their hideout on the ice planet Hoth. Giant walking tanks blast the Rebel fortress, and Solo, Leia, Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) and See Threepio (Anthony Daniels) barely manage to escape in the Millennium Falcon. That uncertain vessel refuses, however, to leap into hyperspace, and in order to evade pursuing Empire fighters, Solo runs through a perilous asteroid field. “They’d be crazy to follow us in here,” he says. Eventually, they find what they think is refuge in a city in the clouds ruled by Solo’s old friend in mild skulduggery, Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams).

Luke, meantime, has been visited by the holographic presence of Obi-Wan Kenobi, or Ben Kenobi (Alec Guinness), who was translated to incorporeal planes by Vader in Star Wars. With the power of the Force behind them, old Jedi knights never die, it seems; they just fade in and out. Ben Kenobi tells Luke to seek out someone named Yoda on the Planet Dagobah. Ben did not say that the place is all jungles and swamps, and Luke soon finds himself knee-deep in muck. Suddenly a strange little creature pops out. He looks like one of the gargoyles with whom the Hunchback used to play at Notre Dame. He even spouts a kind of Chaucerian Middle English, with many of his verbs and adjectives piling up at the end of sentences.

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