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Irvin KershnerKamera:
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John WilliamsBesetzung:
Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, David Prowse, Peter Mayhew, Frank Oz, Alec Guinness, Jeremy Bulloch (mehr)Streaming (5)
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Nach einer verheerenden Niederlage in der Schlacht um ihren Stützpunkt auf dem Eisplaneten 'Hoth' sind die Rebellen auf der Flucht vor den imperialen Truppen. Während sich Han Solo (Harrison Ford) mit Prinzessin Leia (Carrie Fisher) in die Wolkenstadt 'Bespin' rettet, reist Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) zu den düsteren Sümpfen von 'Dagobah'. Nur hier kann er von Jedi-Meister Yoda in die Geheimnisse der Macht eingeweiht werden. Lukes neu erlernte Fähigkeiten werden jedoch schnell auf eine harte Probe gestellt, denn Darth Vader (David Prowse) setzt alles daran ihn zur dunklen Seite der Macht zu ziehen. Ein Duell auf Leben und Tod bringt die Entscheidung - und enthüllt die unglaubliche Wahrheit über Lukes Familie. (20th Century Fox Home Entertainment)
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Wie kann man das prägnant ausdrücken? Wenn schon der erste Band ein Klassiker war, so ist dieser Band ein Klassiker der Klassiker und möglicherweise das beste Science-Fiction-Abenteuer aller Zeiten. Alles, was Episode IV auszeichnete, wurde zur Perfektion aufpoliert! Die großen Kinder spielen so schön...
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Die wesentlich düsterere Fortsetzung der Starsaga ist mit einer noch besseren Geschichte und einer noch besseren Bearbeitung ausgestattet als der Vorgänger, der die Messlatte bereits hoch ansetzte. Das Imperium schlägt zurück bot mir alles, von Action, Abenteuer, bis hin zu prächtigen Kulissen, perfekter technischer Ausführung, Kostümen und Masken - also alles, was den ersten Teil für mich erfolgreich machte, plus etwas mehr - bei Imperium konnte ich mich mehr auf die Handlung einlassen, die ich reicher fand. Und der von mir so geliebte weise Yoda trat auf den Plan. Kurzum, in fast jeder Hinsicht, wenn nicht sogar in jeder, ein perfekter Film, den man gesehen haben muss.
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The old trilogy is literally aging before your eyes, and even the best remastered tricks won't change that fact. Luke Skywalker remains one of my childhood heroes, but even a proper dose of nostalgia can't hide the fact that the chemistry between Han and Leia is the only thing that really saves the first half. The tension, grandeur, and fatefulness that I always associated with The Empire Strikes Back fully come to fruition almost at the very end – and that is almost starting to seem like not enough.
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The fifth episode of Star Wars primarily completes the world where these movies are set. Regardless of the several crucial findings, it has also perfect cinematography, which I still think about even today, and about how George Lucas actually managed to come up with it back then. But apart from supporting the viability of the world itself, this episode hides possibly the biggest amount of great action and explosions per square meter, which is confirmed especially in the beginning, the end, and actually also in the middle of the movie. Hats off. To film the second episode and to claim that it is the fifth one, and at the same time forcing the viewers to think about what the first to third episodes contain and leave them at it for the next almost twenty years takes some balls. Not just anybody could do that.
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The Empire Strikes Back establishes the central paradox of Star Wars fandom – its qualities are predominantly not the work of George Lucas, so the instalment that is adored by all and to a great extent defines the franchise is paradoxically an anomaly within the saga. The first Star Wars laid out the world of a galaxy far, far away and, as an update of old naïve sci-fi adventures in the mould of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, was intended to be a spectacle for children. Thanks to that, Lucas was able to make money from merchandising, which at the time was not yet targeted at the fat wallets of fans, but only family budgets. With The Empire Strikes Back, the franchise was catapulted to cult status in the sense of lifestyle. With its adult conflicts, tense emotions and brilliant dramaturgical structure, the second (now fifth) part of the saga resonated with both teenagers and older viewers. But instead of the father of the franchise, George Lucas, the director’s chair was occupied by his film-school instructor, Irvin Kershner, who had accepted Lucas’s offer under the condition that he could give depth to the story and develop the characters. The Empire Strikes Back is thus closer to fan fiction than to Lucas’s style of light-hearted space operas, which returned in the aspects of Return of the Jedi that were condemned by fans. Like the fan fiction that it in many respects inspired, the second/fifth episode retains Lucas’s worlds, settings, characters and basic motifs, but sets them in a stylistically completely different narrative that dispenses with naïveté, playfulness and melodrama in favour of pathos, fatefulness, intense emotions, twists and dramatic situations with a burdensome impact on the characters. Though the key twists and revelations were devised by Lucas, Kershner’s direction gives them their proper form – it suffices to compare the concept of key scenes and the direction of the actors here with the predominating swagger and inconsistent drama of the other two parts of the original trilogy. The same is true in the case of the film’s other strengths, particularly the brilliant narrative, which, instead of the linearity of the first film, offers the dramaturgically refined alternation of two parallel storylines, which is precisely timed so that the narrative never loses momentum. Together with director Richard Marquand, Lucas tried to emulate this in the last film, but the absence of dramaturgical feel and the preference for adventure attractions led to scenes that are desperately drawn out beyond the bounds of what is tolerable. In accordance with the consensus, The Empire Strikes Back is thus indeed the best episode of the saga, but it does not represent the desired culmination of style, trends and motifs, but rather a deviation or paraphrase that unfortunately reveals the saga’s potential, which remained unexploited in the other episodes. The fact that Lucas entrusted the directing to a filmmaker with ambitions and filmmaking qualities that surpassed his own is actually the cruellest of his notoriously ambiguous decisions. In the area of special effects, Lucas came into his own with The Empire Strikes Back, and the progress made in the three years since the first film, which is noticeable in every trick shot, is truly breath-taking. Lucas later diminished his contribution by releasing a special edition with added digital effects that gave the entire trilogy a uniform appearance. Much thanks and appreciation belong to the fan restoration project of the despecialised edition under Harmy’s direction, which allows us to again marvel at the original form of all three episodes.
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