Movie - Star Wars V : The Empire Strikes Back

Movie - Star Wars V : The Empire Strikes Back

Score : 8.5/10 
Year :1980
Director: Irvin Kershner
Cinematography: Peter Suschitzky
Music:  John William
Country: USA 
Language: English
Duration:  2h04 (Theatrical) ; 2h07 (special edition)
Writers:  Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan (screenplay) ;  
George Lucas (story)

Full cast & team (IMDB)


The second made Star Wars movie is chapter V - The Empire Strikes Back. It is set in the in-universe calendar year 3 ABY,  when the tyrannical Empire attacks the Rebel Allianc's refuge base on an ice, remote planet Hote, in the faraway galaxy where the all Star Wars takes place.


In this chapter, Darth Vader and the Emperor seek to find the protagonists, each for different purposes ;  Leia leads the Alliance and Luke Skywalker, still impatient but maturing, has gone to train with Jedi Master Yoda. 

As in IV, this movie starts with the opening crawl and the famous musical theme from John Williams, who also continues his leitmotiv started in the previous chapter, leading the action, romance, suspense and charter-specific tunes to near perfection - except one short moment when the score fails, in my opinion, into giddy music with no cause. 

Acting is intense in most instances, though Lando's treatment of Leia are a mark of the 1980's sexism on screen, and remains perturbing despite putting it in context. 


Characters are otherwise very well written, Yoda's quirk, Han's snark, Leia's proaction and the others, new for V or continued from IV are all excellent in their positions. 
My impression is that costumes are somewhat reduced in this chapter, compared to the previous, but retains the conformist Stormtroopers.


Special and practical effects continue to shine in this sequel, where narrative story telling becomes far more complex than the first instalment, with multiple stages and locations for each action. 

The battle on the snow is epic and entertaining, a visual masterpiece, especially for 1980, and will be revisited in a different way in Star Wars VIII.

Sociopolitical comments are still present, but so does the problematic gender-balance : Leia is now the only woman we really see and hear from - although a few others are glimpsed in very quick scenes, but with no dialogues. At least Leia is still very active in helping herself and leading her crew, even more so than in IV. 

The scenes involving the wompa and then the tauntaun, between 15 and 20 minutes into the movie are difficult for me and I tend to avoid watching, or skip the entire segment.


Starring :  Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Wiliams, Alex Guinness, Peter Mayhew, et al - including voice actors for some of the characters. 

******

 Star Wars V  has two main versions, with individual duration. Theatrical in 1980 was 2h04, and the special edition 2h07. The differences include added and extended scenes, adding or altering several dialogues. Other versions cut certain scenes, especially those pertaining to torture.

I again include an imdb list for alternate versions, changes in versions on wiki, and let you find other sources to compare all the differeces in the various versions. 

I personally prefer the theatrical but wish that it was released  in full 16:9 image format, not 4:3 letterbox, and with better sound than the 2.0 stereo. More on that, in the media section, bellow.

****** 

Star Wars V... in the media.

Before I detail my dvd's, for comparison I'll add here that the original theatrical image aspect ratio was 2.35:1 and had dolby stereo sound. 

There are numerous dvd and bluray editions, so I can only cover mine.

EAN 5039036028295 is a limited, double-dvd, zone 2 PAL edition, released in 2006. 

Disc 1 : 
2006 version. . Duration 2h02. (Pal speedup). 
Movie, widescreen format enchanced for 16:9 TVs, original aspect ratio 2.35:1.
 Language/ Sound : English (only).  Dolby 5.1 surround EX, and dolby 2.0 surround. 
Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish.



Bonus : 

• audio commentary by George Lucas, Irvin Kershner, Ben Butt, Dennis Muren and Carrie Fisher - haven't listened to it.
• DVD-ROM weblink to exclusive content - I assume the link is broken here as well

Disc 2 :
Original 1980 theatrical version.  Duration 1h59 (Pal speedup). 
4:3 Letterbox format with aspect ratio 2.35:1. 
Language/ Sound : English (only),  dolby 2.0 surround. 
Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish. 



Bonus : 

• LEGO Star Wars II video game PC demo and trailer (the same as New Hope!)

Both discs have an animated menu with direct access to scenes, options and bonuses- which are meagre as you saw both on New Hope and again here, and this time, disc 2 didn't even bring anything new, it merely gave the same bonus as before. 

As I said before, the theatrical version is presented with the original aspect ratio but in a 4:3 Letterbox format, which causes the image to shrink and is therefore less visible than the first disc's full 16:9 format, especially on a small-ish tv like ours (81cm, or 32''). 

Sound quality is also reduced because it's limited to stereo 2.0 : even on a decent Yamaha HiFi system, we can hear the dialogues better only in the 2.0 stereo set-up and any other makes dialogues sound muffled, faraway. 
 
If only Lucas would consent for a proper 5.1 and 16:9 re-release of this version!

Bottom line : I prefer the theatrical cut, but wish it was released in better quality. Certain of the changes in the edited version are nice, especially the colours, which are more vibrant.

My other edition has no individual EAN and included the Trilogy (IV-VI + a bonus dvd) box set, all together is EAN 8712626016342 and seems to be a Belge edition that I'd gotten some years ago, with the 2004 versions of the movies.
I'll discuss this set on a separate entry.