Poll: Why is "The Empire Strikes Back" more highly regarded than "Star Wars"?

[Spade Lead]

I chose Episode 6 for it's grandiose starship battle, but the truth is, If I hadn't had to watch Episode 3 every day at work for 6 months straight, it would probably still be my favorite.

 

[Mikeyfell]

From a directorial, writing and editing standpoint it was the better movie.
The story had a far more emotionally involved tinge to it, not to mention the biggest shocker ending ever.

They were both excellent movies but Empire was put together with more technical skill.

 

[nohorsetown]

"Empire" had the better ending. I mean, Luke gets his hand cut off, finds out Vader's his father, Han gets frozen and taken away by Boba Fett. It ends on such a down note. I mean, that's what life is, a series of down endings. All "Jedi" had was a bunch of Muppets.

Heh, cool - first time I've ever said this online:

"I see what you did there!"

OT: It's probably regarded highly because it's relatively dark, and dark is cool. Plus, the eternally-popular Lando and Yoda and Boba Fett are all introduced in Empire; I never understood the Fett appeal myself, but he's a badass or something. Lando is pretty well-developed for his small amount of screen time, and Yoda is perfect - I'd take ESB Yoda over flippin-around-with-a-lightsaber Yoda any day. Plus, there's the "I Love You" / "I Know" bit, the big Vader-father reveal, the hand.. I dunno, it seems kinda obvious that Empire would be the fan favorite. I agree with the OP, tho, that A New Hope is awesome, and it may be more of a "perfect movie" than Empire, if analyzed in a vacuum.

 

[7moreDead_v1legacy]

Gurgh, picking one of the first 3 is a tough one...I think Empire would take it, mainly due to the fact it was the one I enjoyed the most when I was younger...Damn choices.

This thread however did remind me of this http://youtu.be/dGOVbXF7Iog

xD

 

[Theminimanx]

Maybe it's just that I'm tired of traditional stories after seeing them so many times, but I like the unconventional story of Empire. Plus, I always prefer a focus on characters in my stories. Which also explains why I think that most of Jedi isn't all that great, but everything having to do with Luke, Vader and the emperor is absolute brilliance.

 

[Something Amyss]

I saw the movie on its original release, way before it became episode IV, so it still comes naturally to me to ignore the episode title.

Hey, remember when it was actually considered trivia that the title of "Star Wars" was "A New Hope?"

Good times.

I think you're probably right about Empire being a fan favourite because it's more serious, which would also explain why I don't quite 'get it.' It's kind of like the Mass Effect series - I enjoy them as fun space opera but I've never taken them as seriously as many fans do, and I feel the same way about the Star Wars movies - a few scenes aside they're fun and adventure to me, not even close to dark and serious.

Empire and Jedi are pretty serious, though. And even Star Wars is fairly serious, albeit more infused with adventure and camp.

I think why I like Episode V over IV is the fact that we really see the characters start to grow. Sure, there's some growth in the first, but not as much. I also think Yoda playing the buffoon to test Luke, then switching to super serious face is pretty damn great. The cave sequence, one of the biggest moments of the crucial theme that Luke could end up like his father, the anger of Vader, Han's relationship with Lando.

Hell, C-3PO getting torn apart always brings a smile to my face, but that's neither here nor there.

They probably could have done this with a less serious film and I would still like it more, so I don't think it's the tone. I think it's the character arcs and growth.

 

[ImperialSunlight]

I find it funny that the ending of Empire gets so much praise and no one ever mentions Jedi's ending. Sure, there were ewoks, but you also have the redemption of Darth Vader, which, in my opinion, was done very well. Compared to Empire's ending, it is far more meaningful. Empire had a downer ending, yes, but what is the point of it? Jedi's ending was far more meaningful in comparison.

True, however I'd argue that Empire and Jedi compliment each other for this reason. By having the 'down' ending in Empire the 'up' ending in Jedi seems all the sweeter.

Yeah, I agree. Actually, I'm thinking now that it might not be a good idea to compare the overall quality of Star Wars movies, as they are part of a single series. It seems a more potent strategy to look at how each film contributes to the whole. I mean, some people might say that Empire's lack of character introduction due to it's being a sequel makes it better, and while it may be more interesting for that reason, A New Hope was necessary to achieve that. It's ability to build on previous lore and knowledge is due to its status as a sequel and that doesn't necessarily make it a better movie. To decide whether that movie was any good, we have to decide what a good sequel should do, not what a good movie should do.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

My personal favorite is Return of the Jedi because it has the best action sequences of all three movies but yeah, Empire is easily my second favorite.

I would chalk that largely up to it having the sharpest script and tightest plotting of the three films, Han and Leia banter brilliantly, Yoda is hilarious and Luke & Vaders confrontation is fantastically dramatic.

 

[Phuctifyno]

But... for me it sags a bit in the middle. Yoda doesn't really come into his own until the prequels and so in Empire he's mostly just a slightly annoying muppet, and the end is uneven in that while Luke gets the aforementioned awesome confrontation with Vader, the rest of the main characters just run around blasting a few stormtroopers.

This paragraph, I think, summarizes your problem understanding people's appreciation for Empire.

Yoda: Muppet >>>>>>>>> CGI, - any place, any time. Yoda jumping around looking like a video game in Clones was the stupidest thing in the whole series. The whole point of him being a feeble little muppet was to show that the power of the Force was spiritual, not physical. Yoda should never have been shown to hold a lightsaber because he doesn't need one.

"Your weapons. You will not need them."

This is one major point that draws a lot of people to favoring Empire. We get small glimpses of telepathy and mind-control in the first Star Wars, and Vader and Obi -Wan talking about it solemnly, but it's mostly treated like a super power (though not to the degree of the prequels). It's Empire that establishes what the Force really means, and not just in the tiny fictional universe of Star Wars, but on a real, relatable, human level. It took the fun, pulpy, adventure story that Lucas laid out in the first film and turned it into something meaningful. And it's through Yoda that we learn all these things - he has no "coming into his own" to do beyond that.

As for the second part, the rest of the main characters shouldn't be doing much more than running around shooting bad guys at that point in the film because that would upset the balance of drama. Those characters and their plotline already hit their emotional peak when Han was frozen, and if it kept rising, it would interfere with the emotional peak of Luke's fight and Vader's reveal. Leia, Chewy, and the rest fight a battle that slowly becomes more and more hopeless, and clinches out just as the Luke/Vader fight starts to wrap, letting the audience sink into the realization that this movie isn't going to have as happy of an ending as the last one. It is one damn well-constructed sequence.

 

[DaftPivot XXX]

I'll be cast into the fiery pits of frowned-upon-opinion hell for this, but Phantom Menace is by faaar, my favourite. It introduces great Jedi Masters such as Qui-Gon Jinn and the council members, seeing Obi-Wan in action is worth the watch alone. Now I'm a bit young and wasn't fed off of the Star Wars original trilogy nostalgia bottle so I can't see why anyone would prefer geriatric, sad looking, on death's door Yoda over ass-kicking master of the force Grandmaster Yoda. Nor do I understand any hatred for silly Jar-Jar when the originals had a droid of questionable sexuality (C-3PO) and Ewoks. Now maybe some people don't like twiddly awesome action scenes and prefer the old men who look like it's their first time playing flashy sticks, but at least the prequels made lightsaber fighting a thing, like... something to fear and gaze in awe. I apologize for that, but after two pages of prequel hate the storm had to be unleashed.

But now that I've dealt with that... I don't really know why it's more highly regarded than Jedi. I thought both films had merit, but only as the predecessors to the universe truly unfolding. I'll respect the great acting, dialogue and writing bla blah blah, because I love those movies. But in the end (For me) they only supplemented watching the prequels and brought it to a nice close.... or not so close because y'know... episode 7. Now of course, this is all opinion and I apologize in advance for any undue hatred towards you backstabbing pretendsies Star Wars fans... I joke. Kind of. Not really... -_- It's probably just a product of my being born late, I can't help it.

 

[ecoho]

i actually liked episode 2 the most. Why? Because more happened in it the any of the other prequels. As for why i like it better then the origenals, astedics. the prequels look better and were made with better tech. now if the tech matched the writeing my vote would go of course to the empire strikes back but after watching though the origenal trilligy again the speical effects are just.....sad.

Yey! i'm not alone! *hugs*

Probably another reason why i like prequels to, They look a lot better, however the original trilogy (with all the editing that's been done) doesn't look to bad...but compared to ep 3, they are a little silly.

lol yeach the AT-ATs look like the puppets they are in the empire strikes back, now thats not bad persay but dam if it doesnt just ruin the mood when you can say i could make that better with legos....

 

[Sixcess]

Now maybe some people don't like twiddly awesome action scenes and prefer the old men who look like it's their first time playing flashy sticks, but at least the prequels made lightsaber fighting a thing, like... something to fear and gaze in awe. I apologize for that, but after two pages of prequel hate the storm had to be unleashed.

I think the duel between Obi Wan and Vader gets a lot of unfair criticism. It's more of a dramatic scene than a special effects spectacle, a final battle between two old men who are shadows of their former selves. In any case, I'd much rather have Alec Guiness being brilliant throughout the rest of the film than someone else who could have, perhaps, done a flashier fight scene. Regardless of his well known subsequent dislike for the film, he's superb, and has a ton of great scenes - including, from a dramatic point of view, that final fight.

Besides that, Empire has the best duel of any of the films - original trilogy or prequel. Not only is it better shot and more impressively choreographed, but it tells a story and you can see Luke and Vader developing as characters throughout the fight.

When I think of the prequel duels I think mostly of opportunities missed. There's some nice choreogrphy in the Maul fight in Episode 1, and Yoda is great (and highly amusing) in the other two, but generally it's just sound and fury and drowned in superfluous special effects.

And I'll never forgive them for having the opportunity of choreographing a fight between Obi Wan and a four armed General Grevious and completely blowing it by almost instantly chopping off two of his arms. That just felt lazy.

 

[DaftPivot XXX]

I think the duel between Obi Wan and Vader gets a lot of unfair criticism. It's more of a dramatic scene than a special effects spectacle, a final battle between two old men who are shadows of their former selves. In any case, I'd much rather have Alec Guiness being brilliant throughout the rest of the film than someone else who could have, perhaps, done a flashier fight scene. Regardless of his well known subsequent dislike for the film, he's superb, and has a ton of great scenes - including, from a dramatic point of view, that final fight.

I definitely felt the drama in this scene without question. Becoming one with the force was Obi Wan's final role, his saga coming to a close. I like the way it was done, I would have preferred it more epic, but for it's time, that's what they had and they made it awesome in all respects. I suppose I'm only holding it up in comparison to the Maul fight and subsequent battles because I saw them first. Watching in that order, I can't help the let down of one of my favourite characters not receiving a good send off after all his tribulations. Obi Wan I just feel got one upped in epic deaths by his master. Now Yoda, I would never change how he went out, that made sense and it was perfect. But I agree, dramatically, perfectly executed.

As for best duel, I'd have to disagree, but mostly only because of my favouritism of Qui-Gon Jinn.

Also, I find myself agreeing with you on the missed opportunities, not for that particular scene (It's not fresh in me memory) but for the gawdjamminsquiqqittexpletive bull**** duel in the third episode. Words cannot express my hatred for whomever thought Saesee Tinn, Agen Kolar and Kit Fisto, aided by Mace Windu (All considered some of theee best duellists in the order) should be cut down in 5 seconds... (Alright six for Fisto) in what -should- have been the greatest duel in the entire saga. It's so depressing thinking about it, what it -could- have been... I'm hurt Mr. Lucas, in a bad way.

 

[Carlos Storm]

I was raised with the starwars films, my parents both loved them and I knew who Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader were before I knew who Queen Elizabeth II(as a Canadian she's on our coins) was.

As much as I love and can appreciate the original trilogy, as good as they are, my rose coloured glasses put "The Phantom Menace" as my favourite movie. I recognize what people say makes it bad, and I agree it is by no means a perfect film, but at the time of it's release I was the target audience(I was 10 when it came out), I saw badass lightsaber fights, cool spaceships, kickass Jedi fighting menacing villain(almost said Villians but everyone minus Darth Maul was laughable), and a Hero tailored to appeal to my demograph. Even now looking back JarJar annoys me, Anakin could audition for Pinocchio, the list of faults one can find with it goes on, but I will never forget how I felt watching it for the first time. That for me is enough to see past it's faults.

 

[Therumancer]

The reason being is that "Empire" is the middle movie of a series where most of the action takes place. The first movie, like the beginning of most trilogies sets the stage and largely shows that the idea has potential and some big ideas at work. "Empire" sets everything up, creates the jeopardy, and ends at a cliff hanger. The third movie, "Return Of The Jedi" which is perhaps the weakest one is the movie that has to outdo the others, beign the final act, where everything needs to be brought to a final and triumphant conclusion that was worthy of both the initial premise and promise, and the build up in the second movie. Like many things, Star Wars flubbed the ending, but didn't do so on a spectacular enough level to ruin the rest of the series, unlike say Mass Effect. It ended on a high enough note where you could still care about what happend in the other movies.

To some extent the "best" movie in the series was as the middle chapter the easiest one to make, because they didn't need to worry about the set up, or concern themselves too much with making a workable finale. Star Wars being pretty much forumula for trilogies or series.

The biggest problem with Jedi I think was specifically that they couldn't ever make things as cool or dramatic as the second movie. In the final equasion the stupid ewok puppets could not produce as awesome a battle as what we saw in "Empire", and the final scene between Vader, The Emperor, and Luke which should have been the most awesome confrontation in the entire series, making the battle with Vader in Bespin look pathetic in comparison, was kind of cheezy and fairly anti-climactic. Sure it was dramatic enough in it's own way I guess, but didn't quite achieve highs equal to or surpassing the lows brought about by the second act.

That's my take on it at any rate you had a good movie, an excellent movie, and a fair movie.

You'll also notice that this is par for the course with most things, to the point where the exceptions really stand out. Take "Lost" for example, the set up for the series captured imaginations, the middle parts of the series were the easiest to make because all they had to do was keep shooting out wierd crap left and right, and worry about tying it all up later once their audience started to get bored. When it came time to end it and tie all of that together they failed to create an ending that was worthy of all the stuff they had going on in the second act (so to speak) and thus it ended on a sort of "meh" note.

Star Wars did have the advantage of doing so well at it's good moments that people wanted more of it, long after it was done (as we all know) which is rare. The epic moments it delivered, in all three movies, can make it easy to forgive it's downside. In the ending the final scene of Vader chucking the emperor into the reactor core for example was cool enough even in the height of highly contrived cheese that it was enough to make you want to forgive how utterly tortured that entire scene/confrontation was until it got to the point. All meaning aside, some goober in a robe going "embrace your hate" just wasn't going to match the awesome inherant in the series other confrontations, even with the quick battle with Vader that took place and the arm-cutting parallel.

Such are my thoughts.

 

[Rose and Thorn]

I was born after the movies came out, so when I came of age to be able to both watch AND understand the films and I watched all three back to back. So I have never really considered them three seperate movies, therefore I don't really prefer one over the other.

I know as a kid, the whole Yoda scene was my least favorite part of the films and that takes place in the second one for the most part. I have come to enjoy those scenes much more now that I am older, I love the design of the swamp.

So yeah, I think Dangit2019 said it pretty good as to why the second one is the most popular, but for me I enjoy them all about the same. Episode IV MIGHT be my favorite though if I had to pick.

 

[Saulkar]

I personally prefer Attack Of The Clones due to childhood nostalgia followed closely by The Empire Strikes Back then finally The Phantom Menace. I have already seen that hour long analysis of why the first film was so bad and I agree with almost everything the narrator said. That does not make me like it any less.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

Because
"I love Empire so much I fuck it." -Harry S. Plinkett

What's that? Not good enough? Ok.

-Lucas didn't direct it
-Competent people did, and had most of the other positions that chose the movie's direction the director was an actorly director, less ambitious about special effects and scope in visuals than scope in story and characters. Thus making him the best choice.
-The Reveal
-Great acting

I agree with these. You have to understand that the "Reveal" moment was a big deal. It was the climax of Empire Strikes Back to find out who Luke's daddy is. It's like Knights of The Old Republic when you discover who Revan is. Great story telling.

Return of the Jedi is my favorite because Empire was so good. I make a case for Jedi - Luke comes into his own, the whole sequence at Jabba's palace was terrifying and exhilarating - I saw it at a drive-in movie theater with analogue sterio sound, which is how everyone should see it. Luke's back flip to retrieve his saber. The bad-ass forest sequence when Luke cuts the bike with his saber. The depth of Vader's voice. The "discussion" between Luke and the Emporer - the fact that you get to see the Emporer as the one pulling all the strings. There's just too much to talk about. Empire sets up Jedi so nicely it's not even funny.

Both movies had an amazing sense of scale - the 4 legged and 2 legged walkers, the M. Falcon, the Death Star, Rancor...all of it looked believable. You believed that Vader and Palpatine were powerfull. You believed in Luke. 1-3 don't even compare and Lucas knows it. He's been given his chance and he decided to make 3 movies for 11 year olds. 4-6 is for everyone.

 

[Karma168]

I think it builds a good character structure without ever telling us anything. Just go watch the fight with Luke and Vader; Luke is throwing himself bodily into Vader trying to crack him through brute strength and Vader is holding him off one freaking handed! Obi-Wan said Anakin was a great Jedi and this lets us see it (since the Obi-Wan/Vader fight is embarrassingly bad).

It lets us see that Luke's confidence in his week(?) worth of training is worthless compared to a real Jedi and that the Sith really are powerful in their own right.

It also expands the universe a bit; ep. 4 hinted at the wonder of the force and the power of the Empire, ep.5 expanded it so we get a better idea of how things work.

...and that's all I've got. Honestly I think it's like hearing a dull music album and picking your favourite based on what sucked less. The originals are dull (seriously even Han looks like he's falling asleep during the films) and have next to no depth while the prequels are flashy and interesting to look at but with even less depth than the originals. Star Wars is good but not to the level everyone seems to think it is.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I am in the minority in that I prefer A New Hope to Empire Strikes Back. Of course, I don't like Jedi(The light saber wielding kind, not the movie) and I enjoyed the greater focus on other things in the original movie. Especially that it came down to a space battle and not a light saber duel.
That isn't to say Empire isn't awesome.