Sequels have difficult acts to live up to, and few as much as The Empire Strikes Back, the follow-up to Star Wars, the 1977 film that drew famously long lines even as it broke one box-office record after another.
George Lucas had so much riding on this: not just fan expectations, nor even an entire franchise that would enable him, at last, to make the films he wanted free of studio interference, but also his financial well-being. To finance the $33 million production, he used his profits from Star Wars, then received a bank loan. It didn’t seem like a good sign when Empire went over budget, because of inevitable production snafus, by $10 million.
Lucas needn’t have worried. Maybe The Empire Strikes Back was the only one of the six movies in the Star Wars cycle not to top $300 million domestically. But otherwise, everything went according to plan, and then some.
As the Memorial Day weekend came to an end in 1980, The Empire Strikes Back stood at the top of the box-office heap, on its way to becoming the top-grossing film of the year. Lucas made back his investment in three months.
But the movie had also, surprisingly for a sequel, earned at least a modicum of critical acclaim for adding emotional complications to what had been at heart, in the original, a mere throwback to the Flash Gordon sci-fi serials of the early sound era. Luke Skywalker’s ongoing confrontation with the evil Darth Vader now featured a surprise that added an unexpected Freudian undercurrent to Lucas' projected saga of the Jedi Knights.
Some more icing on the cake: In a film cycle that powered up modern film merchandising as we know it, Empire added another quirky, beloved character: diminutive Jedi master Yoda, who looked like Making of the President author Theodore H. White and sounded like one of Time Magazine’s odd inverted sentences from the Henry Luce era.
This time, Lucas stepped away from the director’s chair, while an initially reluctant Irvin Kershner assumed his old role. But really, could you honestly say that you could have told the difference between the two?
If you want to observe the divergence between the two movies, look to the screenwriting credits. In Star Wars, that belonged to Lucas himself. But a film consists of more than simply a simple scenario—what also makes it credible are characters acting believably and dialogue that rings true.
By common agreement of several key cast members, Lucas provided neither. One of the funniest moments in Carrie Fisher’s recent one-woman show Wishful Drinking came when she described her startled reaction to Lucas’ claim that “there’s no underwear in space.” Veteran British thespian Alec Guinness, used to embodying multiple characters of staggering variety and complexity onstage in Shakespearean roles and onscreen in Alexander Mackendrick comedies and David Lean epics, kept wondering aloud what was going on with his character this time, the sagacious Obi-Wan Kenobe. Most memorably, Harrison Ford, according to John Seabrook’s terrific retrospective on Star Wars in The New Yorker, told Lucas, in no uncertain times: “George, you can type this crap, but you sure as shit can't say it.”
Faithful reader, I sat enthusiastically, like much of the rest of the world, through Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Return of the Jedi. But I bailed out after the 1999 film that ostensibly begins the whole saga, The Phantom Menace.
It wasn’t only because I objected to the all-around idiocy of Jar-Jar Binks, or even to the foul notion of killing off Liam Neeson as young Annakin Skywalker’s mentor, but also to the preposterous name Lucas bestowed on the latter, Qui-Gon Jinn.
(The latter—which rhymes with “Algonquin”--reminds me of Mark Twain chuckling at the name James Fenimore Cooper gave the mighty brave in The Leatherstocking Saga, “Chingachgook”—“pronounced Chicago, I think,” he wrote. Perhaps in that spirit, in his spoof Spaceballs, Mel Brooks, as the mysterious, gnomic knight master, announces: “I’m Yogurt—just plain Yogurt!”)
But Empire, as I’ve indicated, rang some interesting changes on Lucas’ stock characters. This time, after outlining his story, he turned the screenwriting chores over to hands less caught up in technical razzle-dazzle, as he was, and more on characterization.
The first screenwriter who took a crack at the sequel was Leigh Brackett, a veteran who had not only worked on several Howard Hawks films (e.g., The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo) but had carved out a niche in science fiction. In reading her (admittedly unfinished) script, though, Lucas felt disappointed.
Yet at this point, going back to her for a rewrite, even were he so inclined, was out of the question, because Brackett was dying of cancer. Not much of her script was retained onscreen, but Lucas made sure she shared screenwriting credit, in tribute to her professionalism under extraordinarily trying circumstances.
Lucas then turned to the young Lawrence Kasdan, who would go on to write Raiders of the Lost Art for Lucas, then tackle, on his own, Body Heat, The Big Chill, and The Accidental Tourist. In an interview a decade ago, Kasdan recalled the process of turning out this script as being “fun,” though how much it was is open to question, given that pre-production had already begun and Lucas and Kershner needed to review the evolving script every couple of weeks in “very intense, highly adrenalized” story sessions.
George Lucas had so much riding on this: not just fan expectations, nor even an entire franchise that would enable him, at last, to make the films he wanted free of studio interference, but also his financial well-being. To finance the $33 million production, he used his profits from Star Wars, then received a bank loan. It didn’t seem like a good sign when Empire went over budget, because of inevitable production snafus, by $10 million.
Lucas needn’t have worried. Maybe The Empire Strikes Back was the only one of the six movies in the Star Wars cycle not to top $300 million domestically. But otherwise, everything went according to plan, and then some.
As the Memorial Day weekend came to an end in 1980, The Empire Strikes Back stood at the top of the box-office heap, on its way to becoming the top-grossing film of the year. Lucas made back his investment in three months.
But the movie had also, surprisingly for a sequel, earned at least a modicum of critical acclaim for adding emotional complications to what had been at heart, in the original, a mere throwback to the Flash Gordon sci-fi serials of the early sound era. Luke Skywalker’s ongoing confrontation with the evil Darth Vader now featured a surprise that added an unexpected Freudian undercurrent to Lucas' projected saga of the Jedi Knights.
Some more icing on the cake: In a film cycle that powered up modern film merchandising as we know it, Empire added another quirky, beloved character: diminutive Jedi master Yoda, who looked like Making of the President author Theodore H. White and sounded like one of Time Magazine’s odd inverted sentences from the Henry Luce era.
This time, Lucas stepped away from the director’s chair, while an initially reluctant Irvin Kershner assumed his old role. But really, could you honestly say that you could have told the difference between the two?
If you want to observe the divergence between the two movies, look to the screenwriting credits. In Star Wars, that belonged to Lucas himself. But a film consists of more than simply a simple scenario—what also makes it credible are characters acting believably and dialogue that rings true.
By common agreement of several key cast members, Lucas provided neither. One of the funniest moments in Carrie Fisher’s recent one-woman show Wishful Drinking came when she described her startled reaction to Lucas’ claim that “there’s no underwear in space.” Veteran British thespian Alec Guinness, used to embodying multiple characters of staggering variety and complexity onstage in Shakespearean roles and onscreen in Alexander Mackendrick comedies and David Lean epics, kept wondering aloud what was going on with his character this time, the sagacious Obi-Wan Kenobe. Most memorably, Harrison Ford, according to John Seabrook’s terrific retrospective on Star Wars in The New Yorker, told Lucas, in no uncertain times: “George, you can type this crap, but you sure as shit can't say it.”
Faithful reader, I sat enthusiastically, like much of the rest of the world, through Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Return of the Jedi. But I bailed out after the 1999 film that ostensibly begins the whole saga, The Phantom Menace.
It wasn’t only because I objected to the all-around idiocy of Jar-Jar Binks, or even to the foul notion of killing off Liam Neeson as young Annakin Skywalker’s mentor, but also to the preposterous name Lucas bestowed on the latter, Qui-Gon Jinn.
(The latter—which rhymes with “Algonquin”--reminds me of Mark Twain chuckling at the name James Fenimore Cooper gave the mighty brave in The Leatherstocking Saga, “Chingachgook”—“pronounced Chicago, I think,” he wrote. Perhaps in that spirit, in his spoof Spaceballs, Mel Brooks, as the mysterious, gnomic knight master, announces: “I’m Yogurt—just plain Yogurt!”)
But Empire, as I’ve indicated, rang some interesting changes on Lucas’ stock characters. This time, after outlining his story, he turned the screenwriting chores over to hands less caught up in technical razzle-dazzle, as he was, and more on characterization.
The first screenwriter who took a crack at the sequel was Leigh Brackett, a veteran who had not only worked on several Howard Hawks films (e.g., The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo) but had carved out a niche in science fiction. In reading her (admittedly unfinished) script, though, Lucas felt disappointed.
Yet at this point, going back to her for a rewrite, even were he so inclined, was out of the question, because Brackett was dying of cancer. Not much of her script was retained onscreen, but Lucas made sure she shared screenwriting credit, in tribute to her professionalism under extraordinarily trying circumstances.
Lucas then turned to the young Lawrence Kasdan, who would go on to write Raiders of the Lost Art for Lucas, then tackle, on his own, Body Heat, The Big Chill, and The Accidental Tourist. In an interview a decade ago, Kasdan recalled the process of turning out this script as being “fun,” though how much it was is open to question, given that pre-production had already begun and Lucas and Kershner needed to review the evolving script every couple of weeks in “very intense, highly adrenalized” story sessions.
This one was always my favorite--great story and what a cliff-hanger! As a kid, I watched this in a theater during a terrible thunderstorm: lightning strikes were difficult to distinguish from on-screen explosions during the battle on Hoth, and as Han Solo was wheeled away by Boba Fett, the tears ran down my face while the theater filled with water. But the show must go on! We moved to higher ground and watched the rest of the film via generator. Thanks for providing the inside scoop on Leigh Brackett's part--had no idea.
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