SOME LIKE IT HOTH

IT’S 40 YEARS SINCE THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK REDEFINED WHAT A BLOCKBUSTER SEQUEL COULD BE. HERE’S WHY THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY’S MIDDLE INSTALMENT IS STILL THE BEST…

- RICHARD EDWARDS

These days anybody who makes a sequel to a hit movie can’t wait to tell you that it’s darker and more mature than what came before. When The Empire Strikes Back took the Star Wars saga in a bleaker, entirely unexpected new direction, however, it felt as fresh and new as the original movie had three years earlier. This was a kid-friendly movie that turned narrative convention on its head by putting its big action set-piece in the first act, before ending on a massive downer that left the story defiantly unresolved. While it made significantly less money than its predecessor – until Solo, it was the worst performing of all the live-action Star Wars – it’s now regarded as the pinnacle of the franchise, the one where storytelling and drama lived up to the visuals. SFX looks back at five big reasons it’s long remembered…

I A NEW ORDER

“DO OR DO NOT. THERE IS NO TRY.”

IT’S ALMOST A CLICHÉ THAT NOBODY expected much from