Wait, go back. It started with this article, sent to me by my lifelong pal, Todd Stashwick, not about Jedi, but about The Empire Strikes Back. You can skim it and get the idea. But it's short enough that you might as well just read it.
http://www.blastr.com/2013-8-22/why-whedon-thinks-empire-strikes-back-was-betrayal-trust
So, here's the thing about it. Joss Whedon is wrong. Yes, I know, when it comes to matters of opinion on movies, nobody is wrong. I still believe that and I hope you do, too. But on this point, I'm saying Joss Whedon is wrong because a) nothing I say can really hurt Joss Whedon and b) it's a pretty decent launching pad for this blog post. Let's begin at the ending in question, shall we?
Beautiful, isn't it? Our friends from two whole movies, having taken it on the chin from the worst kind of galactic thugs, have just lost their other friend and are sending his pal and a guy they barely trust to get him back. But they're all still alive and able to fight another day. Just beautiful.
See, Mr. Whedon, who is right to feel however he feels - let me reiterate that position - says this movie committed "the cardinal sin" by leaving us with a cliffhanger. "I go to the movies expecting to have the whole experience," he explains. "If I want a movie that doesn't end, I'll go to a French movie. That's a betrayal of trust to me. A movie has to be complete within itself, it can't just build off the first one or play variations." While I don't knock him for holding that view, I can (and will) argue that he's off the mark in saying that The Empire Strikes Back fails to give audiences the complete experience. It delivers exactly what was promised: the Empire, striking back.
Let's review:
After their victory at the Battle of Yavin, the Rebels are hiding out on Hoth. (It is a dark time for them, we've just been told in the crawl.) Pissed off about losing their ultimate weapon, the Empire is hunting them down like dogs. They find them on the ice planet and try to shut them down.
Our heroes narrowly escape, but are separated from each other. Han, Leia, Chewbacca and C3PO get tossed around in an asteroid field, have no hyperdrive to get them anywhere really safe and finally find a place to duck and cover long enough to get the Falcon working again...Cloud City.
But, see, Boba Fett follows them there, alerts the hyperdrive-enabled Empire, who can show up early and set a trap. They will imprison and torture Han, Leia & company to force Luke out of wherever he's hiding. (This sucks extra hard for Han and Leia who were finally able to admit that they're falling in love.) Anyway, what the Empire doesn't know is that Luke is in training, getting stronger, learning to control of his abilities. The bait still works, but now Vader will be facing a more formidable adversary than he planned on facing. Nevertheless, Luke falls for the ruse 100%. By the time he gets to Cloud City, bad business has gone down.
Yes, old Han Solo's been frozen in carbonite (mmm...carbonite...bet it tastes like ice cream...metallic ice cream...). C3PO has been dismembered. Leia and Chewie are headed for Imperial detention cells. None of this is good for our guys, but all of it is for the baddies.
Luke confronts Vader, they fight. Lando pulls a switcheroo and gets Leia and Chewbacca freed from their prison march. There's still a chance to save Han, if they can get to Boba Fett's landing platform before he takes off. No dice, though. Fett is off with frozen Solo in his cargo hold. Meanwhile, Luke's still fighting Vader. And guess how THAT turns out?
Uh-oh...
Uh-oh...!
The New Hope from the first flick, the one who went from anonymous farm boy to Rebel Commander and war hero, is so lost now that he resorts to this:
I'd say the Empire, as promised from the beginning, struck the heck back, wouldn't you? So, you see, that story arc - that central plot - is 100% complete by the end of the film.
Q: The Empire wants to strike back...will they succeed?
A: Darn right they succeeded.
What's left hanging are the subplots. Luke has new information, what's he going to do with it? Han is on his way to Jabba the Hutt, how can his friends (and his new lover) save him? Yoda even cryptically mentioned that Luke wasn't the last hope to vanquish the Empire, what's that about?!
You'll find out in 1983. And it seems like that's Whedon's main beef. Why didn't they resolve all the subplots? This position seems surprisingly unimaginative from someone with the astonishingly wonderful imagination of a Joss Whedon. See, when Star Wars hit theaters in 1977, the very first shot changed movies forever.
And I'm telling you, for those who weren't around yet to watch it happen in real time, the closing shot of Empire changed movies forever again. It was the closing shot of Empire that told us Lucas was playing a long game. It was that closing shot that caught us by surprise and said, "Oh, you thought we were finished? Guess what, kids, there's a whole new way of making movies. We're changing the model right before your very eyes." I loved that ending. I loved that they were doing that to movies. I found the whole thing thrilling beyond belief. I felt like I had a complete experience and then, I felt the joy of knowing I would spend the next three years ruminating, speculating, inventing, hoping and just plain wishing about what would happen next. I felt awash in the promise and possibilities. I can't be the only one who felt that way, can I? I mean, I knew I'd be seeing this installment at least a half a dozen times before then anyway. For kids of my generation, this shot...
...and the ones I posted throughout this blog, are what took Star Wars from the greatest sic-fi fantasy we'd ever seen to an obsession that would last for over 30 years. It said, "there's more. "There's always more. Just you wait."
UP NEXT...RE-IMAGINING RETURN OF THE "JEDI"
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