Pauline Kael Review

By far the most imaginative part of the Star Wars trilogy. This middle, bridging film is chained to an unresolved plot and doesn't have the leaping comic-book hedonism of the 1977 Star Wars, but you can feel the love of movie magic that went into its cascading imagery. George Lucas kept the first movie hopping by cutting it into short, choppy scenes; Irvin Kershner, who directed this one, is a master of visual flow, and, joining his own kinks and obsessions to Lucas's, he gave Empire a splendiferousness that may even have transcended what Lucas had in mind. When Han Solo (Harrison Ford) is frozen into sculpture - his face protruding from a bas-relief, the mouth open as if calling out in pain - the scene has a terrifying grandeur. The characters in this fairy-tale cliff-hanger show more depth of feeling than they had in the first film, and the music - John Williams' variations on the Star Wars theme - seems to saturate and enrich the intensely clear images. Scenes linger in the mind: the light playing on Darth Vader's gleaming surfaces as this metal man, who's like a giant armored insect, fills the screen; Han Solo saving Luke's life on the ice planet Hoth by slashing open a snow camel and warming him inside; Luke's hand being lopped off, and his seemingly endless fall through space; Chewbacca, the Wookie, yowling in grief or in comic fear, his sounds so hyper-human you couldn't help laughing at them; the big-eared green elf Yoda, with shining ancient eyes, who pontifically instructs Luke in how to grow up wise - Yoda looks like a wonton and talks like a fortune cookie. With Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, and Alec Guinness. The story is by Lucas; the script is by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan. The cinematography is by Peter Suschitzky; the editing is by Paul Hirsch. Lucasfilm, released by 20th Century-Fox.