Marty Michaels

Ah, The Empire Strikes Back. Possibly the defining movie of my childhood and undoubtedly one of the greatest movies ever made. A New Hope, as great as is it is, feels a little flat and one dimensional today, but not so with Empire, which only seems to get better with age. Like ANH, there’s plenty in rewards multiple watches, so let’s take a quick look at the top ten unsung Empire Strikes Back moments. Onward!

10. Nerf Herder.

A quick one to start us off, but could someone please explain to me what a nerf is and how exactly you herd one? It’s quite the insult though, it must be said. Anything that gets a chuckle out of Chewie is a-ok in my book.

9. Airport security.

A wierd one, but funny when you know about it and I guarantee you’ll smile every time you see it from now on. When Vader and the troops arrive on Echo Base Vader walks through an archway that looks a lot like an airport metal detector. As he passes though, he half-stops, turns around and looks back as if some bored security guard asked him to put his keys in the dish and walk back through.

8. Sausages!

Most of the important lessons in life can be learned from Empire Strikes Back: “try not, do or do not – there is no try,” “wars do not make on great,” “size matters not” (an important one, that) and – most importantly of all – if it smells bad on the outside, it smells worse on the inside. Han Solo learns this lesson the hard way when he uses Luke’s lightsaber to slice open a Tautaun and jam’s Luke’s body inside to keep him warm. A useful survival skill if one is lost in an Arctic wilderness and just happens to have a dead Tauntaun to hand. What’s really funny though is the closup we get of tha Tauntaun’s guts falling out of it’s belly since they look a very great deal like sausages. Mmmm, tasty.

7. Smug git.

Ok, so hands up, who fancied Princess Leia as a kid? To be honest, fancying Princess Leia is one of the few things I don’t think geeks ever grow out of, despite “Postcards from the Edge” and the fact that she looks like a Nerf Herder herself nowadays. I don’t think anyone saw the revalation that Luke and Leia were siblings coming back in the day, so every kid wanted to be Luke Skywalker. Sure, Han had the cool ship and the Wookiee pal, but Luke got the girl and that’s the most important thing. Early on in Empire there’s a scene where Leia, to prove she’s not interested in Han, lays one on Luke, tongues and everything. For years I missed out on the best part of the scene thanks to my crappy pan and scan VHS, but when I saw Empire on the big screen for the first time I saw Luke’s reaction to the kiss: a look of smug self-satisfaction that made Han’s eventual conquest of the Ice Princess all the more satisfying. Who’s smiling now, farmboy?

6. Design flaw.

Before I ever saw a Star Wars movie, I saw Star Wars toys. My couisn’s house was full of the classic Kenner toys from back in the day and the coolest of them all was the AT-AT. This thing was about three feet tall (probably not, but I remember it being huge) and just had this aura of awesomess about it that completley blinded me to the design flaw that, thankfully was not lost on Luke and co. during the Battle of Hoth. Why the fuck would the Empire design something so fundamentally flawed as an AT-AT? Unless the terrain is completley flat and completley free from small ships with harpoons and tow cables, the AT-ATs are utterly fucking useless. Tripping them up is unspeakably fun in Star Wars Battlefront though, so I reckon that makes up for it.

5. Scum!

Admiral Piett doesn’t get enough credit. The man has balls of steel and that’s a fact. Stepping into command after Vader Force choked Admiral Ozzell into oblivion, Piett immediatetely made his badassery known to all by loudly announcing to anyone who would listen that bounty hunters were scum. That doesn’t seem too impressive, but consider than Boba Fett, Dengar, IG88 and a ton of other dudes were mere feet away; hell, Bossk was standing right next to him and yet he still, balls of steel glinting in the starlight, calls them all out. What really makes the scene though, and what most people miss, is the prefunctory “yessir” from the lackey he says it to. It’s as if the guy is thinking “fuck, if I agree my ass is toast, but it I say nothing the Admiral’ll have my balls! I’d better come up with the most non-commital response I can muster.”

4. Han finds religion.

A wierd one this. There’s a famous moment when Han’s setting out on his Tauntaun to find Luke where some guys tells him “your Tauntaun’ll freeze before you reach the first marker” and Han, being the cool cat that he is yells, “then I’ll see you in Hell!” Awesome stuff. But let’s look at it closer. Hell? That’s a very-earth specific concept considering the only religion mentioned in the Star Wars movies is the Force. But is the Force a religion? Well, not if the prequel trilogy is to be believed in which is is explained that Forceyness (it’s a word now, fuckers) is a purley biological thing, caused by midichlorians: microscopic organisms that inhabit, in varying numbers, the bodies of all living things. The higher your midichlorian count, the more powerful a Jedi/Sith you are/will become. So whence comes Han’s Hell reference. Let’s look deeper. In ANH, Uncle Owen comments that if Luke’s not back soon “there’ll be Hell to pay” so, obviously there is some concept of Hell in the SW universe. Han, of course, doesn’t believe in the Force (at least not at that point in the story) but I’m an atheist and that doesn’t stop me from saying “for God’s sake” or stuff like that. It’s a very wierd moment that stands out as being one of the few earth-specific references in the Trilogy.

3. Death to holograms!

Kinda like Luke’s reaction to Leia’s planting of a smackeroo on him, I missed this for many years thanks to pan and fucking scan VHS tapes. I actually thought it had been inserted into the Special Editions until I finally saw a widescreen version of the original movie and realised that it was part of the movie all along. So, anyway, when Vader’s fleet are chasing down the Falcon in the asteroid field, there’s a scene where various Imperial types are shooting the shit with Vader via the magic of holographic projection. There’s a cutaway to an asteroid slamming into the bridge of one of the Star Destroyers and when we cut back to the hologram scene we see the guy’s screaming death. What’s really funny is the way that Vader has zero reaction; he doesn’t give a shit. It shows how ruthless Vader is, after all, if that guy was incompetent enough to let the asteroid get near enough to hit his ship then he’s probably a liability anyway.

2. Guess who’s coming to dinner?

So, after escaping the Imperial fleet and dropping in on his old pal Lando Calrissian on Bespin, Han and his friends find that Lando has sold them out to the Empire and that Vader and the troops (and Boba Fett) are already there and waiting for them. Fair enough, but the reason this makes the list is because of something few people notice and something that I never noticed the first few times I watched Empire. When Han and co. walk into the dining room Vader is waiting in, Vader is sitting at the head of a table which is set for dinner – there’s food and utensils and plates and shit on the table. Vader says “we would be honored if you would join us” and then the scene cuts. What I wanna know is, what happened next? Did they all sit down for a nice, if a bit strained, meal? Can’t you just imagine Fett asking Chewie to pass the mashed potatoes?

1. Mark Hamill: rodent.

Pity poor Mark Hamill. Known to generation after generation as Luke Skywalker, the guy was never able to pick up his shit and move on to other projects like Harrison Ford did (granted Harrison Ford had Indy to help his along, but whatever). And that’s a shame, because Mark Hamill is quite the talented actor. Who else, after all, can morph their facial features into those of a rat without the aid of any makeup whatsoever? It’s almost as if Lucas and Irvin Kershner showed Marky Mark pictures of various New York sewer rats and said “when Vader tells you he’s your dad, we want you to make yourself look as much like one of these little buggers as you can.” And, I gotta tell you, he suceeds, looking for all the world like the bastard love child of Basil the Great Mouse Detective and Nosferatu. Can Harrison Ford do that? Shit no. Take THAT, Mr. Fedora Man.

There are those who say that ANH is a better film than Empire. These people are wrong, though from a nostalgic viewpoint I can almost see their point. There are those who think Jedi is a better film. These people are idiots. There are also those who believe that life here began out there, but that’s a different sci fi franchise. Anyway, stay tuned for the top ten unsung moments from Jedi, coming soon to a monitor near you – not to mention my super top secret fourth installment of this series, and no, it has nothing to do with the prequel trilogy. Comments? You know what to do. End transmission.

Tags: empire strikes back, sci fi, star wars, top ten