Battle on the planet Hoth splits iconic heroes into two concurrent storylines. In one, Yoda trains Luke Skywalker in the ways of the force. In the other storyline, Han Solo and Princess Leia are hunted through space by Darth Vader.
There’s a fight, but no more battles. The Empire Strikes Back is not epic, and by going small it becomes the best Star Wars film, and possibly the best sequel ever.
Momentum. As Vader pursues through an asteroid field, Han and Leia can’t stop. Stopping puts them in a monster’s belly, then falling into a bounty hunter’s trap, then betrayed by an old friend. Lando’s betrayal is unveiled when Vader rises at a table in Cloud City, glorious black against an all-white background. Han draws his blaster and fires, but it’s worthless. Vader has them.
That ain’t The Moment, though. Nor is anything from Luke Skywalker’s training with Yoda. As Luke exercises body and mind in an alien swamp, a clock ticks. Luke knows his friends are in danger. Yoda insists Luke finish the training, that leaving when he’s unready leads to peril. He’s right, but Luke goes.
When they meet, and fight, and Vader tells Luke “I am your father,” Luke’s response is to scream “No!” and that it cannot be true. Luke is defeated, devastated. This, fucking duh, is The Moment. Empire earns the emotional wallop by – I’m repeating myself, but it’s important – staying small.
Joseph Campbell said Star Wars was the best modern example of the monomyth, the hero’s journey passed down throughout history, a story so ingrained that we dream it. Essential ideas about humanity, our internal conflicts, are interpreted as space opera. If Luke cannot control fear and anger, a system will swallow him. “The passage of the hero,” Campbell wrote, “…is inward—into depths where obscure resistances are overcome, and long lost, forgotten powers are revivified.”
And now (paging Freud) Luke’s own father demands he submit. The battle between light and dark shrinks to these two men, yet it’s enormous. Universal. That it does not resolve may be the greatest truth art can impart.
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