What’s probably regarded as the most beloved Star Wars movie, and I get why. While part of it is certainly fan nostalgia, this is a terrific yarn that ups the ante from A New Hope in exciting and imaginative ways. As with my rewatch of A New Hope, childhood memories came flooding back to me from beginning to end.
When the Empire launches an assault on a Rebel base, our heroes are separated from one another. While Han, Leia, Chewy, and C-3PO escape in the Falcon, Luke follows a mystical summons to the Degobah system, with R2 in tow. Han, Leia, and co. struggle to stay ahead of their captors in the ramshackle ship, and Luke meets a reclusive Jedi master in the hopes of continuing his training, although he unlocks clues to himself and his family history along the way.
This is just a fun, exciting movie. It takes a lot of the archetypal groundwork from A New Hope, the whole martial arts/space western aesthetic, and pushes it further into something more uniquely its own. We see new locales, new alien races, and new characters. Details and relationships from the first movie are deepened and developed in between a whole lot of sci-fi action and adventure.
The film is set a few years after the first one, and I think it mostly does a nice job conveying the progression of the characters’ relationships. We’re thrown into the current dynamic between Luke, Leia, Han, and the others, and it feels believable as a group of people/droids who met under extraordinary circumstances and have spent the intervening time fighting alongside each other and getting to know each other better. The relationships and character moments shine throughout with warmth, humor, and the sort of antagonism that comes from people who still can’t quite admit how much they mean to one another. Yoda and Lando are really interesting additions to the film dynamic (respectively voiced by Frank Oz and played with unassuming swagger by Billy Dee Williams,) and Darth Vader’s growing obsession with Luke is intriguing to watch even before we get to the famous climax.
I will note that, while the film handles the time jump well, it feels less successful in navigating the passage of time within the movie itself. I get the impression that Luke spends a fair amount of time on Degobah with Yoda, while a lot of what happens on the Falcon between Hoth and Cloud City feels much more compressed. It’s hard to get a good handle on how much time goes by over the course of the film, which isn’t a problem I had with A New Hope.
But that’s a relatively minor complaint among everything else that’s going on. AT-ATs! “Do or do not – there is no try”! Carbonite freezing! Lando’s resplendent capes! It’s all here, and it’s all super fun and cool. By the time I finish my full rewatch, I think it’ll be difficult to outrank rank all the Star Wars properties, but I know for certain that this movie is in the top tier.
Warnings
Violence, scary moments for kids, and some disturbing images.
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Okay, there’s a new Shang-Chi trailer out, so you best believe I have more thoughts and squeeing! Normally with MCU films, I’ll watch the first teaser with baited breath, but after that, I won’t actively seek out new trailers/clips/whatever before the movie comes out, preferring to wait and let it all wash over me on opening night. But with this one, I’m like, “Give me all of it, inject it into my brain right now!” Yesterday morning, they released just a 15-second preview teasing that there’d be a new trailer later that night, and the preview included a single second of Wenwu wielding the Ten Rings and I screamed. The trailer itself was just everything, filled with lots more gently-ominous narration from Tony Leung Chiu-wai who continued to serve looks and be lethal all over the place. Plus, Michelle Yeoh!! With confirmation that she and Leung are gonna fight at least once! I’m so ready for this movie, but like, I’m not ready for this movie. Oh man.
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