Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back Review

Kershner's instinct was to slow the material down and let the actors breathe, and the result is the only entry in the series with real interiority. The Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan script cross-cuts three stories with different tempos: Hoth as a military rout, Dagobah as a spiritual apprenticeship, Cloud City as a slow-closing trap where the villain arrives before the heroes do. Peter Suschitzky shoots the ice planet in flat white glare and Bespin in warm sunset orange, so the film keeps changing emotional temperature.

The AT-AT walkers, animated frame by frame against snow, still read as weight rather than effect. Frank Oz makes a puppet the most persuasive performer in the cast, playing Yoda first as a nuisance and only then as a teacher. Ford's improvised reply on the carbon-freezing platform is better than anything written for him. The dialogue elsewhere remains serviceable at best, and Hamill strains in places, but the structure holds and the ending refuses to comfort anyone.