Lost in the Clouds

Empire Strikes Back is, aside from still being the best entry in the Star Wars saga, a film about consequences, both of choices in the previous film and in this one. Luke’s choice to take up the lightsaber and later to leave his training and Han’s decision to return to the Alliance and then to dally with them longer than he had too both have significant consequences for them personally. And for an older generation, the true apparition of the film is not the ghost of Kenobi, but Luke Skywalker, returned as if to haunt both Yoda and Vader with the spectre of their past mistakes.

It is also a story told more through the screen than the script, and the visual leitmotifs are as pronounced as anything in Williams’ score. Just as Empire is an in-between movie, the settings and visuals are restless and liminal: halls, tunnels, shafts, forests of trees and fields of asteroids wind our heroes in a maze of in-betweens. It’s a transient movie: the rebel base is quickly abandoned only for the film to end with the rebel fleet, and even the empire is seen only in their fleet, with no Death Star to call home. There’s no solid ground to be found, only ice, the flesh of the space slug, the mud of Dagobah, or the airy vastness of Bespin.

There’s also the mist. I think this film must have been the biggest payday for purveyors of smoke machines since the invention of the rock concert. All joking aside, it serves a real story purpose: the snows of Hoth, the mists of Dagobah, the clouds of Tibanna gas, even the starry cloud of the galaxy at the end, all emphasize the ephemeral, fragile position of the rebels, and their confused and lost way.

Let me end by saying that in a way, this film begins the process of redeeming the message of Star Wars from the great error of pure detachment. I mentioned this when I talked about Revenge of the Sith, but the galaxy needs a moral alternative to selfish passion or emotionless detachment. Luke begins to provide that alternative, as his failure - his unwillingness to set aside his link to his friends - is also the thing which allows Leia to rescue him. This will develop much further in Return of the Jedi and The Last Jedi, but it begins here.