Welcome back to another post about Star Wars. Last time the rebels fought the Empire and blew up their planet-killing Death Star. This time, it’s been reported that the Empire is striking back.
Today we’re discussing Episode V in the series. My personal favorite of the original trilogy, and its influence on the rest of the Star Wars universe.
The movie starts out with the traditional scrolling introduction that all other numbered Star Wars movies do. The rebels have still been running from the Empire and Darth Vader is searching for Luke Skywalker because he blew up the Death Star.
They’re on Hoth.
A snow planet with little life. Luke gets captured by a vicious native creature before being rescued by Han, and then they prepare to evacuate their base because the Empire found them.
The snow battle is really cool because we get to see the Empire’s large walkers get taken down by the little snow speeders; it’s similar to a David and Goliath battle. The way they made the battle behind the scenes was really impressive too because they used models and physically animated them.
After the escape from Hoth the main characters split up. Luke went to search for an old Jedi Master Yoda, and the rest were on the Millennium Falcon trying to escape Vader’s ship.
We see a lot of familiar faces if you’ve been following along with me in this timeline watch. Yoda hasn’t been seen since Star Wars Rebels, and it’s the same with Lando Calrissian. It seems like if you’re a character in the original trilogy, you’ll show up at some point in Rebels.
The events of Solo are also mentioned when Lando and Han meet again, where they talk about Han winning the ship from him.
Lando is now in charge of Cloud City. A place floating in the air on a sky planet, because after seeing a desert planet, a snow planet, and a swamp planet with Yoda, where else would we go visit?
Lando ended up making a deal with the Empire to turn over the Millennium Falcon crew to them in exchange for Lando keeping his leadership position. Darth Vader was still giving him orders though so he decided to free them and join the rebellion. Unfortunately Han was frozen before that happened and taken by Boba Fett.
Meanwhile on the swamp planet Dagobah, Luke and R2-D2 crash landed in the water and met Yoda, who was acting like a little freak for some reason. Just a silly little nutter.
Yoda teaches Luke how to be a Jedi and use the force. Luke goes into a weird cave where he fights Vader, and defeats him, and it turns out that his own face is in the mask.
While attempting to lift rocks when upside down, he has a vision of the Millennium Falcon crew being captured so he ends his training early to save them.
Darth Vader is waiting for him, and attempts to freeze Luke like he did Han Solo, but he escapes the trap, and they fight.
Darth Vader gets the upper hand and cuts off Luke’s before revealing that he is Luke’s father. Big reveal when this movie first came out, but we already know because we’ve been watching all the previous movies.
Luke jumps and gets rescued by Leia, and they escape Cloud City. Movie ends with Luke getting a new robot hand and then looking off into space.
Final Thoughts
I think the most well known spoiler in movies is the fact that Darth Vader is Luke’s father. We already knew that because we watched Episode 3 where Luke and Leia were born. So these scenes are even stranger with that context.
We see more of the Empire with snowtroopers, and more world building in Star Wars if this was the second Star Wars movie you’ve ever seen. It’s a bit sad, of course, with the loss of Luke’s hand and loss of Leia’s Han.
The next movie should wrap it all up when the Jedi return, so see you soon!
Kristopher K. Online 