STAR WARS INSIDER / 23THE SKYWALKER SAGA
time on Dagobah, with spectacular
fl ips and acrobatic moves. Vader,
however, delivers forceful blows
with his saber and reminds the
audience just how overwhelmingly
powerful a villain he is. Forcing his
young opponent onto a catwalk,
Vader lashes out, slicing through
Luke’s wrist and disarming him.
“You do not yet realize your
importance,” he tells Luke, before
making the revelation that will
change Luke’s life forever,
and transform an already
entertaining movie into a story
that has crossed generations,
fi ctionally and in reality.
Luke has believed everything
his mentors have told him about
being a Jedi, about his father, and
about Darth Vader—the betrayer
and murderer of his father. The
Sith Lord doesn’t just shake Luke’s
view to the core, he crushes it with
the revelation, “I am your father.”
Almost 40 years removed from
its premiere, it can be easy to
forget just how much of The Empire
Strikes Back—not just the surprise
paternity twist—was unexpected at
the time. Fans who had faithfully
and repeatedly watched Episode
IV’s swashbuckling, Flash Gordon-
style space opera didn’t walk into
the theater for Episode V expecting
to see a fairy- tale romance and a
swampland spirit quest. For some,
that divergence fundamentally
repudiated the tone and spirit
of the fi rst fi lm. For others,
the common features—action,
adventure, humor, the Force—
made A New Hope and The Empire
Strikes Back feel like two elements
of a grand, heroic journey.
Over time, it has been the
latter perspective that has fi rmly
taken root in public opinion, and
now The Empire Strikes Back is
widely lauded as one of the few
movie sequels to creatively and
thematically hold up to, if not
surpass its predecessor. Like Luke
hurrying away from Dagobah to
help his friends, George Lucas took
a huge risk in making a game-
changing follow-up to his original
movie. Fortunately the Force was
with him.04 Darth Vader
and Luke
Skywalker
clash on
Bespin.
05 Luke’s destiny
is about to
take a turn
audiences
had never
expected.
06 The moment
when Star
Wars became
a true saga.0506