The Empire Strikes Back

A sequel and the middle of a trilogy. The rebels are hiding on an ice planet. They are found, and the film opens with an escape. From there two lines separate. Luke goes to a swamp planet to be trained; the others try to escape in a broken ship and take shelter in a cloud city. The shelter is a trap. An old friend has sold them, and did it not because he chose to but because he had no choice. What the narrative is interested in is not victory but loss: the rebels win nothing, everyone is scattered, and the last scene is not a rescue but a wait. The training section is played entirely with a puppet, and that puppet is the most convincing character in the film. There is a line near the end that was kept secret at the time. A different line was spoken on set, the real one was added in dubbing, and very few people on the production knew. Another line was not in the script at all. Han Solo's answer was found by the actor during shooting and kept by the director. The studio did not finance it. Lucas took a bank loan against the earnings of the first film and carried the risk himself as the budget went over. Lucas is not in the director's chair. Irvin Kershner directed; the screenplay is by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan. The ice sequences were shot at Finse in Norway, where the crew was caught in a real storm. Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams and Frank Oz are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who wants the darkest and best written film of the trilogy. Who it is not for: anyone expecting closure; the film cuts off in the middle and nothing is resolved.