SPECULATION Lets talk about The Empire Strikes Back, how often do you watch it?

My favorite movie of all-time, not just SW movie!

 

The Empire Strikes Back. That film, and the film Patton, had a direct influence upon one of my early career choices.

Sometime around 1987, my 7 some years of total fascination with this-



Inspired me to become a basic crewman on one of these-



Yep, my love of the AT-AT, basically a tank with legs, played a significant role in my choice to join the U.S. Army and become a
Basic Armor Crewman on the M1-IP Abrams MBT. I went on to be the gunner, then commander of an M1-A1 Abrams.

In the Company Day/Entertainment Room, we had a selection of VHS tapes with titles like the aforementioned Patton, as well
as other armored warfare films like The Beast, The Battle of the Bulge, and of course the most popular bit of Tanker movie
fare- The Empire Strikes Back.

I can't remember an off day when TESB wasn't playing on the day room VCR at some point. We watched the movie enough
that we wore out the VHS tape a couple times a year.

One day the C.O. poked his head in and suggested that a desert tan AT-AT model with our unit crest painted on the hull would
look really good on his office desk, so a couple of guys got together and bought the AMT AT-AT model, and I built it and painted
it. It made for a cool conversation piece. The Captain really loved that thing.

These days, I still watch TESB at least a couple of times a month. My last viewing was in fact, just two nights ago. I love all the
Star Wars films, but Empire is by far my all time favorite.

 

I'd say I watch it at least 3 or 4 times a year, so quarterly more-or-less.

If I had my way (and the funds) I'd have monitors sprinkled throughout the house with a singular feed constantly playing ESB in its entirety over and over again, in the background.

 

To explain how Empire fits into my life, I probably have to delve into my introduction to Star Wars in general.

I had started to type out some really long-winded (even longer than this is going to end up now) post about memories and stuff... But I think, in the end, my point was this:
I was four years old when Empire was released and I went to see it at the cinema. I remember the experience, but probably didn't appreaciate the movie. I think I remember the experience simply because I have reinforced the memory over the years by asking myself the question: "How did I end up becoming obsessed with all this Star Wars stuff anyway? How did I end up with all this junk in my house?".
And the answer to that question has kind of formed into a little "timeline" in my head.
I'm going to bore you with that timeline now - I think it's relevant though, because it would be easy for me to say "I saw the films, and I was hooked", but it would also be a little dishonest, because it just wasn't like that for me...

- Someone bought me a jigsaw with this classic image on it, either for a birthday or for Christmas, I can't recall:

Now, we lived not to far from the coast. So I was kind of mesmerised by this image of these two weird-looking guys (who - as far as I was aware at four years old - were standing on the beach just a couple of miles from where I lived), without really knowing exactly what Star Wars was. "What are they doing on our beach, and when did they go there? This must be real, because they are just standing there posing for a photo, and they look kind of friendly... "

- My older sister took me to the cinema to see three movies around 1980-81. Watership Down (which I guess was on re-release), Empire, and Condorman (hah - anyone remember that?). I don't think I understood much about these films at the time, but I remember the experience - so Empire was the first Star Wars film I saw.

- Soon after seeing Empire got these guys as a birthday present:

Many more were to follow - almost as intriguing as the figures themselves was the back of the card, which revealed more of the mysterious little chaps.

- At 7.15pm on October 24, 1982 - this happened:

And it was great. The kind of thing everybody was talking about at school the next day.
What is also important is that Star Wars merchandise was becoming considered a suitable "general gift" for boys in my age group. I was begining to acquire lots of Star Wars bits and pieces without really being a hardcore fan or anything.

- Eventually, something called Revenge/Return of the Jedi started being mentioned. By this stage I was gradually becoming a Star Wars fan without really having much of a grasp of the story itself. I remember seeing a clip of ROTJ on a Saturday morning kids TV show (called No73, if anyone in the UK remembers that) and immediately trying to draw some of the things I'd just seen, just so that I could remember them. Also around that time, I particularly remember the strapline on this poster magazine leaping out at me, as if it was literally talking just to me: "AT LAST THE WAITING IS OVER...":

Somehow that seemed to resonate with me. These films are important. People are actually waiting for this next installment. I'm actually waiting for this myself now.
So that, in a way, is what I think people mean when they refer to the "Star Wars generation". I was gradually drawn in by the aesthetics of Star Wars, long before I understood the stories, or even appreciated what a movie was. It was all very visual, and it just clicked with me on a level I can't ever really begin explain. It was bigger than just three really popular movies - it kind of transcended that for me. It must have because, like I said, I didn't really need the narrative to get me hooked.




So, (eventually getting closer to the point of this thread - sorry) we were not the most well-off family growing up. We didn't own a VHS recorder until around 1987. So after I had seen ROTJ at the cinema, the Marvel comics were my main source for absorbing those stories repeatedly.
Empire became like the holy grail of Star Wars for me. It was just the one I was least familiar with. The first Star Wars film became a fixture on UK TV, being shown again over Christmas 1984 and 1986 and I'd managed to see ROTJ a couple of times on it's original theatrical run. I could re-read the comic adaptations of those two movies and it was kind of like watching the films again because they were more vivid in my mind. Even in the Marvel comics I had to wait until June 1984 for the ROTJ weekly to reprint the TESB adaptation (ANH had followed straight after the ROTJ movie adaptation concluded).
I know I must have attended the triple-bill screening in 1984, but even now my recollection of seeing TESB at that time is fuzzy (hence I started this thread recently).

I don't know, but for some reason it seemed like Empire was always the film I needed to see. I hadn't quite absorbed it in the same way I had absorbed the others, if that makes sense. It didn't premiere on UK TV until 1988, and that wait seemed like an eternity to me.

Empire has been broken down and analysed by far better and more qualified people than me. You know - it's the darkest one of the original trilogy. The characters are developed more. The writing's better, the lighting's better, the acting's better - etc...
I love all three OT movies, but Empire probably is my favourite. Maybe it's that initial elusiveness that had an impact on me. Maybe I'd just built up its importance in my mind.
But I do know one thing. When you are young, you are not thinking about the movie's "darkness", its downbeat tone in a three-act structure, the mise en scene...
You are just thinking: Luke gets attacked by a monster. The Rebellion kind of gets owned on Hoth, but they get away. Yoda is supposed to be helping Luke, but he is kind of hard on him, but Luke is learning all the same. But he leaves before Yoda thinks he is even ready. Then Luke gets his hand chopped off and gets owned by Vader, who reveals he is his dad. And Han gets frozen and taken by a bounty hunter.
You know, life isn't always about happy endings. About some massive goal that must be overcome, followed by a celebration once that objective is completed. More often, life is just a bunch of stuff that happens to you which you have no control over, and you just tend to come out the other side.
And I think, for what is essentially a kids' fantasy movie, that's a pretty bold story to tell. I mean, even now, you don't really see that too often.

So, as much as I love ANH and ROTJ, I can still kind of dip in and out of them. I can watch segments of them, and just enjoy them as isolated spectacles. It's like revisiting a little fantasy world. Like I said before, my relationship with Star Wars is (unavoidably) based around some unfathomable bond with the aesthetics. From thereon in, of course, I've grown to appreciate and understand the story and fall in love with that too. And then, as I've grown older, I've fallen in love with movies in general - in Hitchcock, Scorsese, Tarantino, Kurosawa, Kubrick, Leone, Lynch, Lumet and so on, and understanding what makes all those films tick... appreciating the craft behind movie-making.
Empire I find harder to dip in and out of. I have to watch the whole thing, I have to go through that whole experience. Sure, it has set-pieces and great visual ideas like the other movies, but I still find I have to give Empire slightly more... reverence. I have to really want to watch it and take it all in with no distractions.

I've probably watched Empire much less than the other two films for this reason over the years. And that's not to take anything away from the original, or even ROTJ (which I know some fans dislike in prequel-like proportions). But, for example, there are downbeat moments in ANH, and they are resolved. Luke's foster parents being murdered is pretty grim - but then this event fills him with ambition, and he is finally getting to live out his dream. Soon after he is blasting off from Mos Eisley, embarking on an adventure.
Empire is episodic in the same way, but that is not what the movie is really about for me. It's like two hours of this big boot trying to stamp on some ants, and they keep moving out of the way. You have to go through it from start to finish to feel the full effect, IMHO.
It's an accumulative effect, not a series of tensions and releases in the traditional sense (although they are there, of course). You have to see Luke get mauled, the Rebel base destroyed, Luke get stranded in a swamp with a sarcastic frog, Luke rush off unprepared, everyone else caught in a trap, Luke lose his hand and learn the big bad guy is really his dad and see Han frozen and captured... to feel how desperate things are for our heroes.

 

As a whole movie, I like Empire the best. Certain scenes of the other 2 originals I really like, but as far as sitting through the whole movie, it has to be Empire. The line that I always listen for is when Han says "Good, then I'll see you in Hell!", because it doesn't make any sense being in a Star Wars movie where there is no religion or heaven and hell. It's a common phrase and reference we use, but wouldn't work in their universe, and I think it's an ironic statement.

 

I consider Empire to be my favorite movie. I've seen it at least 100 times....but I havn't seen it in probably 10 years or more. Weird?

 

On both VHS & DVD 9828 times. That's sick isn't it.

 

Yep my parents often reminded me in arguments of my obsessive star wars viewing.

 

I know looking back Im surprised I could still see to this day in my new members intro post I revealed how many vcrs & dvd players I went through to get that figure I realised that was at a unhealthy level.

 

And now we have a new one less than 6 months away.

 

Once a week!!!!

 

I bought the OT DVD's in USA 5 years ago but they are "area 1", here in Brazil we are "area 4", so the DVD doesnt run in my DVD player...And I'm to lazy too download a movie that I watched 100 times, its been a while that I don't see it! But I planning to watch all of 6 (I'm not sure about AOTC and ROTS...haha) before the release of TFA.