Star Wars - Episode 5 - The Empire Strikes Back (Limited Edition) > Reviews > Striking back twice over

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Good
Characters / Performances	Good
Special Effects	Outstanding
How does it compare to similar films?	Outstanding

Advantages:	The original cut of the movie alongside the remastered version
Disadvantages:	No special features

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Star Wars. Those two words conjure up emotions in many men who were once young boys and prompt any stick, pole or broom handle to be wielded around to an accompanying 'voom voom, kapow' sound effect. Women who were once young girls look on bemused as grown men become Jedi fighting the evil Empire when they should be sweeping, mopping or doing whatever it was they should have been doing.

Since 1977 George Lucas' space opera has been wowing audiences all over the world and creating new waves of fanboys acting out the same fantasies. Everyone knows the story by now of how farmboy orphan Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) trained as a Jedi and brought down the evil Emperor Palpatine and freed the Galaxy from tyranny and fear.

The Empire Strikes Back (or Star Wars Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back as it has been retitled) is the second of the original 'holy trinity' and is seen by many as the darkest of the three movies.

Starting on the ice planet of Hoth, the rebellion's new base of operations, we follow the adventures of Luke, Han Solo (Harrision Ford), Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), Princess Lea (Carrie Fisher) and the droids R2D2 and C3PO (Kenny Baker and Anthony Daniels) as they continue the good fight. Following a vision of his mentor and friend Obi Wan Kenobi (Sir Alec Guiness) and near death in the ice fields of Hoth, Luke escapes to the swamp planet of Dagobah amid invasion by the deadly Darth Vader intent on crushing the rebellion. There he is trained in the Jedi arts by 800 year old master Yoda.

Meanwhile Han, Lea, Chewbacca and the droids escape the onslaught of the Imperial forces only to be captured in Cloud City after being betrayed by Han's friend Lando Calrissian. Luke races to rescue his friends only to find he is being led into a trap where he will face the evil, lightsaber wielding Vader.

The film's climax is well documented and leaves a movie cliffhanger that will lead straight into the final installment and unlike the previous movie isn't the happy ending that filmgoers are used to.

The screenplay and direction are also much better than A New Hope, primarily down to George Lucas taking more of a back seat and handing the job to someone else.

In this DVD release you get the movie that was released in the four disc special edition of the trilogy. This is essentially the 1997 re-release with added CGI effects, remastered 5.1 surround sound and a very clean print. Seeing the film in this quality is quite an experience, especially when viewed side by side with the original. And this is exactly what you can do as the original cut of the movie is included on the second disc, complete with 2.0 surround and slightly grainier print.

If you are a big fan of extras on DVDs then you will be disappointed as this is all you get, although not many DVD releases get a whole second movie as an extra. This is a strange step by George Lucas as he has said for some time now that the original cut of his movies wouldn't be available for purchase and then he releases this set of movies. This is either a cunning marketting ploy or a nod to the fans who have been complaining about the 'butchering' of their favourite film.

The sound and picture quality of this release are exactly the same as that of the four disc set. I can only recommend this DVD if you don't already have this in the Special Edition set or if you are a true fan of the series and just have to have the original cut on DVD to replace your worn out video.

It would be corny of me to end this review with a sentence containing the words Force, may, with, be, the and you... so I won't.