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Film · 1980 · Science fiction
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Directed by Irvin Kershner
1980
★ 9.4 editorial score
Everyone learned how to make a sequel from this: the pressure builds for two hours, the tone stays darker than anyone expected, and one line near the close rearranged a generation's childhood.
“Although it lacks the pioneering "newness" of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back is in many ways a superior motion picture. The storyline is more interesting and ambitious, the characters — little more than appealing types in the original — are allowed to grow and develop, the special effects are more mature, and the tone is deliciously dark and downbeat...In the first film, good triumphed decisively over evil; here, it's almost the other way around.”
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