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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 324225" data-attributes="member: 23">The Empire Strikes Back continued The film wasted little time in bringing back the key players. Han, Luke, Leia, Threepeo, Artoo and Chewbacca were all there pretty much immediately. I was quite surprised how quickly we saw them all as I’d half expected to start over again with the characters having gone their separate ways and needing to reunite, but nope:  it seems the film needed us to know they were all present and correct and all together right from the start.Instead, their later separation became part of the plot. The choice to separate Luke and Artoo almost immediately felt quite unexpected, especially having Luke almost in a vacuum interacting with a robot and a puppet, but it really worked to help create a different tone, as well as allowing for some organic (Organac?) exploration of the sexual tension between Leia and Han which couldn’t have happened with Luke around.Yoda was a character whose image is familiar to me. And aware I am of the backwards way he speaks. I fully expected to find this aspect a little trying and this concern was reinforced by his initial appearance in which he was a mischievous and hyperactive little nuisance. But as soon as we got back to his little home and I knew he was about to reveal himself to Luke, the character clicked with me. That Star Wars would enter Dark Crystal territory (before The Dark Crystal was even a thing), complete with cute puppet and Frank Oz doing the voice, had never occurred to me. I find it surprising, but pleasantly so. I’d have thought it might be jarring to watch a live actor interacting with a puppet, but these turned out to be some of my favourite scenes. I love how expressive the Yoda puppet was, and it could be viewed as influencing many more film puppets - from those in The Dark Crystal to E.T. to Gizmo the Mogwai - for the next half a decade.It’s telling that these scenes I enjoyed so much were truly about character. Yoda himself was the obligatory special effect, but once he’s accepted as a reality (which is easily done) then it’s all about the dialogue, the message and the character arc for Luke.Another pleasant surprise was seeing Obi Wan back. It probably needn’t have been so surprising to me since he’d already made a post-death audio appearance in the previous film, but for whatever reason (possibly fuelled by the widely-known problems he had with the film, it's "banal" dialogue and his association with it following its success) I had it in my head that Star Wars was Alec Guinness's one and only film in the franchise. He was a very welcome returnee.There were more cast surprises: Billy Dee Williams has in a prominent role as Han’s frenemy  of questionable morals who comes good in the end. And Darth Vader murders a series of terrified Admirals and crew who fail him*. One of the first to go is Michael Sheard, AKA Grange Hill’s terrifying Mr Bronson. continued… * While it seems pretty apparent that Vader’s brutal, despotic regime is modelled on dictators like Hitler, or perhaps your archetypal Bond villain, his revolving door of wide-eyed assistants working in a climate of fear and harassment also drew parallels in my mind with one Alexis Colby Carrington, so I couldn’t help seeing the funny side of these scenes. I do hope this running gag continues into the third film. </blockquote>

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