The Empire Strikes Back

• 1. Introduction

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  The Empire Strikes Back opens with a single haunting image: probe droids scattered across the galaxy, hunting. It was the 21st of May 1980, and audiences packing into just 126 theaters across North America had little idea that the film they were about to watch would cost them $10,581 per theater on opening day alone, and would eventually earn more than $549 million worldwide. But more than the money, they had no idea that a line of dialogue, kept so secret that the actor delivering it was given a fake version to read aloud, would become one of the most recognized moments in the history of cinema.

  Behind that opening image lay years of chaos: a script rewritten after its original author died of cancer, a budget that tripled before filming was done, a Norwegian glacier that inflicted mild frostbite on a crew working eleven-hour shifts in blizzard conditions, and a director who had handed the whole enterprise off rather than endure the stress again. George Lucas had survived Star Wars. He was not sure he could survive another one.

  How did a production this battered produce a film that critics would eventually call the greatest in the series? Who wrote the words that changed everything? And what was actually said on that set suspended thirty-five feet above a pile of mattresses when the most famous secret in Hollywood hung in the air?

• 2. A Story Built by Many Hands

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  Leigh Brackett was a science-fiction writer whom Lucas found through a friend, and he hired her for $50,000, knowing she had cancer. Between November 28 and the 2nd of December 1977, the two held a story conference. Lucas arrived with core ideas: a cloud city, a gambler from Han's past, a diminutive froglike creature he called Minch Yoda, and a Galactic Emperor. He envisioned one central plot with three main subplots, spanning sixty scenes and roughly a hundred script pages.

  Brackett completed her first draft in February 1978. It contained the Hoth battle, the asteroid chase, the Cloud City, and the climactic duel between Luke and Vader. But in her version, Luke's father appeared only as a ghost, leaving Vader a separate character entirely. A few weeks later, she was hospitalized and died of cancer on March 18, leaving Lucas with a draft that did not match his intentions.

  With no time to spare, Lucas wrote the second draft himself, completing his handwritten 121-page version on April 1. His typed script introduced Boba Fett, who he wrote like the Man with No Name from Westerns. Crucially, Lucas's handwritten draft mentioned Vader being Luke's father, but he left it out of the typed version deliberately, to prevent leaks. He later said he had always planned the reveal.

  In June 1978, Lawrence Kasdan, who had impressed Lucas with his work on Raiders of the Lost Ark, was hired to refine the draft for $60,000. Kasdan, Kershner, and Lucas held a story conference in early July. By early August, Kasdan had completed a third draft, reshaping Yoda from a slimy creature to a small blue one, tightening dialogue, adding romance, and moving a Vader scene from a ship's deck into his private cubicle. The fourth draft followed on October 24, and the fifth in February 1979. Despite all the rewrites, Lucas supported Brackett receiving a co-writer credit and provided for her family beyond her contracted pay.

• 3. Financing on the Edge

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  Lucas intended to fund The Empire Strikes Back himself, using his $12 million profit from Star Wars. He pledged the remainder as collateral against an $8 million loan from Bank of America. The 100-page contract with Fox, signed on the 21st of September 1977, gave Fox distribution rights but no creative input. Fox would receive fifty percent of gross profits on the first $20 million earned, with the percentage shifting to 77.5 percent in the producers' favor above $100 million.

  The budget did not hold. By December 1978, pre-production costs had already pushed it to $21.5 million, more than double the original estimate. Financial projections showed The Chapter II Company, the entity Lucas created to control the film's liabilities, could run a monthly deficit of $5-25 million by the end of 1979. A fire on Elstree's Stage 3, where The Shining was being filmed, destroyed the space planned for Empire's sets and forced sixty-four sets to migrate through nine stages.

  Filming on the glacier at Finse, Norway, during the worst snowstorm in half a century, added more overruns. By the time the crew returned to England with only half the planned footage, the budget had risen to around $22 million. In mid-July, Bank of America refused to extend the loan. Lucas secretly borrowed from his merchandising company Black Falcon to keep paying the crew, and instructed staff to misstate direct costs as $17 million in official memos. Fox threatened to buy out the bond and take over the film.

  Lucasfilm president Charles Weber eventually arranged refinancing: $27.7 million from Bank of Boston and $3 million guaranteed by Fox, in exchange for an increased share of theatrical returns and ten percent of merchandising profits. Lucasfilm took the loan directly, making the company itself liable. The final budget came to $30.5 million, nearly four times the original $8 million plan.

• 4. Ninety Days in Norway and Elstree

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  Principal photography began on the 5th of March 1979, at the Hardangerjøkulen glacier near Finse, Norway. The area was experiencing its worst snowstorm in half a century. Winds reached forty miles per hour, temperatures dropped to extremes that turned acetate film brittle and froze effects paint inside tins, and some days no filming was possible at all. The crew worked outside for up to eleven hours at a time, suffering thin air, limited visibility, and mild frostbite; one crewman slipped and broke two ribs.

  Carrie Fisher had not been scheduled for Norway but joined the shoot to observe. Harrison Ford was brought in to avoid building a separate set in Leeds, arriving on a few hours' notice after traveling the last twenty-three miles by snowplow. The second unit, planned to be there for three weeks, stayed for eight. When the crew returned to England, avalanches had blocked transport links, camera lenses had repeatedly iced over, and a shot of the Imperial probe landing, involving eight sticks of dynamite set to explode at sunrise, had to be scrapped after the demolitions expert's radio battery was knocked out before he could trigger it.

  Filming at Elstree began March 13. Fisher developed influenza and bronchitis. Her weight dropped to eighty-five pounds while she worked twelve-hour days, and she collapsed on set from an allergic reaction to steam or spray paint. Peter Mayhew fell ill during Han's torture scene when bursts of steam raised the ambient temperature to ninety degrees Fahrenheit inside a wool suit. Around fifty metric tons of dendritic salt, mixed with magnesium sulfate for a sparkle effect on the snowy sets, gave cast and crew headaches. Second unit director John Barry died suddenly in early June and was replaced a week later by Harley Cokeliss.

  Mark Hamill injured his hand jumping from a speeder bike, was called in for the stunt the same day his son was born, and later fell accidentally from a nine-inch ledge forty feet high, rolling on landing to avoid injury. The scene where Vader reveals he is Luke's father was filmed with Hamill on a platform suspended thirty-five feet above a pile of mattresses. David Prowse, known for leaking information, was given the line "Obi-Wan Kenobi is your father" to deliver on set; only Kershner, the producers, and Hamill knew the actual line. A wrap party was held on the 5th of September 1979, after 133 days of filming, and approximately 400,000 feet of footage, or eighty hours, had been shot.

• 5. The Actors Behind the Masks

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  James Earl Jones returned to voice Darth Vader and earned $15,000 for half a day's work, plus a small percentage of profits. As with Star Wars, he declined a screen credit, considering himself "special effects" to David Prowse's physical performance. Prowse had hesitated to return, worried that a costume role offered little job security, and agreed only after being told delays would lead to his replacement.

  Billy Dee Williams became the first black actor with a starring role in the series when he was cast as Lando Calrissian. Williams said Lando was much like himself, a "pretty cool guy", and found the character's cape and Armenian surname useful room to develop the role. He initially suspected it was a token part but was told it had not been written specifically for a black actor. Howard Rollins, Terry Alexander, Robert Christian, Thurman Scott, and Yaphet Kotto had also been considered for the role.

  Jeremy Bulloch did not audition for Boba Fett; he was hired simply because the costume fit. The suit was uncomfortable and top-heavy, making it difficult to keep his balance, and the mask regularly steamed up. Bulloch assumed his few lines would be redubbed, and indeed Jason Wingreen voiced Fett without receiving a screen credit until the year 2000. In the same film, Bulloch also appears out of costume as the Imperial officer who restrains Leia in Cloud City; with no other cast member available, producer Gary Kurtz had him quickly change out of the Fett suit to stand in for the scene.

  Yoda was voiced and puppeteered by Frank Oz, with assistance from Kathryn Mullen, David Barclay, and Wendy Froud. Lucas had intended someone else to provide the voice but decided matching a voice to Oz's puppetry would be too difficult. Stuart Freeborn built the puppet; up to one hundred people worked on effects daily. Alec Guinness, whose failing eyesight required avoiding bright lights, was given a more limited role after Lucas struck a deal in late August 1979: Guinness received 0.25 percent of the film's box office gross for just a few hours of work, filming his scenes against a bluescreen on the official last day of principal photography, September 5.

• 6. Opening Weekend and Beyond

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  A sneak preview took place on the 6th of May 1980 at the Dominion Theatre in London. The world premiere followed on May 20 at the Odeon Leicester Square, dubbed "Empire Day", with actors in Stormtrooper attire interacting with people across the city. On May 17, a preview screening at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., attended by 600 children including Special Olympians, featured the principal cast.

  In North America, the film opened on May 21 in just 126 theaters, a deliberate strategy to generate demand. It earned $1.3 million on its opening day, an average of $10,581 per theater. By the end of that first week, it had earned $9.6 million, a sixty percent increase over Star Wars's first week, averaging $76,201 per theater, the highest-ever figure for a film playing in over a hundred theaters.

  Empire remained number one for weeks, eventually setting a single-week gross record of approximately $20 million, a record it held until Superman II earned $24 million the following year. After a thirty-two-week run in 1,278 theaters, Empire earned between $181.4 and $209.4 million in North America alone. According to reporting in trade publications, approximately $192.1 million came from outside North America, giving the film a worldwide gross of $401.5 million and making it the highest-grossing film of 1980, ahead of comedies 9 to 5, Stir Crazy, and Airplane!

  Industry experts estimated the film returned $120 million to the filmmakers. Lucas paid out $5 million in employee bonuses and cleared his debt. Theatrical re-releases in July 1981, November 1982, and a Special Edition in February 1997 eventually pushed the worldwide total to $549-$550 million. Adjusted for inflation, it is the thirteenth-highest-grossing film in the United States and Canada, equivalent to $920.8 million.

• 7. Reception, Reassessment, Legacy

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  Critical response on release was mixed, a marked change from the largely positive reception of Star Wars. Robert Redford's Ordinary People appeared on 42 leading critics' top ten lists for 1980, according to a March 1981 Los Angeles Times survey; Empire appeared on 24. Fan reactions split along fault lines of tone: many were unsettled by the shift to darker material and by the revelation of Vader's identity. Opening weekend audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it an "A+", with males and viewers under twenty-five rating it highest.

  Critics who had reservations argued the film stripped the original of its lightness. Joy Gould Boyum of The Wall Street Journal called it "absurd" to add dramatic weight to what had been a fundamentally lighthearted story. Vincent Canby of The New York Times found it more mechanical and less suspenseful. Others saw the tonal shift as an asset: writing for Time, Gerald Clarke said Empire surpassed Star Wars in visual and artistic interest. Gene Siskel called Yoda the highlight of the film and likened the non-human cast to the Tin Man, Lion, and Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz.

  At the 1981 Academy Awards, Empire won Best Sound and a Special Achievement Award for Best Visual Effects. John Williams won two Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Score, and a BAFTA for Best Music. The 8th Saturn Awards gave the film four prizes, including Best Science Fiction Film and Best Director for Irvin Kershner. A Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation followed.

  The United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2010. The VHS release at Christmas 1984, priced at $79.95, sold 375,000 units, the top-selling tape at that price point at the time. The novelization by Donald F. Glut, published in April 1980, sold 2-3 million copies. The first officially licensed Star Wars pinball machine, released in 1980, produced only 350 units exclusively in Australia, making it a collector's item. The Vader-Luke reveal remains one of the most analyzed plot twists in film history, and the film's influence on sequels, science fiction, and popular culture has continued for more than four decades.