FROM THE OUTSET I CONCEIVED STAR Wars as a series of six films, or two trilogies. The first film, Star Wars: A New Hope, was episode IV and it was structured to stand on its own as a complete and emotionally satisfying experience. The success of Star Wars enabled me to move forward and make the next episode of the saga, The Empire Strikes Back.
As the middle act in a three act play, Empire was by its nature a challenging story for a single film. When I wrote the original Star Wars screenplay, I knew that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father; the audience did not. I always felt that this revelation, when and if I got the chance to make it, would be shocking, but I never expected the level of emotional attachment that audiences had developed for Luke as a symbol of goodness, and Vader as the embodiment of evil. In Empire, I had to make this disturbing revelation at the conclusion of the film, and then leave audiences hanging for three years before the story could be resolved in the next episode. And still, the film had to stand on its own.
Empire posed other unique challenges. I had hired Leigh Brackett, a gifted science fiction author, to write the screenplay based on my story and, very sadly, she died of cancer shortly after turning in the first draft. As it turned out, I had also recently hired a young and amazingly talented writer named Lawrence Kasdan to write the script for Raiders of the Lost Ark. To his complete surprise, I asked Larry to write the next draft of the Empire screenplay. It was a hunch that proved right; Larry’s work was brilliant.
The production challenges of Empire were intense, as well. For the cast and crew, in addition to months of shooting on soundstages in London, there was the dreaded location shooting on the icy tundras of Norway. Empire also doubled the number of effects shots of Star Wars and required Industrial Light &c Magic to virtually reinvent themselves, the first but far from the last time they would do so in their long history.
In the end, I think we succeeded in creating a satisfying film that took fans to new places, visually and emotionally, and left them hungry for more.
