Let me start out by warning you. This is my absolute favorite of all the Star Wars movies and I am coming off a viewing high. I went to Mediaplay with my friend Marianna the other day and, while perusing the DVDs, I couldn't stop hearing lightsabers and John Williams music. I finally wandered around until I found the big screen TV playing ESB and took a seat on the floor, skirt and all, to let myself be enthralled for a few minutes. Luckily, Marianna browsed for a long time and I got all the way from the lifting of the X-wing on Dagobah to the middle of the Bespin duel. Probably 40 minutes in total and I cried twice. I need to stop watching it under the influence of painkillers.

Anyway, it put me in mind of how much I have always loved and will always love that movie. It is, for me, the crowning glory of the Star Wars saga. Nowhere else has there been such mastery of dialogue, character interaction, on-screen chemistry, and emotional impact in each of the scenes.

Let me start with the part that I have a hard time adoring occasionally--the battles. My complaint? I wanted more time with our boys in the speeders. I fell in love with Wes and Wedge during that battle and it's now an obsession, but we get to hear from them for maybe five minutes. My only complaint beyond Hoth is the one moment where the Falcon buzzes the bridge of the Avenger and everyone ducks. I thought it was stupid when I was 13 and I haven't changed my mind.

Since I went through the characters last time, let me give you an update on why I love them. I'm sure you'll agree.

Han: His brashness in ANH has turned to some serious emotional backbone in ESB. From the moment we see him taking on Leia in the South Passage, we know that this is going to be Complicated in a major way. We liked the way he set up a contrast and conflict with Leia in ANH during the rescue and we see that this obstinate nature is giving him a lot of trouble. It's been three years, presumably, he's still not committed to the Alliance the way they would like, but he's stayed around. He's been chased, we hear in the opening dialogues, by bounty hunters and that's forced him to decide to leave, but instead, his loyalties to Luke are still stronger and he gets tied up being hero again. The man just can't get a break from that supposedly non-existent conscience of his. I love his teasing nature as well as the way he's guilelessly tender with the woman he loves. Harrison mentioned that he wanted Solo to die in the carbonite and I think that this movie proves that it would have been the biggest mistake before Jar-Jar Binks.

Leia: Speaking of mistakes, it's not a matter of script or actress or anything like that. Let me just speak for every fan I know when I say that I have the overwhelming to smack her upside the head and yell "Wake up!" until that conversation about dirty hands and scoundrels. We see her soft side as well because we see a vulnerability that has nothing to do with superweapons in the way she has to learn to accept how she feels about Han. In ANH, we had Leia being very erudite and articulate and she still is, acid-tongued and witty, but I think the strongest impact she made for me was in the carbon-freezing chamber. When I first saw it, I expected her to go after Vader like she did with Tarkin, but instead, she condemns him wordlessly. She spends the entire scene, until she speaks three words to Han, and I find myself choked up more than the Alderaan scene every time.

Luke: My heart bleeds for him throughout this movie. Gone is the idealism of the ANH Skywalker and his development after 3 years of war is entirely believable. He is not a cynic, but he has experienced failure more times than he'd like to acknowledge, both as a Jedi and as a warrior. As we saw in the opening crawl, the Rebellion is being thrashed and this has to have taken its toll on the leader of Rogue Squadron. He has less faith in the unlikely, but more faith in himself and that can be a dangerous combination. We can't know exactly what is going through his head after Bespin, but he's definitely lost faith in a lot of things at that point, as evidenced by the one phrase he keeps repeating: "Ben, why didn't you tell me?" You have to wonder why Ben didn't--was Luke not prepared? Did he really have too much of his father in him? Was it a way of manipulating what would happen to Vader?

Vader: Awe/terror. I definitely am scared of the man who murders for his child without provocation. He terrifies me because there is no way to succeed and simple tactics are fatal. There is so little emotion in the way he deals with both his men and his son, but we're all left wondering what the heck he's thinking! And the ending, where he doesn't punish anyone for Luke's escape is striking. Is he emotionless there or has facing his son changed him? Is this the beginning of the conflict Luke speaks of in ROTJ?

Yoda: Okay, so he makes no sense unless you're able to read Biblical Hebrew like me, but I think that was a choice that Lucas and/or the writers made because the language that forms the Bible gives an air of supreme wisdom. Yoda seems to deserve that classification. Even when he's a slightly psychotic kleptomaniac who likes to beat up Artoo, he can say the most amazing things. I had a teacher, when I was a missionary learning Spanish in the Missionary Training Center, who wanted to teach us about principles of faith with things we understood. One day, he told us he was going to teach us about believing in the impossible and he brought up the scene where Yoda lifted the X-wing out of the swamp. This is why he is the only character whose death ever made me cry.

Plot: Engaging, well-paced, and intense. There aren't lagging moments when you wonder WHY the Sith they even bothered to get up the morning that they wrote it. There aren't awkward points of dialogue and you aren't ever waiting for the "good stuff."

Best lines:

"Then I'll see you in hell!"

"I merely commented that it was freezing in the Princess' chambers. Well, i'ts SUPPOSED to be freezing! How we're going to dry off all her clothes, I really don't know how."

"Laugh it up, fuzzball."

"Why, you stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking NERFHERDER!"
"Who's scruffy-looking?"

"Why are you still here?"

"Would it help if I got out and pushed?"
"It might!"

"Wars not make one great."

"This one, a long time I have watched. Always looking to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. What he was doing. YOU ARE RECKLESS!"

"Your weapons, you will not need them."

"I don't believe it."
"That is why you failed."

"You like scoundrels. There aren't enough scoundrels in your life."

"He's a card-player, gambler, scum. You'd like him."

"And I'll return, I promise."

"That boy was our last hope."
"No, there is another."

"I love you."
"I know."

"I am your father."