Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

Question: I once read something about a chimpanzee being in this movie somewhere. No joke. Has anyone else read or heard this?

Answer: This is likely what you are referring to: When the Emperor first appeared in The Empire Strikes Back, he was portrayed by Marjorie Eaton under heavy makeup. Chimpanzee eyes were superimposed into darkened eye sockets during post-production. Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palpatine#:~:text=over%20military%20force.-, Portrayal, was%20voiced%20by%20Clive%20Revill.

ctown28 ★

Question: Before contacting the Emperor, Vader tells Admiral Piett to move the ship out of the asteroid field for the transmission. But if the Emperor was able to contact Piett, why not just contact Vader directly? Despite the asteroid field.

Answer: We don't know that the Emperor spoke to Piett directly. He might be relaying a message that the Emperor gave to another ship/location.

Question: On Cloud City, why did Vader surprise Han and the others in a dining room? Lando says that the Imperials arrived before Han's group. But they've had time for Leia to change clothes, change her hair style, and for her to ask people about C3PO when he is missing.

Answer: No answer is given. Maybe Vader needed more time to negotiate with Lando and wanted to ensure the group would feel "safe" and then be caught off guard. It's more about plotting, though. The scene is constructed to build suspense and doubt. Han thinks the friendly and charming Lando is trustworthy, but Leia is wary, especially after C3PO disappears. The group, and the audience, are then taken by surprise when Vader is revealed and Lando's true character and motive is exposed.

raywest ★

Question: Han wants to leave the Rebels because Jabba the Hutt still has a bounty on him. Why not stay and be protected by a large group of friends? Safety in numbers, basically.

Answer: There may be safety in numbers, but Han is not going to put his comrades' lives in danger to protect himself. He also doesn't want the bounty hanging over his head, or be constantly on guard for an ambush. The longer he waits to pay it off, the greater the consequences, which is what eventually happened. He wanted to pay it and be done. This also shows Han when he chooses to come back and help his friends win the battle.

raywest ★

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Mistakes

Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: A boom microphone is reflected in Luke's goggles when he says "Hey, what's the matter? You smell something?"

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Quotes

Luke: All right, I'll give it a try.
Yoda: No. Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.

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Trivia

Trivia: When Billy Dee Williams (Lando) picked up his daughter from elementary school after the film's release, kids would run up to Williams and say "You betrayed Han Solo!"

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Questions

Answer: The short, short answer to this is "Yes... from a certain point of view." The long answer is complicated and depends completely on what timeframe you mean by "always." If you're going back all the way to the early rough drafts of the early-mid 70s (which actually resemble Episode I more than they do the Star Wars of 1977), you'll find there's a cyborg father figure protagonist that makes a heroic sacrifice, and then another character that is a "black knight" villain that eventually turns to the side of good near the end. Just to make things more complicated, there is yet another character, a villain by the name of "Darth Vader" that is a human Imperial officer like Grand Moff Tarkin. It may be a stretch to count all that as "Darth Vader was always the father" but the pieces were all there, at least.

TonyPH

(1) Now the earliest explicit mention on any documented material that Darth Vader is Luke's father comes from notes Lucas made outlining the general story of the trilogy and its place in the larger Star Wars saga. These were found in the archives for The Empire Strikes Back, but they are undated and we don't know if they were written before Star Wars (1977) and carried forward, or if they were written afterward. These were found fairly recently (made public in 2010) and as far as I know Lucas has never commented publicly about them.

TonyPH

(3) One thing we know, at least, is that Lucas had come up with the idea of Darth Vader the father before starting work on The Empire Strikes Back. Something incredibly odd, though, is that the first draft written by Leigh Brackett does not feature the twist (and in fact introduces Anakin himself as a ghost); for a long time many fans took this as proof that Lucas hadn't thought of the idea at all by then, but after the series outline was discovered it was made apparent that Lucas simply hadn't told Brackett for some reason. Perhaps he wasn't sure yet that he wanted to go through with it, or maybe at that point he was thinking of revealing it in the third film. Either way, Lucas would write the second draft himself, and that's where the twist first appears in script form.

TonyPH

(2) Something that must be understood about Star Wars (1977) is that it was an ALTERNATIVE to his original plans of a saga. By then he didn't think it was realistic that he would be able to make a long series of many movies, so he came up with a "Plan B": he crammed the general story of the trilogy into one movie. So we know that when Star Wars (1977) was filming, Darth Vader was NOT Luke's father, because this one movie was IT, that was the whole story. But what we DON'T know, is whether that means Lucas had abandoned the idea of Vader being the father in order to simplify the story, or if Lucas simply hadn't thought of that at all just yet.

TonyPH

(2, cont.) On a side note, you can tell by watching Star Wars (1977) how it has condensed the story of the trilogy. The middle portion has the characters trying to escape capture from the Empire while one of them loses a duel with Darth Vader (like The Empire Strikes Back) and the third act is a final battle against the Death Star above a forest moon (like Return of the Jedi). The first act features a member of royalty on the run while a couple of protagonists find the main hero on a desert planet, resembling the original drafts and by extension Star Wars: Episode I. Because of this we've arguably never actually had a "pure" first chapter to the original trilogy, even though Lucas eventually had the film serve this purpose anyway.

TonyPH

Answer: Yes, however, he didn't want anyone to KNOW about it. In fact, the original script said "'Obi Wan never told you what happened to your father.' 'He told me enough... he told me YOU killed him!' 'No, Obi-Wan killed your father'" Even Hamill was only told the real line just before shooting, so his reaction is somewhat natural.

SexyIrishLeprechaun

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