With Star Wars: The Complete Saga arriving on Blu-ray this month, Gary Collinson counts down his most memorable Star Wars moments (check out the previous entry here)…
STAR WARS: EPISODE V – THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
Despite having all the fancy CG tools in the world at his disposal for the Prequel Trilogy, George Lucas never quite managed to top the brilliance of the opening battle from The Empire Strikes Back, even in its pre-Special Edition state. Rather than providing a retread of A New Hope’s climactic space battle, Empire took the action to ground level for its major set-piece as Darth Vader leads an all out assault against the Rebel base on the remote ice planet of Hoth, achieving a decisive victory for the Empire and scattering our heroes across the galaxy.
From the cool-as-hell Snowspeeders to the even-cooler Snowtroopers and off-the-scale Imperial Walkers (which were designed by art director Joe Johnston and realised by Phil Tippett’s groundbreaking ‘go motion’ animation technique) the Battle of Hoth is the greatest battle of the entire Star Wars saga. It’s also one of the few sequences from the Original Trilogy to actually benefit from the visual effects touch-ups of the 1997 re-releases, with ILM improving the quality of the compositing by digitally removing those annoying black matte lines that tormented my childhood.
The Battle of Hoth…
Proceed to the next memorable Star Wars moment here.
Originally published September 9, 2011. Updated April 12, 2018.
