To be a Jedi!

Starcat reviews Star Wars comics: The Empire Strikes Back (part four)

The story so far on the first page segues into hinting at what is yet to happen.

Now, strange new dangers loom... both for him and his friends.

Luke meets Yoda, who offers to help him look for Yoda. Meanwhile C3PO, Han, Chewbacca and Princess Leia are hiding from Darth Vader inside the Space Glove Puppet.

Princess Leia and Han decide to have kiffs instead of doing work to repair the Millennium Falcon, which is very catlike of them.

In space we get our first glimpse of the Evil Emperor, who is for now just a shadowy figure talking to Darth Vader. We see Darth Vader come up with his plan,

He will join us, my master--
-- or die!

but we all know how badly that turns out for him.

Luke learns who Yoda is when Ben Kenobi talks to him through the Force.

Alec Guinness only has a couple of lines of dialogue here as Ben Kenobi. He is very underused in the part in The Empire Strikes Back.

Alec Guinness loved being in Star Wars, so he was understandably disappointed when he got the script for The Empire Strikes Back and saw how little Ben Kenobi had to do in it. He asked George Lucas if there were any other parts he could play, and even showed him the film Kind Hearts and Coronets on video to prove he could play several different roles within the same film.

Sadly for Alec Guinness, George Lucas had already cast all of the other parts, but Alec Guinness remained hopeful and still turned up for every day of the filming just in case they were able to use him, even if it was just for something simple like a voiceover saying "Use the Force, Luke."

Then one day it turned out that the actor who was supposed to play the Space Glove Puppet as it tries to eat the model of the Millennium Falcon couldn't make it, so Alec Guinness stepped in and saved the day (well, the day's filming) by playing the Space Glove Puppet in its only scene.

Having done this, Alec Guinness asked George Lucas if the Space Glove Puppet could appear again later in the film, perhaps - he suggested - at the end it could attack Darth Vader's spaceship and so provide a distraction for the Millennium Falcon to escape? George Lucas said no.

Three years later when George Lucas asked Alec Guinness back to play Ben Kenobi in Return of the Jedi, Alec Guinness asked if he could also play the Space Glove Puppet again. In the intervening time, he had worked on an elaborate backstory and motivation for the Space Glove Puppet, which he now regarded as being as much 'his character' as Ben Kenobi.

Sadly for Alec Guinness, the backstory he had devised contradicted the backstory George Lucas had already written for the Space Glove Puppet. Following this, George Lucas was firm that there would be no additional opportunities for Alec Guinness to play Ben Kenobi, the Space Glove Puppet or, indeed, any other character in any more Star Wars films.

They parted on bad terms and Alec Guinness remained bitter about Star Wars for many years afterwards.

Han Solo works out that they are inside a Space Glove Puppet and the Millennium Falcon escapes from its mouth in the nick of time, a very exciting sequence and crucial to the plot because it means that they have to go back into space to be chased by Darth Vader's spaceships again.

Luke has a training montage with Yoda.

Darth Vader brings in bounty hunters to help him. Curiously, Darth Vader's dialogue suggests that they are all working together, while the film gave me the impression that the bounty hunters worked individually:

You and your band are highly regarded in your particular trade, Boba Fett... do not disappoint me.

There's something familiar about some of that space rubbish...

The BBC SFX mannys must have been flattered that George Lucas wanted to use the Andromedan fleet from Star One. Right up until they saw what he wanted it for.

Han decides to go and visit

Lando Calrissian. Gambler, con-artist, all-around scoundrel... your kind of guy, princess.

And ours. Purr.

Hooray! Lando is the best character in Star Wars and we will finally meet him in the next chapter.