THE EMPIRE FALLS SHORT

The Empire Strikes Back, directed by Irvin Kirshner and written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, is the second and least successful of the three Star Wars films, having recently been knocked out of the top ten domestic grossing films in history by The Lion King. Empire is perhaps the most ambitious of the series, with its widely separated yet interrelated plots and its attempt at increased spirituality and a fuller explanation of the Jedi tradition and the Force.

It is also the most inconsistent: it drags during the second half. It does not have the constant, wild action of Star Wars or the ultimate triumph of Return of the Jedi, but it does feature a memorable invasion (of the Imperial Walkers attacking the rebel base on Hoth) and the duel that probably remains most beloved in the public imagination (between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker). The Empire Strikes Back is probably the most important of the films for the Star Wars enthusiast (largely because of what it reveals of the world in which the saga takes place) and the least accessible to the layman. It is not the one to see first.

The newly released version of The Empire Strikes Back is not as dramatically altered as Star Wars (which contains entirely new scenes), but the differences are big enough to be noticed even by someone with a cursory knowledge of the original version. The major changes are limited to the Wampa, the abominable snowman-like creature which attacks Luke on Hoth, and the appearance of Cloud City, the mining colony overseen by Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams).

With Star Wars, even purists feel only slight resentment at the alterations, because the main addition is a scene intended for the original but pulled because of technological and budgetary constraints. In The Empire Strikes Back the necessity for or even the intention behind the changes is not as clear. Since it would be wrong to regard the trilogy as an artistic masterpiece as opposed to a special effects film, we can't call it a piece of film history that ought not be retouched. But the originals are good enough and loved enough that we would trust George Lucas to change them only with an eye to improvement.

And in The Empire Strikes Back, it appears that he has thought less about improving than about showing what he and his friends at Industrial Light & Magic can do with a few more millions. They can make computer-animated views of Cloud City and the Wampa which look like what every other piece of computer animation (barring Toy Story) you've seen looks like: computer animation. The wonderful thing about the Star Wars movies was that, bound by the lack of technology, the film-makers had to opt for the more difficult process of location shooting and make Tunisia look like Tattoine. And you find, upon viewing, that Tunisia looks more like an actual, physical planet than your computer screen does, whatever you've drawn on it.

While the computer-drawn landscapes are a disappointing, amateurish touch, the changes in the Hoth creature positively hurt the scene. They ruin the once-excellent pacing and remove much of the suspense by making concrete the details about the creature's appearance and activities which were once left to our imagination. Unfortunately, nothing we see the creature do is as frightening as what we imagined it to be doing.

The reasons to see the re-released Star Wars movies on the big screen are not the changes that the filmmakers have made but the quality that the size and sound of the film take on in a large theatre. There's also the simple feeling of being there, of commemorating a landmark event in the change (for better or worse) of the motion picture industry from the director-driven, art-oriented days of the early seventies to the big-budget, star-vehicle, action-adventure, special-effects nineties. A country of 260 million people has few pieces of shared experience, and it is somehow comforting to participate in one that doesn't involve an assassination or a verdict or a car chase but the simple act of viewing a film which everyone has seen, at a time when everyone is seeing it again--when the first-night shows sell out a week in advance and the lines run out the doors of the theatre. I used to wish that I had been able to see Star Wars in the theatre in 1976, when it opened bigger than Batman and made the kind of unexpected smash that one almost never sees in any business.

It would be something of a shame to see it in 1996 for the first time in an artificial re-creation of the original event with a somewhat artificial re-creation of the original movie. In a true shared experience, everyone is seeing it again because they love it and want to remember it and pick out the differences but not to be moved and elated as they were when they first saw it.

So go see it. Go see all of them. They are great no matter what Lucas's arrogance has led him to do to them. They are still your movies. They are all of our movies. They are what we share. And as the world whirls around us we see that there are some things that even the creators cannot change: Han Solo is still the coolest, Luke Skywalker is still annoying, Chewy is still tough as nails, Darth Vader still comes at you harder than anyone and the force is still with you. Always.