The HDYR gang returns to a galaxy far, far away for a deep dive on the crown jewel of the Star Wars franchise. It's a follow-up that's so unbelievably strong that other filmmakers have turned it into some sort of Rosetta Stone for how to craft an effective sequel. The superficial elements they grasp onto though (the darker tone, the twist ending, etc.) actually have very little to do with why this all works so well.

With The Last Jedi hitting theaters this weekend, it felt like the right time to take another look at the middle chapter of the original trilogy and highlight all the ways in which this expertly expands on Star Wars lore. From the early story conferences that shaped the film to its lasting impact on this series and the industry at large, join us we revisit The Empire Strikes Back... Topics include: why George Lucas decided not to direct this film and where his attention was focused instead, the original script and its completely different big revelation, how the scope of this begins on an epic scale and gradually gets more and more intimate, a deleted subplot that wound up getting recycled in an N64 game, the pros and cons of separating our core group of characters, the real reason Han got frozen in carbonite, changes made for the Special Edition, what sets this apart from the other entries in this series, and much much more!

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