The Empire Strikes Back

I was sick as a dog this week, so let's talk about The Empire Strikes Back

I had the flu on my birthday. Cue party music and a t-shirt gun that fires DayQuil into my open mouth.

I say this because I’ve been working through a piece about The Empire Strikes Back that I swear was insightful. But, readers, I’m afraid don’t have the energy to be that interesting. I just turned 48, which feels weird, and I can’t seem to stop this deep chest cough that is, in turns, painfully dry and unproductive, and then suddenly very productive. I don’t feel that sharp, or tuned in, and I don’t know if I have the energy to reinvent the wheel when it comes to insight about a movie that’s almost as old as I am.

Luckily, I don’t have to. Because years ago, Lucasfilm made The Empire Strikes Back, and when I feel sick, before writing about it, I get to watch it. It’s the perfect movie for when you feel like death warmed over. If you’re the kind of person that subscribes to a newsletter about Star Wars, I think you know exactly what I mean.

Star Wars is a lot of things: a sprawling saga, 2001: A Space Odyssey with dogfights, a modern myth, young adult fiction, a variation on a theme, movies that rhyme. But it’s also comfort food. It’s mac and cheese for the soul. It’s Matzoh Ball Soup. It’s saltines and ginger ale. It’s a blanket.

My mother made me a blanket for my birthday. It’s soft and black and white. It’s handmade with love. It barely covers me. If I lie down it can cover my chest or it can cover my feet, but it can’t do both. I have bigger blankets, even warmer ones. But last night, coughing, I grabbed this one and slept in it, because it’s from my Mom. It’s the best blanket because of how it makes me feel, not because of any measurements or the type of fabric or how much it cost.

I think for all the conversation movies like The Empire Strikes Back can inspire what’s best about them is that they’re hot cocoa, they’re fuzzy slippers. They stir the memory, remembering not only where you were, but who you were, when you first experienced these stories. To quote Finn in The Rise of Skywalker, it’s a feeling.

That’s how my thoughts work with movies or books this familiar: it’s a jumble of geniality. I can’t be objective, and really, should I be? What’s the point of being objective when the subjective experience is so much richer. When the personal experience, the memory of watching The Empire Strikes Back in every room I have ever lived in, is a life-time hug; and the objective exploration of themes might yield an essay on “Do or do not, there is no try” or whether or not The Empire Strikes Back works best as part two or part five? I’ll take the hug.

What’s wild, in a way, is how this feeling could emanate from The Empire Strikes Back. The Empire Strikes Back leaves Han Solo trapped, Luke Skywalker with one less hand, The Rebel Alliance on the run. We start the movie with the Rebels being chased out of their chilly base, and end the movie in a space-hospital. It’s a tough time to be a Rebel. The title is a spoiler. There’s nothing in the story that should leave you feeling good.

But even if the story is shocking, bold, distressing, and dire, somehow the feeling I get from The Empire Strikes Back is warmth. It feels like the characters are more than familiar: they’re family. They have an ease with each other, even a comfortable antagonism. Han Solo treats C-3PO like he’d like to launch him into space, but isn’t that how families work? We’re polite with strangers and impolite with the people we know best. Leia and Han love each other so much they can barely stand each other. The first thing that happens in the movie, even before the AT-ATs appear, is Han risking his life to save Luke’s, against the advice of the hangar crew, who kind of thing Commander Skywalker’s dead already. These people and droids and Wookies love each other.

So, even as Luke Skywalker appears in the orange technological set of the carbon freezing chamber, walking into a trap, I’m not worried. Even as the fight progresses and Luke’s wounds accumulate and it becomes clearer and clearer that he’s not going to defeat Darth Vader, yes, it’s high drama, but I have the whole thing committed to memory. If I want to nap a little and open my eyes when I don’t feel like my white blood cells are faring about as well as the Rebel Alliance on Hoth, I won’t miss anything. It’ll be the movie I remember, the music, the leap of faith, Luke hanging off the edge of a floating city, his only hope that Leia can hear him call out through the Force, it’ll be there when I get back. Even though terrible things are happening, it feels like everything will be okay.

Maybe that’s because it’s been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Maybe it’s because of some unknowable, perfect balance between the darkness of the story and the charisma of the lead characters. Maybe the writing draws out both the terror and joys of childhood discovery. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe I can’t really see The Empire Strikes Back as a movie, like any other movie, because I can’t untether it from some part of me that it raised.

So, sorry to be this sentimental, but I honestly think I have a better inner life because The Empire Strikes Back exists. It’s that precious and formative. And on days when ’d like someone remove my sinuses with pliers; on days when I feel old and like my shoulder hurts no matter how I try to position myself on a pillow; on days when I cough so hard my eye hurts? There’s Yoda lifting Luke’s X-Wing out of the swamp with his eyes closed, as the music swells; there’s Han whispering about replacing the negative power coupling; there’s Chewie wailing as the shield doors close; there’s Cloud City; and the Force is with me, not just always, but today.

On those days.

The days I need it most.