Star Wars Greyscale: The Empire Strikes Back

*Editor's note: This article was originally posted on Observationdeck.kinja on 3/26/19

Another week, another movie! The Empire Strikes Back!!

Last week, I mentioned that while I love Empire Strike Back, it probably wouldn’t fare as well in greyscale as A New Hope did. The color scheme from each movie is different from one another. ANH is mostly, black, white and brown with splashes of color until our gang meets up with the resistance.

Empire, on the other hand, follows a similar formula, adding blue to the mix. This time, the color plays a part much earlier than ANH’s third act, when our heroes go their separate ways, Luke heads to swampy, earthy tones in Dagobah while Leia, Han and company are stranded in the dusky pastel Cloud City. In case anyone more curious about this, here is this cool article I found on Vox:

Every Star Wars movie, according to its colors

Star Wars color palettes have changed more than you think.

Read more

A theory is that it’s to symbolize the slow return to balance in the force, starting from the harsh desert of Tatooine to the lush forest moon of Endor. Or perhaps it was the filmmaker’s goal to elevate the visual style of Star Wars. There is a marked improvement on the film and Lucas wasn’t the best choice as director for ANH (FASTER, MORE INTENSE!) but but there’s just something missing that I can’t quite name. Simply put, Greyscale so far has made me appreciate ANH more, whereas EBS is just still good.

Unlike ANH, Empire feels its age, especially when the movie goes more 80s horror, such as the Mynock scene or Luke’s arrival to Dagobah. Again, not sure if that was merely came with the switch of directors or an intentional shift in tone or Lucas loosing his hold. A number of factors are possible as there’s a tonal shift in each movie that is absent in other franchises such as Rocky franchise* or certain franchise in the MCU.

*A mere 6 months separating the debut of the two franchises starters, however the Rocky series has only had 4 directors and 4 writers for its entire run to Star Wars’ 5 writers and 8 writers

Now time for rapid bulletpoint thoughts!

• *The new CGI additions are still an eyesore but this was the first time I’ve caught the new dubbing for Boba Fett. I won’t begrudge that change too much but it was a surprise.
• *Greyscale has also made me realize that much like the blockbusters, visual marvels and franchise titans of the 21th century…..It’s pretty goofy and ridiculous. Not that it’s a bad thing, (I will defend goofy movies forever, up to and including the actual Goofy Movie) but it’s definitely a grounding realization during these post-The Last Jedi world we live in.
• *I think I’d be pro a Star Wars biopic. Not like the traditional one where it starts right before the premiere of Star Wars and looks back at entire Lucas’ life and downfall but more Avengers-style of watching all of the major (and some minor) players get together and filming of the A New Hope.
• *Is this new? Please feel free to correct me but I feel like this is new. Is that new? It’s at the end when Lando and Chewie are about to leave

• *WHY DOES DAGOBAH HAVE SO MANY SNAKES?!
• *I wonder if the water suit thing Finn wears at the beginning of The Last Jedi the evolution of Luke’s water tank?
• *Glob, the detailing, puppetry, and voice acting for Yoda is ASTOUNDING. How is a puppet putting in one of the best performances of the trilogy?

Well, 2 down, more to go. Tune in next week for The Return of the Jedi, where we’ll see if Lucas will return the franchise back to the tone of the first movie…..