In story-telling, there always seems to be some supreme evil out to squash the forces of good, while the forces of good are always trying to dethrone the tyranny of evil. Of course, things are not so black and white in real life.
In truth, evil can be found on both sides — either through outright abuse of power or internal corruption. That is not to say good does not exist. Rather, good is in constant danger of being corrupted by both external and internal forces. In an effort to bring more realism to story-telling in movies, directors and writers began making movies that drifted from the simple pattern of good triumphing over evil to the forces of evil trumping the forces of good. In “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) directed by Irvin Kershner, images of towering evil characters, the duality in the main character, and the recurring “belly of the beast” theme offer the audience a more realistic story that suggests evil is both an extroverted and an introverted threat putting righteousness in danger of being devoured.
Many elements of mise-en-scène are present in “Empire,” including dark, towering images that fully illustrate evil as superior to the forces of good. For example, in the climax of the battle on the frozen world of Hoth, there is a shot of towering AT-AT Imperial Walkers shooting at the small and puny Rebels running away. The Walkers dominate this scene, taking up about two-thirds of the shot. This comes across as an overt display of the Imperial military power over the defeated good guys, similar to shooting fish in a barrel.
This scene parallels the duel between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. In the dark chamber on Bespin, Luke finds Darth Vader waiting for him at the top of the stairs, towering over the young and arrogant hero. Much like the scene with the Walkers, the image of Darth Vader dominates the shot, standing there in the low lighting. Darth Vader is seen as superior to Luke, both in skill with the lightsaber and with the Force. This imagery creates an ominous feeling that evil is superior to good. The idea that evil is above, or more powerful than good, is a theme that keeps recurring throughout the movie.
Another interesting point is there are even images of evil towering over the Imperials. In his search for Han Solo and Princess Leia, Darth Vader hires the best bounty hunters in the galaxy to track them down and bring them to him alive. The scene starts at a lower deck where the Imperials are saying “Bounty hunters! We don’t need their scum.” The shot then pans up to show this menacing humanoid lizard growling at them in response to their comment. The angle of the shot and the character placement suggests there are far greater evils than what the Imperials bestow. The bounty hunters display a new level of evil, evident immediately by their uniquely wicked costumes ranging from lizard man to bug alien to assassin droid to the infamous Boba Fett. They represent untamed evil, an evil that potentially cannot be “controlled,” which is why Vader explicitly instructs Boba “No disintegration!”
Strangely enough, Vader is on the same level as the bounty hunters, and his costume is crazy enough to fit right in, as if to say he is as untamed as the rest of them. What is more interesting is this scene parallels another scene where the audience discovers there is a greater evil than Darth Vader! The shot with the mysteriously ominous, old emperor looking down on the small Darth Vader kneeling before him is the first time Darth Vader is shown as inferior to another character. Major implications from this scene suggest there is a greater evil than what was previously believed. Not only is Vader small and being looked down upon, the emperor takes up nearly the whole shot as if to say he is a far more evil threat than Vader. Scenes like these solidify the director’s attempt to make Empire feel darker and display evil as a looming extroverted danger to the forces of good.
In large part, the movie focuses on the duality of the main character, highlighting the internal evils despite the good qualities. The focal point of this theme is seen through Luke as he faces his trials and tribulations, constantly being tested and tempted by the dark side. His darker qualities start to surface on the planet Dagobah where he encounters Yoda, a Jedi master.
The whole time on Dagobah, Luke lets his impatience and anger control his actions to the point that he yells at Yoda, “I don’t even know what I’m doing here! We’re wasting our time!” This is a very different character from the innocent, fool hardy farm-boy from the previous film. The tone of dialogue gives Luke an aura that resembles the quick temper and anger of the Imperials. Gradually, Luke’s character becomes more two-sided. On the one hand, Luke is “the hero of epic myth… a dream-figure who stands in for the entire culture.” On the other hand, Luke is impatient and quick to anger, suggesting he is falling from the path of the righteous. The shot of Luke standing above Yoda after he has given up on lifting the X-Wing from the swamp parallels Luke to the evil images towering over their inferiors as if to say Luke is becoming more like the Imperials.
“The thematic key to what is happening here lies in the magic tree-cave sequence” where Luke must confront the dark side of the Force that dwells within it and himself. Inside, Luke descends into this dark, gloomy cave where he suddenly gets in a lightsaber fight with a manifestation of Darth Vader. After Vader is defeated, the head rolls away and reveals an image of Luke’s face. “The boy Luke, who until now…has thought of evil as something outside himself, is now beginning to recognize that evil comes from within.” This scene offers the idea that even someone as heroic and righteous as Luke could potentially become as dark and evil as Darth Vader.
This event parallels to the real duel between Luke and Vader on Bespin where Luke’s more aggressive nature comes out, such as igniting his lightsaber first and arrogant remarks like “You’ll find that I’m full of surprises”. Luke’s mixed character of good and evil qualities are even evident in his costume. Unlike the previous film where “the heroes and villains are painted in unmistakable terms of black and white,” Luke is wearing a grey suit as if it is a mix between white and black, or good and evil. Thus, “Empire moves us from the apparent simply good-guys/bad-guys duality of A New Hope to a far more subtle duality: the mixed good and evil of the human soul.”
Another theme that prevails in almost every situation of the movie is the “belly-of-the-whale-crisis” where the main characters keep finding themselves in one danger after another and attempt to escape each danger with their lives. In the beginning of the movie, for example, Luke gets attacked by a wampa and finds himself hanging upside down from the ceiling as the wampa slowly walks over for the kill. Luke is in very real danger of getting devoured by the monster, but he is able to use the Force to get his lightsaber and escape. Very soon after that, Luke has to be rescued from the extreme cold of the frozen world of Hoth.
Han shows up and has to put Luke inside his dead taun-taun animal in order to keep him warm. Quite literally, Luke is in “the belly of the beast,” trying to stay alive in spite of the dangerous cold. Another instance is when Han and Leia are escaping from an Imperial Star Destroyer and end up hiding in an asteroid cave which turned out to be the mouth of a giant space slug. Once again, the gang finds themselves literally in the belly of the beast.
Escaping one belly and entering another recurs over and over throughout this movie, never giving the main characters a respite. These literal “belly of the beast” situations are paralleled almost exactly in later sequences of the film. Luke’s encounter with the wampa is very similar to Luke’s encounter with Darth Vader. Much like the wampa, Vader traps Luke in his attempt to “devour him” by converting him to the dark side. “The monster defeats Luke and hangs him upside down” and ultimately has to be rescued by his friends where “on Bespin Luke similarly hangs upside down” at the bottom of Cloud City and also has to be rescued by his friends .
In a figurative sense, the belly of the beast is the dwelling of evil, and the forces of good continually find themselves trapped there. Just as the asteroid cave deceived Han and Leia into thinking it was safe, so did Cloud City. The presumably safe Cloud City turned out to be a trap set by Darth Vader to “devour them” and make them his bait to catch Luke. The movie presents this theme with extreme emphasis on depicting the forces of evil as constantly trying to catch and devour the forces of good. Sometimes good does get devoured, such as Han frozen in carbonate. But hope remains, for every time the forces of good are captured, they still manage to escape to fight another day.
The themes presented in “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” are important for the audience to understand in order to better themselves and society. Evil is both an extroverted and introverted threat against good in this movie, just as it is in real life. The heavier sense of realism in this movie provides more realistic characters and situations that truly allow the audience to identify with “Empire.” Good is in constant danger, “in the belly of the beast” so to speak, with all the war and political corruption that was faced when this was made as well as today. Even our own internal corruption and selfish desires stand as a threat against good. Yet hope remains as long as there are selfless people willing to do what is right and not what is easy. We can “choose to take the quick and easy path as Vader did,” or we can endure in spite of the trials and tribulations this world has and try to make society and the world a better place.
About Rob McMenamy
