What Could Have Been: The Empire Strikes Back

“The coordinates, man, the coordinates!” -Jake Vader

Man, that was a lot of stressful bts for Lucas at the time. Being a creator of the IP was really hard work. No wonder he had stress related chest pains, I mean who wouldnt

I like that you refer to Vader’s communication with the Emperor as “FaceTiming” lol You’re not even wrong 😂

That was a great insight. One thing, be careful when you say ILM had “nothing to show for it”. They did. They had built two, advanced, complicated computerized motion control cameras and most of the models. They had no footage to show, however.

The Empire STrikes back really is a great film. I love the openning of the droids launching, something about that is so subtle yet fun

Forgot to mention the rights to the toys George brokered. As a 70's kid, this was part of it, for sure.

Remember: Chewbacca died on Sernpidal while saving the life of Anakin Solo, the third child of Leia and Han. This occurred in the first year of the Yuuzhan Vong War. That's from the series of books which is NOW non-canonical. Thanks to Disney. I have many years of books from the Star Wars series that WERE canonical at the time. When Disney took over, they decided they wanted to take the story in a different direction, rendering those books non-canonical.

People in my generation (Gen Z) love the prequels, and while I appreciate certain things about them, Empire Strikes Back is, for me, the definitive Star Wars movie. One of the greatest movies in cinema, period.

The Empire Strikes Back is a perfect cinematic masterpiece

Let us all take a moment of silence to honor Bracken!! She paved the way for one of the greatest sequels of all time!!!

Love empire strikes back

I never would have thought how completely different Empire strikes back would have been. The original storyboard has a lot of cool concepts and ideas but I’m glad with what we ended up with. I’m also glad that there were people that challenged George with his ideas and told him “No” when things got too extreme. That is something the prequels needed. Most of you misunderstood my comment so I’ll preface that I LOVE the Prequels as much as I love the Orginal trilogy. But looking back now as an adult you can see the flaws and how things could have been done better or different.

Just like how they took George Lucas's original Star Wars script and turned it into a comic, I love to see them take the original Empire Strikes Back script and turn it into a comic, that be interesting… The movie we got is one of the best of all time, so it all worked out

'...with both men challenging Lucas when his ideas didn't work or didn't make any sense' THIS. This is what the prequels needed.

This is incredibly well done. Most people who put these kind of videos together do shoddy research and rely on a lot of hearsay but this one is spot on. Impressive... Most impressive.

I remember the old theories about what the Clone Wars was. Such as Obi-Wan (OB-1) and Owen (O-1) being clones. Pet gargoyles?

Although I love what we got, having Lando be a clone from the original clone wars concept from pre-2002 would have been very interesting

Sorry, I heard nothing after, "Vader lives with his pet gargoyles." That's some crazy shit. I did hear the facetime joke though, that was amazing.

Wow! Another great job!! I'm SO glad none of this happens, as Empire is still one of my all time favorite films.

this is your best work! i knew so much of this going into this but still learned a couple new things and you laid it out so well. it’s amazing how many pitfalls happened during SW and ESB and how close they were to being sloppy messes and yet they both redefined what movies are and could be and ESB ends up being the best sequel of all time (followed closely by Aliens). that reason and how many different crew all simultaneously hit home runs, is what makes SW and ESB two of my all time fav movies.