Hot Take: The Empire Strikes Back Ruined Star Wars

From the lazy clichés of Return of the Jedi, through the disappointment of the prequels and continuing into the awful sequel trilogy and Disney Plus era (minus Andor), the root of most Star Wars plot, script, dialogue and performance problems can be traced all the way back to 1980 and The Empire Strikes Back. Specifically, to three major events in the movie:

1. The reveal of Darth Vader's relationship to Luke Skywalker
2. Yoda's ability to lift a spaceship with the power of his mind
3. Luke and Leia's telepathic connection

 

"It is your destiny."

The retconned revelation that Darth Vader had not killed Luke's father, but instead (spoiler alert) was his father, precipitated a slew of farcical revelations in subsequent Star Wars media. In Return of the Jedi, we discover that Luke's hitherto secret love interest, Princess Leia, is his sister. The Rise of Skywalker doubles down on the family ties with super powered scavenger Rey from dusty Jakku turning out to be Emperor Palpatine's granddaughter. And according to Pablo Hildago's Visual Dictionary of the movie, Jannah is Lando's daughter apparently? Why does everyone need to be related to someone important? Rian Johnson asked a similar question with The Last Jedi, back when Rey was the abandoned child of nobodies and a random orphan with a broom could use the force. The takeaway was that anyone with drive and ambition can make something of their life, regardless of where or who they came from - just like a certain farm boy from Tatooine (until Empire ruined that).

 

Darth Vader's paternity not only sets the 'royal lineage' standard for Star Wars content to come, it also ruins the credibility of A New Hope. If Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's dad, and Obi-Wan Kenobi's job was to hide Luke from him, why would he foster him out to Vader's mother's step-family on Tatooine, the same planet where Vader grew up as Anakin Skywalker? And more importantly, why give him the surname Skywalker? Most people in hiding tend to use a less obvious name than the surname of the person they're hiding from.

 

"There is no try."

While sneaking around the Death Star in A New Hope, Obi-Wan uses the force to knock a small object over, creating a noise that distracts a couple of stormtroopers. Luke's proton torpedoes' trajectory alters unnaturally when firing at the Death Star's exhaust port, suggesting the use of the force to move them. Both are subtle examples of the telekinetic power of the force prior to Empire.

 

In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke makes his lightsaber fly to his hand and lifts small objects off the ground while meditating. Vader throws boxes at Luke and Yoda lifts a spaceship out of a swamp. All of these moment require concentration and effort. Yoda spoils it all when he tells Luke that "size matters not". Despite creating entertaining visuals, this proclamation opens the door to all ridiculous events in Star Wars media that follows, including (but not limited to):

• Mace Windu destroying a battalion of battle droids in Tartakovsky's Clone Wars cartoon
• Darth Vader grabbing a spaceship in mid air in Obi-Wan Kenobi
• Rey doing the same thing in The Rise of Skywalker

 

If size matters not, then anything is possible. They might as well move an entire planet off its axis. Use moons as projectile weapons. No need to build another Death Star, just drag the sun a few million kilometres closer to your enemy's home world. The unlimited power potential of the force creates the same problem that The Matrix's sequels faced - once you've shown your protagonist to be all powerful (like Neo at the end of the first movie), there are no longer any stakes and nowhere for your story to go.

 

"I've got a bad feeling."

In A New Hope, a blindfolded Luke is barely able to defend himself against a training droid with zen and the art of the force. Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi feels a disturbance in the force when Alderaan is obliterated. Darth Vader senses a presence on the Death Star that he recognises as his old master. And finally, Obi-Wan's ghost tells Luke to turn off his targetting computer and trust in the force. Luke doesn't have a 'feeling' that this is something he should do, he's instructed to do it by someone who has become one with the force and "more powerful than you could possibly imagine". Compare these events to the following from The Empire Strikes Back, where the force is now responsible for all coincidence, insight and purpose:

• Luke crash lands his ship on Dagobah in walking distance from Yoda's house
• Luke is drawn to the one place on Dagobah where the dark side lives - also in walking distance from Yoda's hut
• Luke communicates telepathically with Leia, who then knows exactly where to look for him when he's hanging off the outside of Lando's gigantic gas refinery. 

 

As a direct result of these events, the force has become shorthand for plot contrivance - the deus ex machina of Star Wars. In The Rise of Skywalker, how did Finn know the navigation beacon had shifted from the ground tower to one on a single Star Destroyer amongst literally thousands? The force. In The Force Awakens, how did Rey find Luke's/Anakin's lightsaber in Maz Kanata's castle? And what about Ochi's One-Eyed Willy doubloon style wayfinder finding knife in The Rise of Skywalker, that Rey was able to find on two separate occasions - once in a hidden, underground tunnel that she accidentally fell into, and again in Kylo Ren's apartment in a massive spaceship? The force of course.

 

And one more thing...

 

"Don't get cocky." 

Luke has graduated, in the space of three years (or several months, depending on which source material you prefer), from a brand new pilot in the rebellion to Commander. In the navy (whose structure the military hierarchy of Star Wars appears to emulate), it takes approximately twelve years to be promoted to that rank. Return of the Jedi compounds this problem, with both Han and Lando promoted to General. This idea that protagonists in the Star Wars universe are instantly elevated to high ranking positions based on their proximity to important events carries over to the sequel trilogy, with ex-stormtrooper Finn becoming General by the end of The Rise of Skywalker. What's he ever done that's so special to deserve this promotion? Coordinated the dumbest attack of all time - riding horses on the outside hull of a spaceship that could tilt and flip them off at any moment? In times of war, when losses create positions that need to be filled, it's understandable that soldiers are promoted faster than usual. Finn's promotion to General, however, seems more like something a kid might do while playing with the action figures rather than something that could actually happen in a single year.

 

"Rebellions are built on hope."

There's no denying that Empire is a great movie, maybe even the best of all the Star Wars. It's because of this greatness, that those which have come since have attempted to emulate it. In doing so, they've missed the point entirely. Empire isn't great because of the Vader/Skywalker revelation, nor the super powers bestowed on force users. The Empire Strikes Back is great because it contains charismatic characters with realistic motivations, and it gives them room to breathe and grow. More importantly, it treats its audience like adults. The only contemporary Star Wars that understands this is Andor. Empire may have spawned a multitude of pale imitations. It may even have ruined Star Wars. Thankfully, Rogue One and two seasons of Andor saved it.

 

Hey Google, Skip Track: Kate Bush Edition

So you're a big fan of Kate Bush and have been for many years. You're aware that she has a massive cult following and hordes of die-hard fans. In recent years, you've also noticed a resurgence in her popularity amongst hipsters and the mainstream (thanks to Stranger Things and her induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame). Yet outside of social media, you don't know a single person who likes her music. It occurs to you that you could convert some of your more open-minded friends - ones who are not only willing to give her a listen, but also put in the extra time and effort required to appreciate what might be considered an acquired taste. If you were to recommend certain songs to pique their interest, which would you choose?

 

The origins of your love for Kate Bush and her music are tied to your youth - watching her live performance of Breathing on your family's VHS copy of 1986's Comic Relief, the music video for Peter Gabriel's Don't Give Up on Australian Countdown in 1987, the juxtaposition of This Woman's Work and the penultimate scene of John Hughes' underrated gem, the 1988 film She's Having a Baby. If you're being totally honest with yourself, your interest in Kate Bush is also closely linked, on a more abstract level, to her personality and 'physicality'; neither of which are particularly evident in recent years. Twenty- or thirty-something Kate is very different to fifty or sixty year old Kate. For this reason, let's exclude Bush's later work - the pointless lispy revisionism of Director's Cut and the tedious self indulgence of 50 Words for Snow.

 

From her debut album, The Kick Inside (1978), to Aerial (2005), there are plenty of great songs you could share with your friends. The question might then be, which should you definitely not recommend? What are the Top 10 Kate Bush songs that new listeners should avoid?

 

10) There Goes a Tenner

This unpopular single from The Dreaming (1982) may seem like low-hanging fruit, but it would be remiss of me to leave it off this list. Bush has a proven record for including entertaining fictional narratives in her songs; however, comparing this heist/crime tale to another on the same album, Night of the Swallow, it's clear that There Goes a Tenner is vastly inferior. It's not helped by the embarrassing cockney accent she affects (and just as quickly drops, sometimes mid-sentence) throughout the song, nor the fact that she has produced a track that sounds like a children's novelty song; anachronistic and outdated, even upon its release. And time has only compounded that problem.

 

9) The Big Sky

More chorus than song, The Big Sky is the fourth and final single released from Hounds of Love (1985). The worst thing about The Big Sky is that it's the least interesting track on an otherwise perfect album. 

 

8) Heads We're Dancing

This song from The Sensual World (1989) answers the age old question - What would you do if you met a guy and he asked you to dance by flipping a coin and he was charming and a really good dancer and then you found out the next day that it was Adolf Hitler? According to the lyrics of this track, you would laugh apparently. And so you should. A premise as flimsy as this, that relies on you knowing who Hitler is, but knowing nothing about his fruity little moustache, deserves to be laughed at.

 

7) Delius (Song of Summer)

Appearing on Bush's much maligned second album, Lionheart (1980), Delius (Song of Summer) is inspired by the English composer Frederick Delius, who died in 1934. The casual listener is unlikely to realise that the male voice in the song is quoting Delius himself, from a documentary that Bush saw when she was ten years old. All they would hear is what appears to be an old man clearing his throat, some operatic nonsense about syphilis, and a drum machine loop that clicks along like Chinese water torture. Christine Kelley wrote an incredibly detailed and compelling account of Delius (Song of Summer) and its muse here, making Bush's song seem like a work of Delius-like genius. To me, it's the aural equivalent of a head cold.

 

6) In The Warm Room

Also appearing on Lionheart, In The Warm Room sounds like she's performing to half a dozen drunk and lonely men in a dingy piano bar. Even if this were meant as an homage to or satire of sultry lounge singers, it's unforgivably dull and a little bit gross. If not for it being on a Kate Bush album, chances are you wouldn't be listening to it.

 

5) Egypt

In this song from the album Never For Ever (1980), a middle class white woman fantasises about the exotic otherness of the East. There has been some attempt to offset its gushing lyrics with a dark undertone, which was notably emphasised in the video produced for Bush's televised Christmas Special in 1979. Stock footage of pyramids and the Sphinx are intercut with contemporary imagery of dereliction and detritus; the fashionable myth of Egypt, idealised by western housewives of the seventies and eighties, vs the reality of a North African country grappling with rampant poverty. The only saving grace of this song is Bush's video - her cosplaying in 'Arabic' attire and mugging for the camera against a green screen (bug-eyed and blowup doll mouth) is comedy gold.

 

4) Bertie

You know that one boy in school - you look at him and think, there's a future sex pest. He's malicious, sneaky and a compulsive liar; and due to the fact that his mum thinks the sun shines out of his butt hole, he never has to face the consequences of his actions. Instead, she will inevitably play the victim card and claim her precious son is being unfairly targeted by the teachers. Bertie, from the album Aerial, sounds exactly like that. In it, Bush sings to her seven year old son like she's the first person to ever experience childbirth. You can read between the lines, however, as she prefaces her description of him as being "the most beautiful" with "the most wilful". This kid sounds like a spoilt brat. The song itself sounds like Bravely Bold Sir Robin from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

 

3-1) Big Stripey Lie | Why Should I Love You? | You're The One 

It's difficult to split the three tracks that close Kate Bush's 7th album, The Red Shoes (1994). Any of them could potentially be considered Worst Kate Bush Song Ever. I rarely actually make it past the track that precedes them, Constellation of the Heart, before the cringe factor increases to untenable levels.

 

Big Stripey Lie is Bush's attempt to plug into the edgy early nineties zeitgeist. It is dark, discordant and totally unconvincing; especially when compared to other guitar heavy alternative 'art' music that was being released around that time (Nirvana's In Utero, Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral, Faith No More's King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime). Even Tori Amos was doing an edgier Kate Bush than Kate Bush was in 1994.

 

Why Should I Love You?, an unsuccessful collaboration with Prince, sounds like Bush has lost all sense of taste and musically hit rock bottom. That is, until the final track of the album begins. You're the One reminds us that things can always get worse. Even the inclusion of The Trio Bulgarka, whose contributions to The Sensual World helped elevate many of its tracks, can't save this embarrassingly conventional song.

 

After focusing on Bush's worst songs, you might feel the need to go back and listen to something good. Better yet, watch the 1979 Christmas Special and remind yourself that Bush is at her best when riding the line between greatness and cheese. If you don't have access to the interwebs, you could always amuse yourself with this imaginary View-Master Double-Vue movie cartridge, which includes footage from the Christmas Special and her Tour of Life from the same year (if it were real).

 

 

You could even wear your favourite Kate Bush 1979 t-shirt while doing so (if they were also real). More custom designs can be found by following the link, or clicking one of the many convenient tabs at the top of your screen.

 

Think I've missed Bush's worst song? Been too harsh on your favourite? Then leave a comment below.

New Year, New T-shirts

Nine new designs have been added to the Custom T-shirts collection. You can check them out via the tab at the top of the screen, or roll your eyeballs downwards towards these low resolution images here:

 

 

You could also join my six non-bot followers on Instagram and be among the first to see each new design as it drops. I hear it's what all the cool kids are doing these days.