Star Wars Subjectivities: The Empire Strikes Back

A film that breaks your heart and teaches you the meaning of a plot twist

The original Star Wars (Star Wars: A New Hope) was a gamechanger for me. Back in 1977, science fiction and fantasy movies and television shows existed, and many of them were very well done. But most required some imagination or a willing suspension of disbelief to fill the gaps between the intended story and the reality of the visual effects.Star Wars was revolutionary in terms of having both fully immersive special effects and an engaging story. Later generations take this for granted. But, back then, Star Wars was an astonishing achievement of narrative, visuals, sound, and music. And the story even had a very satisfying ending. It was hard to imagine a sequel that would live up to that. Then, in 1980, we got The Empire Strikes Back.

As a child, I remember seeing cars backed up on the highway exits, filled with people trying to get to theaters to watch the sequel. We were all looking forward to the new adventures of our Star Wars heroes. However, The Empire Strikes Back represented a profound shift in the tone of the narrative. As the title implies, the characters get an epic beating, including dismemberment, physical and emotional torture, abduction, deathlike freezing, and astonishing heartbreak. The story changes from upbeat to tragic, from adventure to introspection, from trust to betrayal. And when the credits roll, there is no happy ending. We should hate this movie, especially after the energy and optimism of the first film. Instead, The Empire Strikes Back is considered by many to be the best film of the franchise.

If it’s been a while since you’ve seen it, here is a quick synopsis: After destroying the Death Star, the Rebel Alliance moves its secret base to the ice planet Hoth. Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo are fresh from their victory against Darth Vader and the Empire. While Luke is out on patrol, Han tells Leia he has to abandon the rebellion because there’s a bounty on his head. They argue about his leaving and Han teases that Leia is upset because she is in love with him. Meanwhile, Luke is violently attacked by a snow creature. He escapes by using his lightsaber but soon finds himself stranded and freezing to death. Obi Wan appears to him and tells him to find the Jedi master, Yoda. Han finds Luke in the snowstorm and brings him back, reminding Luke that this is the second time he’s saved his life. When the Empire attacks the base, the friends become separated in the ensuing battle. Luke goes to find Yoda on a swamp-like planet. Han and Leia end up in the cloud city of Bespin. Luke trains to become a Jedi but has a vision of his friends being tortured in a city in the clouds. Luke defies Yoda’s warning and abandons his training to try to save them.

Meanwhile, Han and Leia and the others meet up with Han’s rival Lando Calrissian, who is the leader of Bespin. Although friendly at first, Lando betrays Han and delivers them to Darth Vader who tortures them in a successful attempt to lure Luke to him. Han is frozen and given to a bounty hunter. Lando has a change of heart and helps Leia and the others escape, but they are too late to save Han. Luke confronts Vader, who overpowers him and cuts off his hand. Vader reveals that he is Luke’s father and pleads with him to join forces to defeat the emperor. Luke is devastated by the news but refuses to submit to Vader and instead chooses to fall into a chasm rather than stay under his intensifying psychological influence. Leia hears Luke’s voice through the Force and rescues him with the help of Lando and the others. But Han is gone.

The Empire Strikes Back stands out in all of the ways it is different from A New Hope. It ends on a cliffhanger and doesn't follow the traditional story beats normally seen in epic adventures. It's a Shakespearean tragedy complete with heroic fights, family drama, betrayals, and a plot twist that has influenced decades of future films.

We have two new major characters introduced in the film: Yoda and Lando. Yoda is amazing visually and spiritually. He is funny and terrifying, wise and deceitful, small, alien, familiar, strange, powerful, universal. Even the way he speaks—using reverse sentence structure—is hypnotic.

Lando is cynical, pragmatic, the scoundrel with a kind heart. Billy Dee Williams brought energy, irreverence, and charisma to the role. It meant a lot for me to see a person of color on the screen, especially in a role that wasn’t demeaning or tragic. Across the landscape of science fiction films, there are still very few such roles. It saddens me to think how slow the progress has been, even decades later. Even in Star Wars. Several years ago, I took my kids to see Billy Dee Williams at a very crowded Dragon Con in Atlanta. I’m not one for long lines, but we waited to meet him and get his autograph. It was important to me. Like Nichelle Nichols’s gift of Uhura, I just wanted to say thank you—thank you for saying yes to the role, even if it was imperfect.

Another character who appears briefly in the film is Boba Fett. I mention him only because he later takes on a larger role in the expanded Star Wars universe. But in Empire, he is primarily there to show the cold, business-like pragmatism that goes with trading in the lives of people.

Besides the shift in tone and the new characters, Empire is special because of the ‘big’ scenes. Han Solo is tortured by Vader, then frozen in carbonite to be given to a bounty hunter. Just before he is lowered into the freezing chamber, he kisses Leia. As he is pulled away from her, she confesses something: I love you. Given their very contentious relationship, this is a big confession. Han looks back at her and gives her his last words: I know. After watching this iconic scene hundreds of times, I have realized it is more than a romantic exchange. Leia is saying I’m going to save you. And Han is saying I trust you.

But The Empire Strikes Back is best known for the climactic fight scene between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker—the violent, dismembering lightsaber duel where Luke Skywalker gets some really bad news about who he really is. I remember watching this scene in the theater, on a giant screen, as a child: the flash of the lightsabers, the darkness and smoke, the pounding of Darth Vader’s Theme as Vader crushes Luke with flying objects, and then finally severs Luke’s hand leaving him battered and virtually defenseless. Their epic lightsaber duel is my favorite part of the film. Luke is strong and clever, but Vader is a master. The battle takes on a poignancy when we realize Vader doesn’t want to kill him. Conversely, Luke finally gets the chance to take revenge on the monster who killed his father only to find out that his father is the monster—one who is very much alive and murdering people across the galaxy. It is the ultimate plot twist. When I watched Vader say the words “No, I am your father,” my heart raced, my jaw dropped. The revelation is not just stunning on its own; the larger implications are profound. Luke’s father has been mourned and referenced in the prior film but he’s actually alive and he’s the villain. This means that Luke’s allies, Ben and Yoda, have been deliberately lying to him and manipulating him. Everything we thought we knew from the first film has been upended. Decades later, it’s still such a great scene.

Although the big scenes define the film, the quiet moments also deliver a huge emotional payoff:

• Leia makes the choice to close the shield doors, knowing she is stranding Han and Luke outside in the lethal cold. The camera slowly zooms in on her face as she watches the heavy metal doors closing.

• As they prepare for the battle of Hoth, Han notices Luke and asks if he is okay. Luke quietly says “yeah” then looks at Han and starts to say something but he stops and remains silent. Han gives him a knowing look. The wordless communication quietly shows their deepening friendship.

• When Luke gets frustrated with his training, Yoda tells Luke the story of the Force and the way it binds all things together. It is a beautiful soliloquy in the dreamlike swamp setting with the haunting musical score in the background. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

• Leia and a recovered Luke stand together watching the stars. Luke puts his arm around Leia. It’s meant to seem cliché and optimistic but, in fact, it shows the two heroes looking small, vulnerable, and childlike. Two siblings holding a space for their grief.

• Every scene with James Earl Jones as Darth Vader is delivered with grim calmness and control. Vader Force-chokes multiple characters in the film, but never lets his emotions rise above irritation. He is cold, quiet perfection in every violent encounter.

The Empire Strikes Back is too sad to be my favorite Star Wars film. That honor goes to The Return of the Jedi (despite the annoying Ewoks) because it has closure. The Empire Strikes Back is not perfect. After four decades, some of the visual effects (even with the CGI updates) and acting seem dated. However, The Empire Strikes Back remains anchored in my psyche as a defining film and a defining moment in my childhood. The story is a reminder that life isn't always fair, the good guys don't always win, friends will betray you, and sorrow and change are a painful but necessary part of growth. The scenery of Hoth, Dagobah, and Bespin are gorgeous. The new characters of Yoda, Lando, and Boba Fett are engaging. The revelations are deep and iconic: two very opposite people love each other; Jedi are not trustworthy; and Luke has very deep father issues. All of this makes The Empire Strikes Back a film for the ages and one of my all-time favorites.

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris - Multitasking, fiction writing Trekkie and OG Star Wars fan, who still has the original Star Wars trading cards she bought in grade school.

Microreview [book]: Inhuman, by David Simpson

A solid sequel to the speculative sci fi Post-Human series!

Simpson, David. Inhuman. Post-Human Media, 2014.

Buy it here.

By the end of the first books in the series, things had gotten super intense. James Keats and the AI had assumed godlike powers, and driven off an army of trillions. It seemed to me that the series was dangerously close to the ‘no threat can possibly top that!’ moment, a moment, needless to say, that affects quite a number of series of this sort (as well as fantasy series, in fact). Once the world/universe has been saved from the likes of a demigod/ginormous army/etc., how can any plausible greater threat still be lurking, ready to jump out from behind a bush or whatnot in book five?

I was surprised to find Simpson manages to postpone that moment, and delivers quite a worthy opponent/crisis in this, the fifth book. Best of all, Inhuman combines the most interesting elements of the outlying fourth book (the one about the AI’s ethical test) with the ongoing implications of Craig et al’s actions earlier in the series. In this installment, we learn more about the nature of the ‘multiverse’, an idea that everyone seemed to have forgotten about after Craig’s little venture into alternate universes in book one, and begin to suspect the true archenemy is someone even worse than One. That’s about all I can say about the content without spoiling stuff; suffice it to say, this is an entertaining tale that will keep you turning pages.

But how will you react to the end, I wonder? Because this is the ‘Empire Strikes Back’ effect times a trillion: going from a high point (the endings of books three and four) to a dark valley until, presumably, the sixth book delivers a happy resolution of some kind. Here’s the problem, though: at the end of Empire Strikes Back, a happy ending to the overall series seemed a bit unlikely, but certainly not implausible, since the rebels were mostly still alive and the main characters had even learned some valuable lessons, arguably, in how to face the superior power of the Empire. At the end of Inhuman? Not to spoil it, but a whole lotta farms have been bought! How can one realistically hope and expect a happy resolution when things have reached such a bleak point?

“But maybe Keats et al will pull off another wildly improbable ‘do-over’ and save everyone!” you might say, and based on the series so far, I’d be inclined to agree this sort of deus ex machina is quite likely to occur. But hasn’t that dead horse been beaten enough? Seems like every few hundred pages in the series all hope (and everyone alive) is lost, only for a miraculous reset to erase all that suffering and death and make it as though it had never been. ‘O Death, where is thy sting’ indeed! I am not a huge fan of this sort of deus ex machina in the best of circumstances, and seeing it used repeatedly in the series hasn’t made me any sweeter on the idea. For one thing, characters that had been mercifully dead keep popping up…

And while I’m venting about the false notes in an otherwise entertaining and even thought-provoking series, let me just say: why do most people seem convinced that, barring extraordinary circumstances, an artificial intelligence will “inevitably” be a mustache-twirling supervillain? Oh, I admit that sort of thing is surely a possibility, but not a very well thought-out one: why would a being with the knowledge of the (multiple) universe(s) at its incorporeal fingertips decide to wipe out all life 99.99% of the time?

In any case, things are looking bleak for our intrepid band, and despite the ranting above, I’m quite curious as to how Simpson will manage to top the ‘darkest hour’ feel of book five and sustain tension and interest in book six!

The Math:

Objective assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 for expertly weaving together elements of the very different storylines of books 1-3 and book 4 into a newly integrated structure

Penalties: -1 for taking the darkest hour feel to a soul-sucking new low and signaling to the audience that a(nother) ‘do-over’, deus ex machina style, is going to be in the works in book six

Nerd coefficient: 6/10 “Flawed yet good, but did I mention flawed?”

[Six ain’t bad: it’s not as low as it sounds, as you can see here.]

This message brought to you by Zhaoyun, skeptic of gods out of the machine since forever and contributor at NOAF since 2013.

Microreview [book]: Ruin, by John Gwynne

A healthy dose of grimdark—but how dark is too dark?

Gwynne, John. Ruin. Orbit, 2015.

Everybody knows that Empire Strikes Back is the best of the original Star Wars trilogy—and that’s because, among other reasons, it’s the darkest installment. For the first time, we see the heroes defeated, and even powerless. We witness the price they must pay, and you have to hand it to the filmmakers (see what I did there?): the darker tone really pays off.

In a way, the same situation applies to John Gwynne’s grimdark series about our intrepid heroes Corban and company; the first book, while ominous in tone, was really more about setting the stage for the bad stuff about to happen, while the second book continued that theme, only getting really dark at the very end. With the grim stage well and truly set, we readers knew to expect some serious grimdarkitude, and boy, does Gwynne deliver!

Without spoiling the many wrenching surprises, suffice it to say that there’s death, heartbreak, betrayal and seeming defeat aplenty. For some reason, I was convinced this new series was a trilogy, so I was actually expecting some sort of ‘victory’ for the good guys, but as I read on, by three-quarters through the book I had realized my mistake: it was obvious this was the Empire Strikes Back equivalent, and Luke, so to speak, was definitely going to be losing his metaphorical hand.

I know how Luke feels now, after yet another main(ish) character met a grisly end in the grim war of attrition in Ruin.

This brings me to the only substantial criticism of the book: can a book be too (grim)dark? Ruin is certainly a candidate for “beyond darkest night” dark; pretty much the only ray of light in this ocean of bad news for Corban and co. is that good guy-to-be Veradis might finally be getting ready to take a hard look at the two Bright Star-wannabes, and realize his enduring error from books one thru two. At what point does a story become so grim the grimitude starts detracting from the pleasure of following the characters on their journey? It didn’t quite cross the line for me—yet—but I was so bummed out when I reached the end of the book, I almost wanted to listen to 90s pop music, finally answering the riddle Cusack uttered in High Fidelity, “am I sad because I’m listening to pop music, or am I listening to it because I’m sad?” (the answer, it seems, is the latter).

So my word of totally unsolicited advice to Gwynne is this: how about you lighten up a bit, and have mercy on your readers! We all like Corban, Cywen, et al, and it sucks to see them fighting this relentless war of attrition, in which the casualties are mounting alarmingly quickly. On the other hand, you’ve done what few authors can: succeeded in awakening an actual glimmer of doubt that “the good guys will win in the end”! If that was your plan all along, well done…though considering the toll among the main characters to break down my Hollywood-esque assurance that the good guys will save the day, I’m not sure the reward (a scared, uncertain reader) is worth the price in main characters’ agony!

The Math:

Objective assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 for finally allowing Veradis to see what’s what (more or less)

Penalties: -1 for serious, depression-causing grimitude

Nerd coefficient: 7/10 “An enjoyable if almost shockingly grim experience to read”

  

Warning by Zhaoyun the Surgeon-General of Books*, who has been reviewing books here at Nerds of a Feather for their potential debilitating effects on readers since 2013: reading this book may shake your faith in the ability of the good guys to prevail.

* Note that Zhaoyun is not, in fact, the Surgeon-General, nor a surgeon, nor a general.

Microreview [book]: Honor's Knight, by Rachel Bach

Bach, Rachel. Honor's Knight. Orbit Books, 2014 (last week!).

Buy it here .

Honor's Knight: Or, the Rom-Act Grows a Conscience

The Meat 

Recently I've been rather curmudgeonly about second installments (in trilogies or longer series), pointing out that almost none manage to equal, and astonishingly few surpass, the 'original' work from the first installment. How many Empire Strikes Back-level sequels have there really been, after all? But as various songs would have it, "This is it!" Rachel Bach (a.k.a. Rachel Aaron) charts a thrilling ride for Devi Morris and the reader, bringing her and us several giant steps closer to the clearly apocalyptic denouement looming just over the horizon (in book three if not beyond). She's managed to improve on the already excellent foundations laid in book one, ramping up both action and a sense of emotional engagement between characters (and between the characters and the readers) to dizzying new heights.

Bach also delves deeper into the mechanics, so to speak, of the various races and their physical (and more ethereal) attributes, treating the reader to a fascinating and fully fleshed out rendering of their capabilities. And she's also brought a new level of attention to the possibility of shifting loyalties and alliances, even for Devi (who by her Paradoxian upbringing is a bit of a samurai, "Death before dishonor or betrayal" kind of loyalist). She finds new allies in the unlikeliest of figures, and friends turn into enemies and then into the intermediate limbo of frenemies with breathtaking speed. Yet Bach handles such situations with considerable care, ensuring the reader can follow such rapid changes in alignments without any difficulty accepting their plausibility.

In fact, Bach even raises the philosophical level of her tale from relatively harmless rom-act (romantic action) in book one to a more serious "At what price (individual/species/universe) survival?" It is this greater level of nuance, more than anything, that humanizes both allies and frenemies alike, because as readers we instinctively sympathize on an emotional level with the romantics who insist some prices are too high to be worth paying even as intellectually we are forced to concede the logic of the utilitarians who insist that for the survival of the many, a few must be sacrificed...in short, there are no Voldemorts or Dumbledores, no simple paragons of good and evil, in this tale.

That said, Honor's Knight never risks becoming too gloomy in tone or losing its (or, one might imagine, Devi's own) irrepressible sense of optimism, that classical Hollywood-esque feeling that everything not only might, it surely will turn out all right in the end. Whether you approve of this sunny quality will depend, of course, on whether you think the world is getting better or getting worse (let me just say, for all you committed pessimists out there: what evidence can you possibly have that the world is getting worse? And don't you dare say "because it's more violent/dangerous," because invasion of the Ukraine notwithstanding, humankind has never enjoyed such relative freedom from violence, on such a (nearly total) global scale, in all of recorded history!) And speaking of violence, Devi brings the goods: Honor's Knight contains plenty of good old fashioned awesomeness in the form of Devi using her fancy armor to devastating effect against a host of different enemies.

What isn't there to like about this sequel, in short? I can only think of one thing, and that's the on again, off again romance between now frenemies Devi and Rupert. Naturally we can all appreciate why a man would fall for Devi—she's pretty amazing, after all—but why would she keep doting on this guy (even leaving aside for a second the difficulty I have with the seriously uncool name "Rupert") after all the crap he's put her through, and more importantly, after she figures out his deal? Perhaps the title should be "White Knight", because she's definitely got the syndrome, wanting to save him from his own crappiness...

Be that as it may, however, Bach really delivered in this volume, and she's got at least one reader who can't wait to read book three! Will Devi uncover the mystery of the phantoms? Discover how to restore the Daughters to themselves? Or just die in a blaze of (cool but ultimately ineffectual) glory? Given the inexorability of a happy ending, something tells me it won't be the latter!

The Math

Baseline assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 for graying the story and characters up, and rising above a Harry Potter-style simplistic view of good and evil... and +1 for doing so without losing the essential action-packed awesomeness at the heart of book one

Penalties: -1 for still not quite selling the Devi-Rupert "love conquers all" plotline

Nerd coefficient: 8/10 "Well worth your time and attention"

For more info on our scoring system--and thus, why an 8 is a fantastic score--see here!  

Microreview [book]: The Tower Broken, book three of the Knife & Tower trilogy by Mazarkis Williams

Williams, Mazarkis. The Tower Broken. Jo Fletcher Books, 2014. Buy starting June 3rd.

The Meat

Trilogies are kind of strange, when you think about it. They’re especially odd creations in light of the need for authors to wow the audience with the first installment. Ideally, installment two should at the very least sustain readers’ interest, and the final installment should blow their minds. In other words, books (or movies) one and three have to do all of the real work, with book one as the attention-grabber and book three as the stunning conclusion complete with melodrama galore. Comparatively little is asked of book two, in order to allow expectations for book three to rise stratospherically high.

Exceptions to this pattern certainly exist, but I’d argue such exceptions thrive precisely because our expectations for the middle installment are much lower than for the first or last installments. The primacy and recency effects also help ensure the middle installment is the most forgettable, but any time it greatly exceeds our low expectations, the middle installment can capture our imaginations the same way a good underdog story is irresistible to most of us. The Empire Strikes Back just feels sooo much better than either A New Hope or Return of the Jedi, to say nothing of the prequel trilogy (another exception to the trilogy pattern, thanks to all the installments being so uniformly unnecessary and, despite being visually magnificent, such poorly told and conceived stories, though here too some can be heard saying Attack of the Clones is ‘better than I expected’). Of course, part of the greatness of The Empire Strikes Back comes retroactively, comparing quite favorably to its sequel, since Return of the Jedi is far from satisfying in most ways.

This is all by way of saying that expectations for The Tower Broken, final installment in Mazarkis Williams’ Tower & Knife trilogy, were quite high despite the slight disappointment of book two. But if Williams’ book two was no Empire Strikes Back, The Tower Broken definitely manages to surpass the underwhelming bar set by the Return of the Jedi model of trilogy conclusions (apologies to those of you out there who are still laboring under the illusion that Return of the Jedi is a great movie).

"Admiral! We have enemy ships in sector 47!" "It's a trap!" The scintillating dialogue is just one of many reasons to find Return of the Jedi pretty silly...

I must confess I was deeply concerned by the direction Williams seemed to be taking her story, partly due to the childhood trauma of having read the Earthsea Trilogy and been quite taken with Ged, only to read Tehanu and find my hero emptied of all that made him heroic, transformed into an old man, depressingly ordinary. Would Williams drop-kick Sarmin, erstwhile pattern mage, down that same dark and hopeless hole into which Le Guin dropped Ged? Fortunately, the answer is ‘not really.’ True, Sarmin must struggle to face the ever-escalating threats assailing his empire without recourse to his own pattern magic, but Williams uses this power vacuum to explore another aspect of his world, namely elemental magic, and the result is impressive indeed. Moreover, about the Empress there had always been a certain promise of greatness, and Williams chooses this apocalyptic crisis as the moment to let Mesema shine. 

All in all, Williams manages to weave all the disparate elements of his story and his world into a very satisfactory conclusion, an effort worthy of the excellent first book and far surpassing the less impressive second installment. Would this reader have been even happier had Sarmin suddenly recovered his pattern-power and whipped up an intuitive solution to the crisis? Yes…but perhaps that’s just the unhealed wound of Ged’s magical emasculation reopening again.

The Math

Baseline assessment: 6/10

Bonuses: +1 for making elemental magic kind of awesome (though it all ends in a T.S. Eliot vein, without much of a bang), +1 for developing characters like Mesema into a position of greatness

Penalties: -1 for pulling a Le Guin-like trick on Sarmin (it’s bad, but not Tehanu-bad!)

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10   Which, as a score here at Nerds of a Feather, is 'a bit of all right', as my Australian friends say!

This review brought to you by Zhaoyun, sf/f book and movie aficionado and main cast member of Nerds of a Feather since early 2013. 

Mobile: Zen Pinball HD

small ball

If it wasn't obvious from the title, we're going small this week in the gaming sector. Handheld, to be specific. Zen Pinball HD is a mobile game available for free in both the Apple and Android Play Stores. Pinball is a game that is tailor-made for mobile control schemes. It's easy because there are only two buttons, left and right. There's no getting shot to death while you try to find the 'right' button with your thumb. Tap the screen in the bottom left corner, the left flipper(s) go off. Tap the screen in the bottom right corner, the right flipper(s) go off. Simple, right?

freebie

Zen Pinball HD comes free with a pretty fun game called Sorcerer's Lair (seen above). If you manage to get a ball up to the sorcerer, he vaporizes it with, I'm assuming, sorcery. There are multi-ball portions once you've plugged enough balls into a particular hole (I know, I know, but you think of a better way to say it!). Ghosts appear at one point that you must defeat in a period of time for a bonus by rolling them over with the pinball. There are even some mini-games that I only half understand. Something about gears and a green ball? Anyway, for a free game, I haven't played a better mobile pinball app. 

this is how they getcha!

Although I'm sure it came as a great shock to you, dear readers, they also offer add-on tables for $1.99 each. I'm a Star Wars nut and I was unable to withstand the Dark Side. I was born the same week Star Wars Episode IV came out so I really didn't have a choice in the matter. I'm the definition of a Star Wars baby. Short story long, I bought the Episode V: Empire Strikes Back table and the Boba Fett table. All I've done is play these games for the last two weeks. I've turned off my 360 just to play this game, which is rare for me with mobile apps. Zen Pinball also offers Star Wars: The Clone Wars for fans of the newer movies. I probably enjoyed them more than most people, but even a die-hard fan like me knows the first three movies were better.

They also boast several tables based on Marvel characters including Thor, Wolverine, the Hulk (or the Credible In-Honk as I referred to him at the tender age of 3), X-Men, Avengers, Captain America, Ghost Rider, and then a few others I didn't recognize. My point is, you could end up blowing almost fifty dollars on tables if your habit is bad enough. I may end up grabbing Wolverine and Hulk once I've mastered Empire and Boba Fett.

episode V: the empire strikes back

The Empire Strikes Back table has tons of references to the consensus best of the Star Wars films. If you manage to put the pinball through a door in the middle of the table five times, one for each letter (V-A-D-E-R), Darth will rise up out of the table and roll off quotes from the movie. "Join me, and together we can rule the universe as father and son." If you hit the pinball at him, he quickly dispatches it with his light saber. 

If you manage to hit certain spots enough times, you're offered six different story lines that bring up memorable parts of the movie. One scene brings out asteroids and two tie fighters that fly around shooting at your pinball. Another has Yoda training Luke by doing a handstand while lifting rocks with the Force. A third brings out a storm trooper who fires at your ball with a blaster. For fans of the movie, each one brings back fond memories of George Lucas' classic film. On top of that, it's a top-notch pinball game that's as good as any real-world table that I've played. 

boba fett

The Boba Fett table could also be called Return of the Jedi, although there are a few quotes sampled from Episodes I-III. At the top of the table is the Sarlacc pit. Shooting three balls into Slave I, Boba Fett's ship, will bring on multi-ball. You start the game with one missile, but by increasing your score you can gain more. These are fired by Boba Fett at one of the "job" spots. By hitting these you take on a bounty and have to hit specific spots to complete the job. 

Boba constantly flies around the table using his jetpack. He does his best to avoid being hit by the pinballs. He also fires at your ball as it rolls around the table, but unlike Vader's light saber, it doesn't destroy the balls. As you can see above, one of the "spinners" on the table is Han Solo frozen in carbonite as he appeared as Jabba's finest decoration in his palace. Jabba sits in the upper-right corner of the table and also appears in a cutscene when you're given a bounty job, again drawing direct connections with Return of the Jedi. I still haven't managed to get the Sarlacc pit to pull Fett down as it is doing in the above picture, but I'm not going to stop until I get it to happen! 

the breakdown

I'm not the biggest mobile gamer in the world. I usually prefer my Xbox 360 to my GS3 for gaming, for obvious reasons. The Samsung has a nice, big screen, but it pales in comparison to my 50-inch HDTV, nevermind the difference in controller abilities. However, every once in a while a mobile title grabs a hold of me and won't let go. Zen Pinball HD, especially the Star Wars tables, have done just that. I'm a big fan of real-world pinball and I plan to have several tables in my house once I'm rich and famous. Until that day comes, Zen Pinball HD is a pretty good substitute. If you're looking for a fun mobile option other than Angry Birds and Temple Run, try out the Zen Pinball HD free table. But don't come crying to me if you end up spending a bunch of money on their other 22 pay tables. That's on you. 

the math

Objective score: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 for the realistic physics that recreate the experience of playing real-world pinball tables very well. +1 for such a large number of table options, especially the multiple Star Wars tables.

Penalties: -1 for charging two bucks for each new table. It's not that I don't think they're worth it. It's just a bit high when compared to the average price of most mobile titles, especially when you consider you can spend nearly $50 to buy all the available tables. I could see some mad parents out there reprimanding their kids when they get the phone bill.

Nerd coefficient: 8/10. Well worth your time and attention.