by popular request the Luke Skywalker Darth Vader Bespin duel which first requires that
I explain that the plot of the empire strikes back goeth thusly the rebels are in trouble the
destruction of the Death Star was three years ago now they're hiding on an ice planet and
everyone gets scattered to the four winds when the Empire shows up Han and Leia end up on a
slow boat to Bespin when their hyperdrive fails and when they get there turns out that Boba Fett
has anticipated their arrival and Darth Vader is already there ah. and now Han is a wall ornament.
Luke while nearly dying on Hoth sees a vision of Ben Kenobi telling him to go to the Dagobah
system which he does and he's trained by Yoda for a while and then he sees a vision of his
friends in pain maybe dying so he bunks off Jedi training to go and rescue them even though Ben
and Yoda tell him it's a bad idea. spoiler it is probably not the best idea ‘it’s a trap!’
Lando Leia Chewie and 3po had done a reasonably good job of rescuing themselves although without
r2d2 they wouldn't have been able to fix the Falcon so there is that. it all kind of worked
out Luke confronts Vader gets his hand cut off and learns that Darth Vader is actually his dad Anakin
Skywalker is Darth Vader what a twist ‘I’m not afraid’
‘Good! you will be.’ oh shoot son
To kick us off thematically for this fight we should note that while training with Yoda Luke
finds a place on Dagobah which is strong with the dark side
he goes in and we have the fight with phantom Vader where it turns
out that he is actually Luke. Before he goes in Yoda tells him ‘your weapons
you will not need them’ but he takes them anyway in contrast to the end of Return of the Jedi when
he voluntarily relinquishes his weapons on several occasions. fighting will not help him in the cave
but he tries it anyway. a Jedi uses the force for knowledge and defense never for attack Luke!
Luke in the cave is faced with his worst fears his fear of Vader and his fear of
becoming Vader. he asks Yoda is the dark side stronger and Yoda says no but it is easier
and quicker and more seductive. Luke is afraid of dying but he's also afraid of falling and both of
these things will be significant in the Bespin fight so Luke sees the future and because of
this Luke bins off Jedi training to go and try and rescue his friends so he goes to Cloud City
he is informed ‘Luke don’t it’s a TRAP!’ but he tries to follow Leia and the people holding her
anyway but it doesn't work he came in with just R2 and then we start the isolation at the first
door not only is Luke separated from R2 the door is closed behind him so he can't go back that way
and we enter the space with the carbon freezing chamber in it and so the set design is suddenly
drastically different to the one Luke has been wandering through for the last couple of minutes.
Luke ascends on the little platform thing and it closes off behind him too no escape creepy
breathing and lights ‘the force is with you young Skywalker but you are not a Jedi yet’
and nobody will call you one until the end of next movie Luke so better get used to it so he's been
herded in here but he doesn't try to back out instead he goes up to Vader who is on the high
ground sorry that will be the last reference to this in this video and Vader just waits for Luke
to make a move. It's a test what happens to Lando Han chewie Leia completely irrelevant to Vader now
he's got what he wants so Luke slowly ascends the steps moving deeper into the set that seems
to have inspired the designers of Portal and he meaningfully ignites his lightsaber before
Vader does the same thing but you know slower and more casual. we give a hint of how casual
with the fact that Vader is using one hand because the thing is in neither of the Vader Luke fights
does Vader really want to kill Luke he knows even if we and Luke do not that Luke’s his son
he'd rather turn Luke to the dark side and have an ally than strike him down with all of his hatred.
but as I said Luke doesn't know that yet so we get a shot of the tension on Luke's face and
Luke attacks Luke goes for a head cut Vader hits back and Luke has to parry that casual loop that
Vader's lightsaber does to get back into the ready stance is just perfect. Like how bothered is he
not very. Luke goes straight in for another head cut and Vader still with only one arm not only
parries but throws Luke back with enough force to get him onto the ground not going amazingly so far
but then we play a distance game I love a distance game Luke has evidently given up on winning
quickly with a swift head chop so he advances and Vader retreats he advances again Vader retreats
again give him the old one two three Luke three cuts high high low and then pause dramatically and
then Vader retaliates with another head cut and then spin and parry hahaha wait is that a parry
I don't you know what it's not important several more attacks by Luke mostly vaguely horizontal and
then Vader who has actually deigned to bring his second hand into play retaliates with an
actually horizontal horizontal cut because we can tell who the stage fighter is whee sparkles. This
first section shows us that Luke has at least some idea of what to do with a lightsaber which
is good it also shows that Vader is in control so the likelihood of Luke rescuing his friends
is significantly lowered at this point. To keep us up to date on said friends we cut back to Leia
lando 3po and chewie's successful escape from the stormtroopers and reunion with r2d2 followed by
an unsuccessful attempt to save Han and when we come back Luke is coming fast Vader in a dynamic
and dramatic way that says that they carried on fighting while we were away with someone else
who even knows in what context these moves occurred but it really doesn't
matter ‘you have learned much young one’ which confirms our initial impression but
then ‘you’ll find I’m full of surprises’ oh young fool Luke attacks but it goes a bit wrong and he
is not only disarmed but has to fling himself down the stairs Vader is no longer playing he
has been testing Luke out I mean it's a Bob Anderson fight or at least he's involved in
the fight so of course there's a testing bit but now he's getting down to business
the important thing to note is that Luke starts fighting Vader at the top of the
stairs and pushes him back during the first part of the scene but when we return to them
Vader has guided him by whatever means back to the same spot again so that he can push
Luke down the stairs towards the carbon freezy thing which he does. I forgot about flying Vader
leaping like Batman! oh look block heels on Luke non-diegetic block heels too and
if you don't believe me wait about 15 seconds because then you will see the shoes again but
flat that was apropos of nothing but you know how I feel about costume heels so.
‘your destiny lies with me Skywalker Obi-Wan knew this to be true’
Luke falls into the carbon freezing doodad but leaps out dramatically while
Vader is busy congratulating himself on how efficient he is ‘all too easy’
no Luke's up there having done a big old Force jump actually yes use your environment Luke also
look his shoes have gone flat again I told you so. Luke gets his lightsaber back and Vader is
honestly kind of impressed he saw that Luke picked up some lightsaber skills but i think he assumed
that when he actually started putting some effort in it would be easy to beat Luke but not so.
‘Obi-Wan has taught you well’ okay one second now I know that he doesn't know about Yoda but has he
assumed that Obi-Wan has taught Luke a whole load of things before he died because I don't
think Anakin has any reason to know about force ghosts at this moment maybe he does I don't know
regardless he's never seen Luke pick up a lightsaber before so whatever ‘you have controlled
your fear’ to hammer home that Luke is a genuine threat now we have an actual exchange of blows
which honestly look kind of awkward but never mind Vader attacks to Luke's low left mid right Luke
attacks to Vader's high right ‘now release your anger’ he's baiting Luke. Swinging his lightsaber
at Luke while Luke is climbing up above the carbon freezing chamber is I think the first time that
Vader actually initiates an attack during this fight and now he's doing it again but with his
lightsaber and he deigns to use both hands my gosh ‘Only your hatred can destroy me’
I mean if you can't immediately get him into the carbon freezing chamber you can at least
psychologically work on him to make him more amenable to the dark side
and Vader attacks again forcing Luke not only to parry but also to do some of that Force gymnastics
he's been learning with Yoda the psychological push to release his emotions works though
Luke goes back on the offensive and we get lots of obscuring smoke and Luke pushing Vader back
until he falls off the platform turn about his fair play I guess and then it's time for some
cat and mouse as Luke goes into a tunnel. note that Luke lights up the things around
him thematic but not necessarily helpful for him at this moment in time and we similarly
continue the theme of routes closing off behind him as he tries to find a way out
oh dear Vader actually takes a deliberate stance this time and Imperial March we're
in trouble he's bringing out the big guns now with some throwing of stuff without even moving
a hand a big heavy whatsit comes off the wall which Luke has to block and then Vader takes
advantage of his distraction to fighting with the lightsaber some more Luke retaliates but
ahh... then there's some back and forth which has Luke looking reasonably on the ball but Vader just
keeps chucking things at him and that's not great for one's concentration right oh that would have
hurt and then he gets hit by several more things until smashy smashy out the window you go. and
look at that dramatic billowy cape I love it. now Luke has varying levels of angry desperation
during this fight but he maintains the same level of effort throughout Vader by contrast being the
one in control of the fight just kind of smoothly ramps it up. He starts by testing Luke then
he attempts capture when capture doesn't work he ramps up the lightsaber fight and then he combines
the lightsaber fight with chucking heavy stuff and all the while he's stalking Luke and all the
while he's using his words. Vader has a plan Luke not so much. and that's the difference between
Empire and Jedi. Jedi is a far more dangerous situation the fate of the galaxy is at stake but
Luke even though he is tempted manages for quite a significant proportion of it to keep his anger and
his emotions in check. here he's afraid and angry and desperate he doesn't have a plan he doesn't
really know what he's doing and he's clearly outmatched which is not a great combination.
note please for continuity purposes that as we see Luke dangling from the catwalk the shot is framed
so as to include the lightsaber he was clearly not holding into his hand as he went out the
window. anyway as Luke is on the catwalk taking a breather we cut back to our other heroes running
jumping telling everyone to evacuate cloud city before dramatically escaping themselves on the
Millennium Falcon and a lot of that scene is nice and brightly lit and white and clean compared to
what's happening in Luke's scene. Leia's situation is getting less hopeless but Luke’s is getting
more so. when we go back we have a nice establishing shot so we know where we are in space
and the cat and mouse game continues a little bit of breathing space little tension increaser
you know Luke has fallen out the window we know that Vader's going to follow but
we can wait for a second. Luke tries to come back inside but he can't sense Vader so the
only warning he has is the mechanical breath before wheep. and now Vader just doesn't
bother holding back in much the same way that Luke will go completely berserk at the end of
Return of the Jedi. Luke is driven back outside and there's a bit here where they just they're
struggling because even now Vader doesn't actually just want to chop his son in half
right ‘you are beaten it is useless to resist’ yeah that's not a good spot to be in ‘don't let
yourself be destroyed as obi-wan did’ and that statement about Obi-Wan is enough to
make Luke angry enough to fight again taking advantage of the fact that Vader doesn't
really want to kill him and we're close in on a lot of these shots both to emphasize
the emotions on Luke's face and to give us the impression that there is nowhere to go.
after another exchange Luke manages to catch Vader a glancing blow on his
armor but it doesn't seem to bother him too much and he's using the arm immediately afterwards so
good armor? and then ‘ARGH!’ well that's not good and at this point Vader presses the attack
with his words again ‘don't make me destroy you. you do not yet realize your importance’ you're
special Luke only I can really understand you Luke join the dark side Luke we have cookies.
Note that Vader offers to complete his training which means both I see you're pretty good with
the lightsaber but could be better and also let me teach you some things about the dark side. ‘we can
end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy’ and you know I think he really means
it now obviously it's not the kind of order that Luke would prefer in the galaxy and you can see
Luke edging away even as he's talking. Bless Luke he's wounded he's one-handed
he's cornered but he's still moving he's still thinking he's still trying to plan at
least but Vader has one more card to play hey Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your
father did he? ‘he told me enough. he told me you killed him.’ ‘no. I am your father.’
Imperial March and again we can destroy the emperor and rule the galaxy as father and son
yeah it's the only way man! but Luke looks down decides that this in fact is the way
and even giant cities in the clouds must have floors eventually and if he dies well so be it
and he falls ‘come with me it is the only way’ [nope]
Luke doesn't want to die but he's more afraid of falling to the dark side and so to prevent that he
literally falls poetic. but don't worry after somehow managing to arrest his terminal velocity
to something that won't kill him he ends up on an aerial thing and discovers a Force power that
he never knew that he had before and calls on Leia who swings by to pick him up how he knew
that she would be in a position to do that is perhaps another question but never mind. the
Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi fights are similar in that in both cases Vader doesn't
really want to kill Luke in empire he either wants to turn him or imprison him so that he
can turn him in Jedi Luke has already surrendered to him so he just wants to turn him the difference
is that an empire Luke has very little in the way of an actual plan he has rushed off without really
thinking things through and he hasn't worked through his failure at the cave he knows what
he fears but he hasn't had the space to overcome that yet and he goes in without a plan in Jedi
he's calm he's really calm and he uses his words a lot. Here he has no reason to expect that there is
anything that he can tempt Vader with and so he's on the back foot emotionally batting away Vader's
arguments with approximately the same level of what's the word i'm looking for finesse as him
batting away the large chunks of metal which come flying at his head. Vader is in control, Vader
has all the cards, Vader is the one doing most of the talking and who is resolutely unbothered when
Luke attacks him. Luke is out of his depth and as much as we can see that he can use his lightsaber
he has learned a lot he can control his fear he can in fact take the hard decisions this isn't
a victory for him and it costs him a lot more than his hand but he will take that loss and he
will learn from it and next time by losing by surrendering by refusing to fight he will win.
And if you want to watch my breakdown of that it should be right next to my face see you around!