In the summer of 1977, when Star Wars* came out, I turned twelve. That was, I would say, the perfect age to see it. Old enough to appreciate the nearly nonstop action, the astonishing scope, the tremendous cutting-edge visual effects, the smartass humor, and the refreshingly second-hand version of the future**, with spaceships that didn’t look fresh off the assembly line. And young enough not to notice (or at least care about) the hackneyed plot, bland dialog, and Carrie Fisher’s inconsistent accent.

I was a full-fledged Trekkie at the time, a full-on devotee of Gene Roddenberry’s Utopian vision of the future, which appealed to my overly left-brained nature. But Star Wars offered something that “Star Trek” did not. It bypassed the brain completely, aiming straight for the gut with its Joseph Campbell archetypes, awesome spectacle, and laser guns blasting at 24 frames per second. How could I resist? And to this day, whenever I see it again (I try to avoid the special edition for reasons too obvious to mention), even though I can recognize the movie’s numerous flaws, I revert to that almost-twelve-year-old kid and get sucked in as if forty-seven years hadn’t passed.

In the decades since then, Star Wars became a franchise, then an institution, and then a mythology. There have been so many TV shows, games, novels, comics, and, of course, follow-up movies that to try to list them all would be an exercise in futility. As in most such cases, each succeeding product seems to take away from rather than add to the spirit of the original. (It’s almost impossible to follow any of the Star Wars shows on Disney+ unless you watch all of the Star Wars show.) The law of diminishing returns has been in play for decades, now.

But that is now. Back in 1980, when The Empire Strikes Back was released, it was the very first expansion of the original. (If you don’t count a handful of novels, the Marvel comics series, and the Holiday Special, that is.) I was nearly fifteen when it came out, and was thus not the same starry-eyed kid from 1977. (Really, there is more change and growth between the ages of twelve and fifteen than there is between fifteen and fifty, but that is a subject for another day.) I had matured a lot, though probably not as much as I felt I had, and where science fiction was concerned I’d shelved my mania for “Star Trek,” having discovered the works of Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, and the like.

But of course, I was not made of stone, so I naturally went to see Empire. And, what do you know, I loved it. There were plenty of wonderful action scenes, of course, from the snow battle on Hoth to the Millennium Falcon dodging TIE fighters while trying to navigate an asteroid belt. But beyond that, the movie was richer than its predecessor. The characters were developing in interesting directions, what with Luke learning how to use the force, Leia and Han reluctantly falling in love, and C-3PO becoming less annoying. (Ha, I’m just kidding about that last one.) We are introduced to new characters like Yoda, who these days is a walking, talking cliché but back in 1980 was a fresh take on the mentor character, a wizened gnome speaking with the voice of Fozzie Bear. And Lando Calrissian, who provided both a dash of moral complexity and a break in the cavalcade of whiteness of the movie’s human characters.

And of course, there was the ending. First, the revelation of Luke’s parentage, as Darth Vader says “I am your father!” (I don’t have to mark that as a spoiler, do I? That’s probably the most well-known final-reel revelation in moviedom, beating even “Rosebud was his sled.”) I still remember hearing that line for the first time and thinking, “Okay, that can’t be true!” (Once again, it’s become a cliché in the Star Wars universe that everyone is related to everyone else — by the next movie, when it turned out that Luke and Leia were siblings, I was rolling my eyes — but in 1980 this was a major revelation.) And then there was the cliffhanger at the very end, with Han encased in carbonite. While there was some precedence for this — the movie serials that George Lucas grew up watching — this may be the first time that the audience was expected to wait three full years to see the resolution.

I have found that, unlike the first movie, Empire is a movie I can fully enjoy when seeing it again without reservation. The acting is much improved (Hamill and Fisher in particular have relaxed into their rolls), the dialogue is sharper and funnier, and the overall plot less hackneyed. This may be due to having an old hand like Irvin Kershner at the director’s helm this time. Or maybe it’s due to having an old hand like Leigh Brackett working on the screenplay. or, maybe it’s due to George Lucas keeping himself at arm’s length from the film’s production this time.

Whatever is the case, it was a nice peak that the franchise had been unable to match in the nearly forty-five years that have passed since then.

*Yeah, yeah, we’re supposed to call it A New Hope now, but does anybody do that?

**Yes, I do know that the setting is in fact “a long time ago,” not the future.