Last year, my friend Kevin opened a can of worms a while back when he started a Facebook thread about the Rebel’s retreat from Hoth in Empire Strikes Back, suggesting it should be thought of as a win. The rebels were beaten, he argued, but they’re a guerrilla force up against a considerably larger and more well-equipped army – in this context, fleeing in an orderly fashion and getting the bulk of their forces away counts was textbook planning for a guerrilla army in that position.
Lots of people argued it was a loss: the rebels were routed, barely escaped, and were largely scattered.
I kept out of the thread initially because what I know about military strategy was learned by playing Command and Conquer, but someone else brought up the the fact that the narrative demanded a defeat at the beginning of the second act and suddenly, lo, I knew things.
I hadn’t ever taken a close look at the narrative structure of Empire, but when I did I was surprised by how well it actually sets up that transition within the larger structure of the movie.
HERE’S THE THING ABOUT TRANSITIONS INTO THE SECOND ACT
In narrative terms, defeat and victory are meaningless, because you’re talking about a transition between two approaches to a problem. Mostly, that transition means moving away from an approach that’s comfortable, and towards a course of action that will actually resolve things.
Consider Luke in the first act of Star Wars. He dreams big, but when Obi Wan says “you must come to Alderaan, and be a Jedi like your father,” and Luke immediately being all “LOL, soz, no. I gotta go farm water.”
Adventure is offered–the thing he dreams of and needs–but he doesn’t want to go because it seems a mite uncomfortable. That’s the basic gist of your first act in a nutshell.
The transition into act 2 is usually marked by something that appears to be a defeat, but it’s actually a critical event that tips the scales for the hero and teaches them what they need. In narrative terms, its less ‘defeat’ and more ‘object lesson.’
In Star Wars, that transition is simple: Luke tries to ignore the problem and his family is wiped out by stormtroopers looking for droids, literally leaving him with no other choice but to go with Obi Wan.
In Empire, the metaphoric lesson for Luke is much the same: he’s gotten comfortable staying with the Rebels and playing soldier, being part of the larger army that’s waging war against the empire. He’s the hero of the Alliance, the Ace Pilot. He’s the guy who killed the Death Star, an inspiration to those around him.
The attack on Hoth is the object lesson that teaches him he cannot stay that guy.
At its core, the original Star Wars trilogy is all about the actions of individuals. They may field huge armies of fighters to wage war, but it’s a handful of extraordinary people who do everything meaningful. In story terms, victory is only possible if Luke goes to Degoba and embraces his destiny as a Jedi.
At the same time, Empire gives us a version of Luke who got what he wanted way back in the beginning of Star Wars: He’s the ace pilot of the alliance. He’s right there, in the thick of things, in charge and great at what he does. He’s not progressing his training after Obi-Wan’s death, just fighting the fight alongside his fellow Rebels.
In this respect, the attack on Hoth isn’t about a narrative victory or loss. It’s about showing the futility of Luke staying the Ace Rebel Pilot. No matter how good he is, being part of the army is never going to cut it. The Empire will find them, and it will chase them, even without the death star. Victory is impossible without him learning the ways of the Jedi.
Wiping out Hoth is the death of Beru and Owen all over again, taking away options so “there is nothing for me here,” that freeing Luke up to take another path.
Is this a defeat? Maybe. This is the nature of second act transitions: they’re going to feel like a defeat for all the major characters, ’cause their method of dealing with things for the entire first act has just been roundly disproved. For Empire, particularly, the movie does’t want them anywhere near a military hierarchy. That’s not what the story is about, and any debate about whether Hoth is a victory or a loss is going to struggle to overcome that basic fact. There’s not enough data, because the story isn’t focused on that aspect of the world.
WHAT’S INTERESTING ABOUT EMPIRE FROM THIS PERSPECTIVE
What’s really interesting about Empire is the way it builds to this lesson: within the first act Luke has already learned one lesson about the perils of being the Ace Rebel Pilot (it gets you attacked by Wampas), and the only way out of that problem was embracing his Jedi half and force-grabbing his lightsaber to cut himself free.
At the same time, it also reminds us why Luke, Ace Rebel Pilot matters: he’s the kid who inspired an act of bravery in Han back in Star Wars, overcoming Han’s mercenary impulses and bringing him into the fight to destroy the Death Star. And when Luke, Ace Rebel Pilot, goes missing, he inspires Han again. Han disregards orders and heads out into the snow, determine to bring back his thread.
This is important because ultimately, at the end of Return of the Jedi, it’s not Jedi-Luke who saves the goddamn universe. It’s his ability to connect with his father and bring him back fro the dark side. Literally, he’s invoking the kid and the desire he had way back in act one of Star Wars.
Right now, though, we’re seeing the threat of not becoming a Jedi. More importantly, we’re seeing this moment play out because training to be a Jedi will risk that aspect of who Luke is. He will be asked to forgo his friends and set aside attachments. Empire is setting us up for this moment, because we’ve already been shown that the Luke who is attached and with his friends can’t get the job done.
He may fight a rear-guard action on Hoth, allowing the rebels to escape, but he can’t claim an outright victory and save the universe (Heck, even the rear-guard action only goes as well as it does because the lightsaber comes out).
And this is as it should be: if you get narrative structure right, the character ends up being a combination of who they are at the beginning and who the second act wants them to be. Who they were is as important to that victory as what they learn in the second act.
Empire gives us a taste of both before making the decision critical at the end of the film, and all of that feeds into the final act of the trilogy. Ace Pilot Luke would never have been brought before Vader and the Empire, Jedi Luke would never have gotten his father to turn.
ONE FINAL TANGENTAL POINT
The attack on Hoth is also an excuse to lock Leia and Han in the same tin-can in space, where the duties of command/concerns about bounty hunters are no longer something that will keep them from admitting they have feelings. It takes away the tool they’d been using to stay in a place of comfort–the alliance hierarchy–and puts them in a new context. This is necessary, because anything that kept them with the rebel forces would have necessitated keeping them as part of the narrative, which means that a lot of the folks who argued “but the Rebel’s were routed and scattered,” are right, but the scattering was narratively necessary.
