I caught a midnight show of The Empire Strikes Back on 5.21.80 at Loew’s Astor Plaza, and I’ll never forget that feeling of immense calm and profound satisfaction as I sat in my aisle seat and listened to John Williams‘ closing credits music.
I was especially charmed by a 15-second-long downshifting bridge (1:18 through 1:35) that departed from the traditional theme.
Even listening now (I watched it last weekend with Sutton) puts you in the mood.
The greatest of all Star Wars films doesn’t really “end” brilliantly — it just stops and winds down and settles into an “okay, all that happened so now it’s time to settle and reflect” mood, but that spunky, tarah-tarah transformation when “directed by Irvin Kershner‘ suddenly appeared…I was muttering ”thank you, God and Gary Kurtz“.
George Lucas was increasingly freaked by and fretting about Empire‘s production costs rising from $8 million to $30.5 million (“It doesn’t have to be that good!”). It wound up making $401.5 million worldwide that year. Not to mention another $138M from subsequent re-releases.
The “fans” who were “conflicted about Empire‘s darker and more mature themes” were major-league morons.