Just as Star Wars: A New Hope was a remarkably successful film -- setting box office records and winning both critical and popular acclaim (even earning a Best Picture nomination and earming several major Academy Awards), its 1981 National Public Radio adaptation also made radio listeners aware that a movie famed for its visual effects could, be turned into a satisfying radio drama with a good writer, a professional ensemble cast, and a vast library of sound effects and musical cues from the original soundtrack. Star Wars: The Original Radio Drama became one of NPR's most highly rated shows, and thousands of fan letters poured in, asking if and when The Empire Strikes Back would be produced.

Happily, before production began on the third and final film in the Star Wars Trilogy, NPR and Lucasfilm tapped the creative team behind the first radio drama (author Brian Daley, director John Madden, and sound mixer Tom Voegili) to adapt the second and much darker act of the storyline about the further adventures of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Princess Leia (Ann Sachs), Han Solo (Perry King), C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) and the rest of the small group of freedom fighters which have "united to challenge a tyrannical Empire."

The Empire Strikes Back: The Radio Drama picks up the narrative with Ken Hiller's spoken introduction, which is essentially the film's opening crawl with a new paragraph setting up Freedom's Winter's stunning opening scene -- an Imperial TIE Fighter ambush of a Rebel convoy which was carrying supplies to the Rebels' new base on the ice planet of Hoth. The debacle at Derra IV results in the loss of the transports and their X-wing escort group, including Rogue Squadrol leader Commander Narra.

In the wake of the battle, Imperial Captain Needa (Nicholas Kepros) receives orders from Darth Vader's flagship to reprogram his Star Destroyer's batch of probe droids with new search parameters, focusing on the Rebel called Skywalker and the whereabouts of the starship Millennium Falcon. The Dark Lord of the Sith is obsessed with finding young Skywalker, and his minions dispatch thousands of the evil-looking probe droids into the far reaches of space.

As the Imperial fleet's relentless search begins to get closer to discovering the Rebellion's secret base on Hoth, the pressures of three years' worth of fleeing Vader's dragnet begin to exact a toll on Han Solo and Chewbacca's commitment to the Rebel Alliance. Despite Solo's unofficial participation in the Rebellion after the Battle of Yavin, there's still the matter of the debt he owes to the Tatooine crime boss Jabba the Hutt. Battling the Empire's forces and helping his Alliance friends seek a new outpost has prevented the Corellian starship captain and his Wookiee copilot from making the payment in time, and Jabba has made good on his promise to put a price on Han so big that every bounty hunter in the galaxy will be on his trail. With a "death mark" on his name, Han decides it's time to leave the Rebellion and pay off Jabba before he's a dead man.

Princess Leia doesn't take the news very well, but she covers up her growing love for the forner "independent operator" by claiming she's upset because the Rebels are losing a "natural leader." Han, who knows better than that, teases her about how she's afraid he's going to leave "without a goodbye kiss," prompting Leia to angrily retort, "I'd just as soon kiss a Wookiee!"

Unbeknownst to the sparring couple, things are going to get worse before they get better. An Imperial probe droid falls to Hoth's surface like one of so many meteors that hit the planet on a regular basis, and Luke Skywalker and his tauntaun mount are attacked by a Wampa ice creature while investigating the impact area. Dragged by the fierce carnivore to its icy lair, Luke manages to use his latent Force powers to escape, but is caught by the forces of nature as Hoth's fierce nighttime cold buffets the wounded Rebel as he flees from the Wampa's cave.

He nearly dies out in the snow, but both the Force and luck are with Luke. The spirit of his slain Jedi mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi appears to him, telling him he must travel to Dagobah and "learn from Yoda, the Jedi Master who instructed me," and Han, who has gone on a risky rescue mission on his tauntaun, arrives on the scene just as Luke loses consciousness. The cold and exhaustion kill the tauntaun before Han can take his wounded and delirious friend back to the Rebel base, forcing the Corellian to resort to extreme measures to ensure their survival.

But even though the two heroes survive the Hoth night and Luke recovers from his wounds, the situation deteriorates when the Imperial probe droid discovers the Rebel base, and soon the full might of the Empire falls upon the Rebellion's outpost. Darth Vader's forces, including snowtroopers and huge Imperial walkers, land on Hoth and, in a furious and almost one-sided battle, overrun the base's defenses and force the Rebels to flee. Soon, Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and C-3PO are the focus of a concerted pursuit by both Imperial ships and relentless bounty hunters, while Luke and his faithful astromech droid, R2-D2, head for the mysterious world called Dagobah, where the young Skywalker must begin his training as a Jedi Knight under the tutelage of Yoda.

Meanwhile, Lord Darth Vader's presence, both on- and off-stage, drives the second act of the Star Wars saga to its inevitable final confrontation between the Dark Lord and the young and untried Jedi trainee. Like the film that inspired it, The Empire Strikes Back: The Radio Drama prime mover is Vader, whose desire to crush the Rebellion is eclipsed by a more ambitious personal agenda that entails turning Luke Skywalker to the dark side of the Force.

NPR and KUSC-Los Angeles (which had bought the radio rights from George Lucas for one dollar!) once again benefitted from the reunion of the cast and crew of Star Wars: The Radio Drama. Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels reprised their film roles of Luke and C-3PO brilliantly; for the scene in which Luke is trapped on the Cloud City weather vane, Hamill hung upside down from a bar so his voice would reflect the strain of the injured Jedi's predicament, while Daniels had to have lines that took no more than 30 seconds to record so his breathing wouldn't show up on tape -- droids, after all, don't breathe. Billy Dee Williams was also on hand to portray the character he had played in the film version of Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Lando Calrissian.

Returning from the original Star Wars: The Radio Drama Perry King (Han), Ann Sachs (Leia), Bernard Behrens (Obi-Wan Kenobi), Brock Peters (Darth Vader) and Ken Hiller (the Narrator) were joined by John Lithgow (Third Rock From the Sun) as Yoda, while such well known actors as David Alan Grier, Peter Michael Goetz, and David Rasche played many supporting roles: Grier, for instance, plays "Various" characters, while Goetz and Rasche play Imperial Admirals Ozzel and Piett.

As in the first series, Daley expands and enhances the plot from the original screenplay by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan (and George Lucas' original story) to extend The Empire Strikes Back from a two-hour movie into a five-hour radio series. Because the characters and situations are already well-established, there is less exposition needed and the episode count is 10 instead of 13. Daley (Han Solo at Star's End, Han Solo's Revenge, and Han Solo and the Lost Legacy) is able to focus like a laser beam on plot and character development, capturing the nuances of the changes in the relationships and the lives of the small band of heroes and their evil adversaries.

Credit also must go to series director John Madden, who not only was an accomplished director of radio dramas for the British Broadcasting Corporation, but later went on to receive acclaim for the 1998 film Young Shakespeare in Love. He has a fine touch with actors, and the performances he coaxed from the cast made the radio adaptation of Empire a truly wonderful listening experience for fans of the film.

Another key player was co-director and sound mix genius Tom Voegili, who seamlessly blended the cast's voice performances with Ben Burtt's library of Star Wars movie sounds and selections from John Williams' Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back scores. This mixture of dialogue, sound effects and symphonic music resulted in a magnificent aural adventure that took listeners to that "galaxy far, far away...."

Made and Distributed by: Highbridge Audio
Formats: Audiocassette, compact disc. (Review is based on the CD version)

Episode List

Slimline Jewel Case One: Episodes One Through Four

CD 1: Episode One: Freedom's Winter
Episode Two: The Coming Storm

CD 2: Episode Three: A Question of Survival
Episode Four: Fire and Ice

Slimline Jewel Case Two: Episodes Five Through Eight

CD 1: Episode Five: The Millennium Falcon Pursuit
Episode Six: Way of the Jedi

CD 2: Episode Seven: New Allies, New Enemies
Episode Eight: Dark Lord's Fury

Slimline Jewel Case Three: Episodes Nine Through Ten

CD 1: Episode Nine: Gambler's Choice
Episode Ten: The Clash of Lightsabers


Recommended: Yes