Two key psychological levers in Empire Strikes Back are fear and anger. Fear tends to be about things in the future. Anger tends to be about things in the past. Both can be used to manipulate us, as Vader manipulates Luke, and thereby deprive us of freedom. George Lucas and others involved in the filming of Empire Strikes Back incorporated Buddhist elements into the film. According to Buddhism, the source of the problem of fear and anger is attachment. Luke is vulnerable to anger and fear because of his attachments.

Star Wars is a story about freedom and threats to freedom. You might not have thought that it has a lot to say about this, since the dialogue never poses any deep questions about it. But the dialogue isn't what's interesting about Star Wars. What's most interesting about Star Wars are the visuals, and the visuals communicate a lot about freedom and threats to it. In this episode, I run through some of what the visuals of the first two minutes of Star Wars (after the opening crawl) communicate.

For a full transcript, visit https://theforceandfreedom.libsyn.com/the-visual-storytelling-of-star-wars-transcript

I begin with a roundup of the fascinating features of The Empire Strikes Back that I'll be discussing this season: striking parallels between the beginning and end of the film, repeating themes that don't get resolved in the typical way, Luke upside-down four different times, Han and then Luke living the passion narrative. I close by pointing out a puzzling fact about Luke in this film: He hasn't learned the main lesson Obi-wan taught in the last film. He hasn't learned Jedi freedom.