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Set just a few years after the original Star Wars, the movie sees Darth Vader desperately trying to locate the Rebel Alliance, which-under the captainship of Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher)-has set up camp on the remote ice planet of Hoth, which eventually comes under attack by the Imperial forces. But, with all due respect to George Lucas and A New Hope, Irvin Kershner’s The Empire Strikes Back is one of those singular cinematic follow-ups that manages to outshine the original film from which it was born. It's rare that a sequel lives up to its predecessor, and even rarer when it surpasses it. It’s easy to trace the roots of virtually any sci-fi movie released after 1968 back to Kubrick’s genre masterpiece. It’s also rather prescient: While it famously goes back to the dawn of man, the bulk of 2001’s action follows a group of men aboard a spaceship who are aided in their mission, then essentially held hostage, by HAL 9000-a piece of AI technology that seems to have surpassed the flesh-and-blood astronauts relying on it in being “human.” The movie’s pace is famously glacial, but its innovative storytelling and revolutionary filmmaking techniques make it unlike almost anything else in cinema history. While it’s hard to summarize the film in just a few sentences, it’s probably best described as a meditation on the evolution of humankind-and a striking one at that, with its vast scope and magnificent cinematography. If you only ever watch one science fiction movie in your lifetime, make sure it’s Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.