ESB - my take on the act structure.
I am sick of the movie crawls and the opening theme - I've had 30years of them? (roughly) and cant take them anymore! Why does every star wars movie have to start that way? ... there is no reason! only because the first one had it - why not start them off differently use a bit of imagination - like they did with the star trek movies!. anyway.. *rant mode off*
PS i dont care what anyone else's opinion is!! :p
ESB
Act1: Imperials have chased our heroes across the galaxy, on the remote iceworld of Hoth the Rebels led by Luke Skywalker are putting together the final touches to their latest base. Meanwhile....The evil Lord Darth Vader, Obsessed with finding young Skywalker has launched thousands of remote probes into space....
Establish Rebels - Establish Imperials (and establish Darth Vader is infact alive!). introduce new character development of Han & Leias relationship....and Luke is still getting into trouble. Act 1 establishes the heroes and villains and the main plot - The rebels are being hunted by Vader and the Imperials. Act one ends with the evacuation of Hoth, Han & Leia escape aboard Falcon and Luke travels to Dagobah.
The introductions are over - the might of the empire has been established, and the heroes split up to further their character development.
Act2:
Two stories make up act 2 which i'll refer to as a and b:
A: Luke arrives on Dagobah and begins further training, the main thought here is that don't judge someone by their size. this is not the main part of act 2 but rather - provides character driven interludes from the Han & Leia story that help to build tension and suspense. to what otherwise would be a very action orientated act.
B: Han and Leia - This is the main focus of the act - Han and Leia appear to be pursued by Vader as he attempts to capture them. Its very exciting, but generally they go from one bad moment only to find themselves getting in a worse situation. During this Vader, employs the bounty hunters to track down the millenium falcon. A cat and mouse type movie instead of the heroes journey type formula of the first movie.
Act 3:
All the threads of the story merge here at Bespin: Luke lands, Leia and Han have been captured - dramaticness ensues, the Empire appears to have the upper hand at each turn and finally the Rebels escape but at what price? movie ends.
Hows that?