See What a Trailer for The Empire Strikes Back Might Look Like in 2020

Special effects, cinematography trends, and acting styles may have changed over the last 40 years, but Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) remains one of the most beloved film sequels—even among younger generations of Star Wars fans—to this day.

The trailer, on the other hand, seems pretty outdated, mainly due to the voiceover narration that expels lofty phrases like “an epic of romance, of heroes and villains,” and “a galactic odyssey against oppression.” To see what The Empire Strikes Back would look like with today’s trailer standards, YouTube user AD_edits created a new one, which relies on dialogue from the film itself to set the stage for the galactic odyssey against oppression.

As Nerdist points out, AD_edits’s trailer also manages to hint at important plot points without giving too much away, like mentioning that Luke must find a great Jedi master without revealing Yoda’s identity. The original, meanwhile, contains a couple outright spoilers—it shows, for example, Darth Vader sitting at the head of the table in Cloud City, waiting to ambush Han Solo and Princess Leia. Viewers might not have realized the significance when they saw the split-second clip in the trailer, but it would probably ruin the surprise when they watched the actual film.

Of course, there was always the possibility certain parts of the trailer could’ve ended up on the cutting room floor before the movie hit theaters, which has definitely happened before. The Cloud City scene made the final cut, but some storylines from earlier in the filmmaking process weren’t so lucky—in fact, most of the first draft for The Empire Strikes Back was completely scrapped. Find out about Darth Vader’s gargoyle-filled castle, Han Solo’s stepfather, and other axed ideas here.