Darth Vader Returns in NPR's Radio Adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back

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.