Cool Videos: Original teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

October 16th 2013, 3:42pm

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Anyone ready to travel back to 1980? No, I haven’t acquired a time machine but watching this teaser trailer for STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK takes me back.

Here’s the description from the official Youtube page for STAR WARS:

Watch the original teaser trailer for The Empire Strikes Back, which is notable for featuring solely concept art by Ralph McQuarrie but no film footage. Among the McQuarrie paintings seen are the Rebel hangar on Hoth, Luke on a tauntaun, Darth Vader aboard a Star Destroyer, Cloud City, an Imperial probe droid, and Luke’s final duel with Darth Vader.

This is certainly a great tease. All you would have gotten, at least until they released a full trailer is the art from McQuarrie. Can you imagine how much salivating there would have been amongst the fans of the series? (or the overwhelming cries of “Bullshit!”) It’s interesting now how we see concept art posted on a fan site instead of through a medium like this. Maybe we should tease art for certain films in place of actual footage. Do you think this should have been used as the teaser?

“The Empire has been repulsed…”