When The Empire Strikes Back opened 21 May 1980, newly afforded an episode number, it grossed a healthy $10m in its opening weekend.

Quickly, the film recouped the $33m that Lucas had squeezed out of the banks. Ever the nice guy, Lucas handed out bonuses to the amount of $5m to his employees.

Prepping on Lucas’ third and final Star Wars movie (for then) would quickly jump into pre-production. Though Hamill, Ford and Fisher would all return, director Irvin Kershner wouldn’t.

“After working for two years and nine months doing Empire,” he said, “and having it take so much out of my life and having given me so much, I felt that it was a complete experience and it was time to move on.”

He perhaps felt he had a dodged a bullet. After seeing Return Of The Jedi, Kershner was quoted as saying: “It didn't quite work for me. It was a nice picture but I expected something different. I thought it would be a different kind of film. It had fabulous stuff in it but it didn't work for me.”

He’s eased up on the trilogy-capper since, saying in a recent interview: “It has been so long since I saw the film, I can’t really comment on what I didn’t like about it. I know it was not an easy film to make, and the special effects - as with Empire - are remarkable to me, given that it was not done with CGI.”

The director certainly hadn’t gone off the Starverse, either. Asked by an interviewer 10 years after directing Empire if he’d like to take on one of the Star Wars prequels, he replied with an enthusiastic “absolutely!”

“I would definitely do it,” he said in that pre-Phanton Menace era. “That's the only one that I would do again because I don't want to do anymore sequels. I've done enough. But those won't be sequels - it's really like a whole new series of films. And I know that if George does anything, he'll do it well. I would be honoured to do another one.”

Ah, what could have been…