5. Yoda's Identity - The Empire Strikes Back
The darkest movie of the original trilogy, Empire was short on humour, but one of the funniest scenes in the entire saga, however, is Yoda's first crazy appearance on Dagobah. In contrast to one of my greatest pet peeves of the prequel trilogy, Yoda's speech pattern in this scene is distinctive enough to mark him as separate from Luke but not so intentionally distinctive that you can almost see the writers copying and pasting as they rearrange Yoda's lines. Was that mean? It felt mean. In his first scene in Empire, Yoda is convincing enough as the bizarre little green creature who makes a mess and gets into what amounts to a slap fight with a robot that the revelation that he is the Jedi Master to whom Luke has been sent is a welcome affront to Luke's arrogance on Dagobah. Without knowing Yoda's identity and understanding his capabilities, we learn about the Force alongside Luke and are - like Luke - awed by the X-Wing rising out of the water to the strains of some lovely John Williams. But then, having seen Yoda backflipping his way through a few prequel lightsaber battles, the effect is pretty much ruined.