The 1980 Star Wars outing The Empire Strikes Back has been voted best of the series in a poll of 40,000 UK film buffs carried out by magazine Empire.

Han Solo secured top hero spot, while - surprise, surprise - Darth Vader was the readers' fave baddie. R2D2 was crowned top droid and Chewbacca can now prouly declare himself most-favoured alien.

That The Empire Strikes Back topped the poll comes as no surprise to those who like their films with a bit of character development and plot. It beat Star Wars: A New Hope (aka Star Wars to anyone over 40) into second place. Further evidence of the superiority of the original trilogy comes with the news that Return Of The Jedi secured third spot on the podium.

This, however, is as good as it gets. Lamentably, Empire readers then voted Revenge Of The Sith their fourth favourite - even though the bloody film hasn't been released yet. Quite how this works we have no idea.*

Here are a few of the results. The full picture become clear in the latest issue of Empire, released tomorrow:

Best film:

1. The Empire Strikes Back
2. Star Wars
3. The Return of the Jedi
4. Revenge of the Sith
5. Attack of the Clones
6. The Phantom Menace

Top hero

1. Han Solo
2. Obi-Wan
3. Luke Skywalker

Top alien

1. Chewbacca
2. Jabba the Hutt
3. Jawas
4. Yoda

Bootnote

*Well, here's the official El Reg readers' explanation, as confirmed by our bulging email inbox. Take it away Steve Foster:

This is based on the simple premise that Episodes I and II are so crap that RotS *is* currently better (in it's unseen form - ie fans would rather spend 2hrs doing nothing than watch I or II again). Once it's out of course, it may slip down the rankings...

Yes indeed, time will tell...

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