The Empire Strikes Back turns 30, officially

We’ve already covered a bunch of Empire Strikes Back anniversary stuff, but today is the actual day. Here’s more stuff to check out:

The sequel begins. Leigh Brackett’s first draft of the film surfaced on the internet last week, giving us an intriguing glimpse into the could-have-beens, including a “tender love scene” between Luke and Leia, Lando being a clone, and Darth Vader’s pet gargoyles. (If you just want the highlights, Geeks of Doom has a nice rundown.)

Visuals. Lucasfilm gave Maxim magazine some rare photos, and to save us classy broads from buying Maxim (err, sorry guys) they’re also on StarWars.com.

Disturbance. They also have a look back at the Emperor’s first appearance – including some seriously whacked-out concept art. Baron Harkonnen is totally jealous.

In other news…

• Sci Fi Wire’s Periodic Table of The Empire Strikes Back.
• The Beat calls Empire “the movie that made being a nerd cool.”
• Ars Technica’s Ben Kuchera: ESB is “one of the best science fiction films ever made.”
• LA Weekly was also on hand at Wednesday’s Empire screening, chatting up stars on the red carpet; KABC-TV nabbed video of Harrison Ford and Ewan McGregor, while the Los Angeles Times has Ford.
• It’s “Empire Strikes Back Night” at tonight’s Dodgers game.
• io9’s Marc Bernardin pegs ESB as the film that “introduced an entire generation of moviegoers to the notion of tragedy.”
• Empire is (shocker!) Underwire’s choice as the finest in the trilogy. They’re also giving away one of those new Hasbro At-ATs and counting down 30 reasons Empire still rules.
• There’s another iPhone app coming for me to suck at. ‘The Battle for Hoth’ should show up in the App Store soon – it isn’t there as I type this, but I did find a Christian heavy metal song. (If you’re dying for details, TFN published the press release.)
• Hoth is coming to The Old Republic.

See any more unique tributes to ESB today? Post them in the comments or tell me on Twitter (@clubjade) and I’ll get them in.