Quote Originally Posted by Magic_Hat View Post
Yeah that, and you know the revelation he's been lied to about his father and he has a direct relation to one of the most evil people in the galaxy. You know - subtext and character development. Things the protagonist has to reflect on that make fights and conflict more interesting so he doesn't just rush in like a video game character and is invincible.
Didn't say there wasn't character development; of course there was. Only disputing your argument that they lost.

Discovering and destroying their base on Hoth. Plus capturing Solo and humiliating and physically mutilating Luke - the two guys responsible for the destruction of the Death Star.
Well, I suppose physical humiliation is bad, but hardly a big deal in the lose column. The mutilation is immediately undone, making it less of a problem than the Thanos snap.

Yeah sans the ones that got killed when the Hoth base was discovered.
I mean, maybe, but we're not really shown much of that. They lose a battle, and we can imagine the loses, but it seems like they're fully capable of fighting in the next movie, so they couldn't have been that bad.

Quote Originally Posted by Clertar View Post
To the extent that we consider the rebels won in Star Wars, the Empire won in Empire Strikes Back.
Maybe, but I don't know. A main villain was killed in New Hope, something that didn't happen to the rebels in Empire. Plus they achieved their goal in the movie, destroy the Death Star. The empire's goals in Empire were 1) wipe out the rebellion 2) capture Skywalker. They accomplished neither.