The Empire Strikes Back does actually tell a stand-alone story with a resolution at the end: one by one, each of the main characters realizes they are a family, and that looking out for one another is the most important thing in their lives.
Note the repeating motif of "going back" for a friend throughout the story, and that it's Han Solo that first does it on Hoth (twice, in fact: he goes to find Luke after his wampa attack, then he goes to retrieve Leia from the command center so she can escape with him in the Falcon). Solo's the oldest of the humans and knows better than any of them how cold and uncaring the universe can be; it's why he's upset that Leia doesn't protest his announced plans to leave the rebellion at the beginning.
Later, Luke "goes back" to help his captured friends even in spite of Yoda pleading with him not to leave. Further on, Leia orders the Falcon to "go back" to rescue Luke at the bottom of Cloud City. Lando "goes back" and abandons his stake in Cloud City so he can free Leia and Chewie (and eventually Han). Even Chewbacca "goes back" to retrieve C-3PO's pieces and put him back together.
We even learn in a shocking twist that Darth Vader himself has actually been trying the whole film to "go back" and meet his long lost son, but Luke rejects him. Luke also realizes that Obi-Wan and Yoda have been cruelly manipulating him for their own ends, however noble. In the next movie he'll "go back" for all three of these parental figures, but at this point in time is a crucial moment where Luke learns that deciding who ISN'T his family is just as important as who is.
The movie ends with the characters united and committed to "going back" to rescue Han together. We don't need to actually see the rescue in this movie, because their mutual commitment to each other has already resolved the story and Han has already shown his own commitment to them from early on in the film, and now that commitment is finally being returned in kind, by his makeshift family.
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