Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi

Continuity mistake: After Leia removes her helmet in Jabba's palace, her hair changes on the right side of her head, depending on the camera angle.

Continuity mistake: As Boba Fett nods to the disguised Leia after the latter turns off the thermal detonator, his costume is reversed due to the negative being flipped. The easiest part of his costume to see this on is his antenna, which is on the left-hand side of his head, whereas normally it would be on his right.

Continuity mistake: In the first shot of the hologram of Endor and the Death Star, the Death Star orbits Endor in an counter-clockwise direction. In the subsequent shots, the Death Star orbits in a clockwise direction.

Continuity mistake: When Lando is dangling from a rope over the Saarlac pit, he keeps moving up and down the rope between shots.

Continuity mistake: Luke tells Threepio to tell the Ewoks that if our heroes are not set free, that he will use his magic. If you look on the right of the screen, Artoo is standing untied, even though at that point in the movie he had not been untied yet.

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Wicket finds Leia in the woods, they sometimes change position between shots, as seen from the vegetation and the surroundings.

Continuity mistake: Just after R2-D2 cuts the net that holds him, Luke, Han, Chewbacca, & C-3PO, you can see that before the Ewoks pop up out of nowhere to see their captured victims, one Ewok just stands there in plain sight waiting for the others to reveal themselves.

Continuity mistake: During the transport to the Sarlacc Pit, in some shots, Chewbacca is standing on Han's right. In other shots, he is standing behind Luke and Han.

Continuity mistake: When Luke and Leia swing to the skiff on the rope, Leia's hands change position between shots twice.

Continuity mistake: When Luke and Vader enter the Emperor's throne chamber, the stars behind him move really fast. Later, they move in a normal way.

Dr Wilson

Continuity mistake: In the bunker, just after R2 gets shot, Han tries to hotwire the door. A second blast door closes, and you can see that it is very flat and cardboard looking. A few moments later, Leia gets shot, and as Han is tending to her, notice that the door is now massively armored and three-dimensional, completely different from the door seen earlier.

Continuity mistake: After Han is released from the carbonite, he falls to the ground, soiling his shirt. In the following shots, the amount of dirt changes continuously between shots. Later, when Han and Luke are brought before Jabba, his shirt is clean.

Continuity mistake: On the forest moon of Endor, when the stormtrooper punches Han, he falls and has a blaster in his hand but it disappears when he hits the ground. He can't have thrown it during the time he was falling, because he shot accidentally when he was near the ground. If he has thrown it, it should have been near him.

Dr Wilson

Continuity mistake: When the little Ewok finds Leia, and she rises up, he points his spear at her and you can see that the front of his leather hood is over the spear's shaft. The shot changes to Leia, the back to the Ewok and now spear is over the hood, the shots change again and now the hood's front is crumbled up between the spear and the Ewok´s body.

Continuity mistake: Before the Emperor gives permission to fire the Death Star, in the scene at the bridge of the Star Destroyer, the blue rank insignia of Admiral Piett and another Imperial officer is coloured black. This is probably caused by bluescreen effects replacing everything blue with the colour of space. This can also be seen when a Rebel ship hits the Star Destroyer at the end of the film.

Continuity mistake: In one scene of the battle of Endor, Chewbacca is accompanied by 2 Ewoks while pursuing one of the ATSTs. However soon after their first appearance, one of the Ewoks' costume looks completely different from the original one.

Continuity mistake: After the Death Star explodes, Wicket the Ewok comes over to Han and Leia, and Leia puts her hand on his arm, and Han puts his hand on his shoulder. In the next close-up of Wicket, their hands are no longer there. This is best seen in the widescreen version.

Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Han tells Lando that he can fly the Millennium Falcon during the battle, when Lando says, "Would you get going, you pirate", his entire outfit is reversed - his shoulder holster strap goes the other way, and his rank insignia changes side too. (00:50:00)

More mistakes in Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi

Darth Vader: If you will not fight, then you will meet your destiny!

More quotes from Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi

Trivia: When Oola the dancing girl (with those two things growing out of the back of her head) is trying to get away from Jabba, she briefly falls out of the top of her costume. It isn't as visible in the letterbox version, but quite visible in the regular version.

More trivia for Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi

Question: How come this movie barely showed anything about Luke and Leia's mother? Luke doesn't even ask anyone what her name was (maybe that was hidden from Leia, but he can probably guess that Yoda or Obi-wan would know). I know we can assume that she was discussed off-screen, but they could have revealed a little more about her.

Answer: The Jedi are shown to have something of a blind spot in regards to matters of the heart. Note that when Luke confronts Obi-Wan over lying to him about his father's fate, Obi-Wan's response is haughty and defensive, and gives Luke nothing in terms of regret or apology. They're focused on their mission, not on how Luke feels. Why waste time, in their eyes, telling Luke about his mother? If they had their way, he wouldn't even know about his father. The prequels would make this more explicit, showing that the Jedi are conditioned from the beginning to let go of all "passions" because they could so easily be corrupted, and their inability to understand Anakin's emotions just contributes to his downfall.

TonyPH

Answer: Why can we assume that she was discussed off-screen? Luke's got more important things to talk about than who his mother was. Yoda dies shortly afterwards and Luke's understandably more interested in how Darth Vader, given that he's got to go up against him, can be his father when talking to Obi-wan's ghost shortly after. Not a lot of time for general chit-chat. Behind the scenes, at that point, very little would have been decided about their mother, as it would be irrelevant to the plot of the trilogy and to discuss her on-screen would have wasted time and slowed everything down.

Tailkinker

More questions & answers from Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.