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

Continuity mistake: When Luke is riding the speeder bike against the trooper, the black glove on his right hand jumps to his left and then back again. (01:01:15)

ozwal13

Continuity mistake: When Anakin Skywalker (Vader) dies, the path of a tear is visible under one of Luke's eyes. Two shots later, the tear path is dry. (01:55:45)

Continuity mistake: In the scenes where the Emperor is trying to convert Luke, watch the stars through the window behind him. The same group of stars go floating past every time.

Continuity mistake: Look at the full body shot of the holographic Luke. Luke, who normally has his lightsaber clipped to his left hip, now has it hung from his right hip. As well, his hair, which normally has a part on his left hand side, is now parted on the right. Afterwards, just before Artoo turns the message off, we get a shot from behind Artoo, and Luke's hologram is visible on the extreme right of the screen. Luke's lightsaber is now hanging from his left hip where it normally is.

Continuity mistake: When Han is speaking to Lando before he departs for Endor, the distance between the two men changes between shots.

Continuity mistake: Before the rebels take off for Endor, Han says to Lando to take the Millennium Falcon as "she's the fastest ship in the fleet". At this point, Lando can be seen moving his head down, but as the scene changes he is looking straight ahead again.

Continuity mistake: As C-3PO and R2-D2 enter Jabba's throne room, C-3PO is walking down a small set of stairs with R2-D2 not following after him. When C-3PO again can be seen after the pillar blocking the camera's view, R2-D2 shows up behind him shortly after. (00:07:55)

Rassdyt

Continuity mistake: Outside the bunker the position of the bodies keep changing or moving throughout the battle on Endor.

Continuity mistake: When R2-D2 is shot by an Imperial stormtrooper whilst trying to open the shield generator's doors, he goes into the side wall and you can see a door open on his body with an interface arm sticking out of it. But when Han shoots the stormtrooper dead, we cut back to R2, and the door that was originally open is now closed.

Continuity mistake: When the Rebel fleet is preparing to make the jump to hyperspace to the second Death Star, the small fighters move first. Then the big ships. But when the big ships move into hyperspace, there are only the Medical Frigate, some transports and some Blockade Runners. What happened with the big Correllian command ships?

glapp

Continuity mistake: During the speeder chase scene, Leia jumps from her speeder and it blows up, the stormtrooper then hits a tree. The camera shows the tree as a hollow shaft, but when the stormtrooper smashes into it, suddenly it is solid. (01:58:15)

Tony

Revealing mistake: When Luke is being fed to the Rancor, in Jabba the Hutt's dungeon, there are black outlines around the beast's legs, from the composite's blue screen special effect. This was edited out in the special edition rerelease.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: This was not a "mistake". The outlines showing around the beast's leg were due to the limited CGI technology at the time the film was made. With advances in special effects in the following decades, the filmmakers were able to enhance the CGI quality in later releases.

raywest

But it is a mistake to show that the Rancor is not real, and the outlines show that. It's certainly not intentional.

lionhead

Not sure what you mean that the rancor is not real. Of course it's not real. The issue is, at that time, it was not technically possible to show the beastie without the lines showing. I classify a mistake as something that was not intentional. In this case, it was, due to the limitations of CGI in the 1980s.

raywest

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 filming ROTJ, Lucas didn't want anyone to find out that they were shooting the third Star Wars movie, because pandemonium could break out. So when someone asked the crew what they were filming, they said "Blue Harvest". All of the crew had shirts and hats that said Blue Harvest on them. The fictitious film's tagline was "Horror beyond imagination."

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.