Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi

Revealing mistake: If you watch closely (or play it in slow motion) when the scout trooper punches Han, you can see that the troopers hand never actually comes into contact with is face. (00:55:45)

Revealing mistake: When Luke somersaults over up to a platform above him when fighting Vader, If you look at the hair of Luke jumping, you will notice that the stunt double's hair is much more blonde than Mark Hamill's.

Revealing mistake: When Luke jumps from Jabba's prisoner's skiff over to another skiff, if you watch Lando hanging underneath the prisoner's skiff, you can easily see that he is a matte painting in this shot, because he doesn't move at all (visible on widescreen).

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

Revealing mistake: Vader tosses the Emperor and then collapses on some barrels next to the railing. Look at Vader's arm - the one with the severed hand. His arm is bent at the forearm in a way that arms just don't bend. This is because David Prowse's hand was inside an "elongated" arm to simulate it being chopped off. He couldn't keep his wrist straight, giving the appearance of a bent forearm. (01:57:00)

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

Revealing mistake: When Jabba's sail barge begins to explode, you can see that one of the floating skiffs is standing on stilts. (00:36:30)

Revealing mistake: The interior matte painting of the hangar on the Rebel ship holding the stolen Imperial shuttle doesn't match the appearance of the hangar from the exterior shot of the Rebel ship. The interior hangar shows an extended platform and four banks of vertical lights bordering the opening and then walls. From the exterior, the hangar appears to have a big light bank near the opening, and then thinner light banks behind it spaced further apart than the interior shot. The exterior shot also doesn't have a platform. (00:50:45 - 00:53:20)

Vader47000

Revealing mistake: When Admiral Piett says "I have orders from the emperor myself," the right edge of the matte can be seen on the right. Theater version only. This has been corrected on the 1997 special edition release.

Revealing mistake: The close-up of R2-D2 waiting for Leia to return has a clear shot of the middle wire section of C-3PO in which you can see Anthony Daniels breathing as the spandex underneath the wires expands. This is especially clear on the Blu-ray. (01:02:00)

Vader47000

Revealing mistake: When Han Solo lifts his hands up and he spots the Walker that Chewie and two Ewoks are in, one of his hands is transparent, and the trees are visible through his hand.

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

Suggested correction: They are not transparent. What you are seeing is glare from the bright sky in the background. You can see other ghost images matching the bright white portions of the shot. Besides, there would be no reason for it to be transparent. It appears to be a fully on-location shot with no compositing.

Completely not true. You can see the trees through his hands; therefore, they are transparent.

Look closer. There is a white ghost image that matches the bright white sky, offset to the left and rotated slightly. And why would the hand be transparent? This is not a composite shot.

While it's not a composite shot, that would mean that the shot of the imperial officer yelling "freeze" in the original version wouldn't have been transparent. But it's not a composite shot too, therefore, they are transparent.

Vector9061138

This comment makes no sense. What Imperial officer are you referring to and what does it have to do with this shot? And if this isn't a composite shot, which you seem to be admitting, why would the hand be transparent? Do you think Harrison Ford's hand actually became see-through?

Continuity mistake: On the forest moon of Endor when Princess Leia first meets the Ewok, she takes her helmet off and is holding it in her hand (which frightens the Ewok) in the very next shot she is removing it again to show it to him.

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

Darth Vader: Obi-Wan once thought as you do. You don't know the power of the dark side.

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: Who is Luke talking about when he covers up his hand and says that he has a promise to keep to an old friend? Who is the old friend?

Tyler R

Answer: Yoda. When he was departing for Cloud City to save his friends in the previous film, he promised Yoda that he would return to Dagobah to complete his training.

Phaneron

OK. But I thought he was talking about the holeish thing in his hand since he covered it up when he said it. I must have misunderstood it.

The hole in Luke's robotic hand reminds him that he got that robotic hand in the first place because he lost his duel with Darth Vader at Cloud City - a confrontation Yoda warned him he was not ready for.

TonyPH

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.