Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

Corrected entry: When the Falcon leaves Hoth and is being chased by the Empire, there is a scene where the ship gets rocked about. During the 'impact', C-3PO's arm becomes dislodged, and you can clearly see human skin underneath. (00:36:20)

Correction: The actor who played C-3PO, Anthony Daniels, wore a black body suit and hood under the costume, at no point was his 'human skin' visible.

Correction: Unless we know enough about Wookie anatomy to know that they don't have what appears to be two holes in their mouths, then this mistake is invalid.

Corrected entry: In Cloud City, when Luke is shot at by the stormtroopers, you can see from the impacts that the walls are painted wood.

Dr Wilson

Correction: They're not on a ship, they're in the middle of a city. Why is it unreasonable that the walls would be made of wood?

Corrected entry: After Luke's hand is cut off, he squeezes his forearm under his left armpit, and in the first shot of him clutching a pole, the knuckles of Mark Hamill's hand can be seen through his shirt, under his left arm. (01:46:00)

Correction: The first time I watched this, I thought so too, until I noticed that the distance between his right elbow and the supposed knuckles is far too big to be Mark Hamill's lower arm. What looks like the knuckles under his jacket are merely parts of his torn jacket; as you can see in several shots of this iconic scene, it got pretty damaged during the fight.

Catwalk

Corrected entry: Spaceships are partially transparent on occasion. An example: when the two Star Destroyers collide towards the end, one is visible through the other.

Dr Wilson

Correction: Star Destroyers never collide towards the end of this movie.

Corrected entry: At the beginning of the film we see the probe droid crash to the surface of Hoth. The shot then changes to Luke on his tauntaun and we see the probe droid crash again.

AdmRose

Correction: The Empire has sent thousands of probes throughout the galaxy. The one Luke sees may not be the same as the first one. (Alternate correction: It's just the director showing the event from 2 perspectives. The first, a disorientating view of an ice planet. The second, our hero actually seeing the event and going to investigate).

K.C. Sierra

Corrected entry: When Dak is flying his ship and talking to Luke, the background image is moving backwards, making it look like Dak is flying backwards.

Correction: Dak is not flying a ship, he is Luke's harpoon gunner and is facing backward. Luke even talks to him in the hangar before climbing into the snowspeeder.

David George

Corrected entry: When the first transport ship leaves Hoth, it has a flat bottom. As it passes by the disabled Star Destroyer, the bottom is curved. (00:24:50)

Correction: The bottom of the ship curves inward to a flat base. Source https://pixels.com/featured/pp1056-vintage-black-star-wars-rebel-transport-patent-poster-cole-borders.html.

Corrected entry: When Lando says "You're being put into carbon freeze" to Han, the words don't match his mouth movements.

Correction: Watch it more carefully. His lip movements do match. He's whispering to Han as to not be to loud, so you don't see his lips moving as much.

envisaged0ne

Corrected entry: In the Emperor's rewritten dialogue for the special edition in the holographic scene with Darth Vader, he tells Vader that "the young Jedi who destroyed the Death Star is the son of Anakin Skywalker," which draws disbelief from Vader - but earlier in the film Darth Vader said, "The rebels are there, and Skywalker is with them." In other words, he already knew who Luke is.

Correction: Vader has learned, courtesy of Imperial Intelligence, that the pilot who destroyed the Death Star is called Skywalker, a surname that, for all we know, may be a common one on Tatooine. It's quite a big leap between knowing the name and realising that this is actually his own son, as he believes that his child died with his mother before he could be born. Some disbelief on his part is entirely justifiable.

Also, according to issue 6 of the canon Marvel comic series "Star Wars: Darth Vader" from 2015, Vader learns the rebel pilot's name shortly after the events of the first Star Wars film. He immediately realises that Luke is his son and vows to recruit him and claim the Empire for his own. He keeps Luke's identity a secret from the Emperor, who does not find out until much later (this is revealed in the 2020 short story collection "From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back").

Catwalk

Correction: Disney had nothing to do with the Star Wars franchise when this film was made so what you're seeing is just three circles which happen to resemble a Mickey Mouse head, not an actual "hidden Mickey" that Disney is known for placing in their films.

Phixius

Corrected entry: If the Rebels had this large fleet of ships and fighters (as seen at the end of the film) then why wasn't this fleet there to defend the home base on Hoth against the imperial attack?

Correction: Those weren't battle ships. They were medical frigates, supply ships, etc. There were only a few x-wing fighters flying around. Wouldn't have been much of a fight against the empire.

envisaged0ne

Corrected entry: In the original Empire Strikes Back Vader quotes "Bring my Shuttle." Which a lot of fans thought was better than "And let my Star Destroyer prepare for my arrival." In SE there is a scene with Vader walking towards his shuttle, which makes more sense. However the original didn't make any sense. The phrase "bring my shuttle" claims the shuttle isn't there at all, it's not waiting it's just not there. Unfortunately Vader beats the Falcon to the Star Destroyer which doesn't make sense. If the shuttle wasn't there already and bring it implies it wasn't waiting then how could Vader get there so fast. Logically if Vader planned to leave the city he wouldn't tell his shuttle to leave well before than, and the Falcon was picking up Luke and about to go outer space. So unless the shuttle was parked right next to the docking platform it doesn't makes sense on how he got to the destroyer first which is why it was changed in SE.

DarPower1

Correction: You assume Vader's shuttle is on the Star Destroyer and has to return to Cloud City to get to him. The shuttle could have been docked elsewhere in Cloud City and Vader was instructing his officers to bring it closer to his location.

JC Fernandez

Corrected entry: During the attack of Hoth, Han Solo goes to the control room to see what's going on. A woman behind Leia pushes a button on a panel, and the entire panel bends.

Dr Wilson

Correction: So? The Rebellion has limited resources, their base is thrown together. They make do with all sorts of antiquated and damaged equipment.

JC Fernandez

Corrected entry: The view from a Star Destroyer bridge should show the main hull of the ship, all we see here is the vastness of space, even worse is the Super Star Destroyer which is massive in comparision.

Correction: The bridge of a Star Destroyer is placed substantially above the hull. We never get a good look out of the window, and the lack of visible hull could easily be due to the camera angle. We also don't know which way a particular window is looking at, it would be difficult to see the hull at all from side or rear windows at all.

Corrected entry: Every time the Millennium Falcon jumps into hyperspace, a lever on the console has to be pulled, as seen in this film and "Star Wars". But when Lando and Chewbacca attempt to jump to hyperspace right before R2-D2 repairs the hyperdrive, Chewbacca reaches up and hits two switches instead. No wonder it doesn't work. (01:51:55)

Correction: Must have been one of the repairs Lando's people made to the ship.

JC Fernandez

Corrected entry: When C3P0 disturbs Leia and Han while they are kissing, there is something hanging from his armpit, wires or some mechanism, as if he was damaged. It's not there later.

Dr Wilson

Correction: So he had a loose part and fixed it later. How is that a mistake?

Corrected entry: When Lando is talking to Han and Leia inside the cell, he says that Luke is on his way. How can Lando know this? He has never met Luke before, so he wouldn't know him or his X-wing. And, Luke can't be near the city until Han and the others are in the carbonite-freezing room (after Han is encased, an officer informs Darth Vader that Luke has landed).

Correction: Lando only references what he has heard Vader say. What he tells Han and Leia is something like "He's not looking for you, he's after someone named Skywalker". In no way does he imply that he has personal knowledge of Luke.

Twotall

Corrected entry: When the Millennium Falcon is entering cloud city it files through the clouds without disturbing them at all. A ship that large would create vortices and wake turbulence in the clouds, or at least some movement as the air flowed round the ship.

Correction: On Earth, yes, but this is a planet where gasses are mined and has a different atmosphere, and so it can be deemed plausible that the clouds are thicker and stronger and that it takes more to disturb them.

Corrected entry: When Han, Leia and Chewbacca are taken captive, as the stormtroopers show up, watch the trooper in the middle of the first row. He loses his footing, and one of his feet slips on the floor. (01:25:05)

Correction: Plausible human mistake, not a movie mistake.

Audio problem: When Luke says, "Now all we gotta do is find this Yoda, if he even exists," if you look closely, his mouth never moves.

More mistakes in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

Yoda: Told you, I did. Reckless is he. Now, matters are worse.
Obi-Wan: That boy is our last hope.
Yoda: No. There is another.

More quotes from Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

Trivia: The Special Edition covers of Return of the Jedi and Empire Strikes Back are wrong. The picture of the Emperor on ESB cover is from 'ROTJ', and the lightsaber duel between Luke and Vader on the cover of ROTJ is taken from 'ESB' (notice Luke is in his fighter pilot suit, and Vader is fighting him one-handed)

More trivia for Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

Answer: The short, short answer to this is "Yes... from a certain point of view." The long answer is complicated and depends completely on what timeframe you mean by "always." If you're going back all the way to the early rough drafts of the early-mid 70s (which actually resemble Episode I more than they do the Star Wars of 1977), you'll find there's a cyborg father figure protagonist that makes a heroic sacrifice, and then another character that is a "black knight" villain that eventually turns to the side of good near the end. Just to make things more complicated, there is yet another character, a villain by the name of "Darth Vader" that is a human Imperial officer like Grand Moff Tarkin. It may be a stretch to count all that as "Darth Vader was always the father" but the pieces were all there, at least.

TonyPH

(1) Now the earliest explicit mention on any documented material that Darth Vader is Luke's father comes from notes Lucas made outlining the general story of the trilogy and its place in the larger Star Wars saga. These were found in the archives for The Empire Strikes Back, but they are undated and we don't know if they were written before Star Wars (1977) and carried forward, or if they were written afterward. These were found fairly recently (made public in 2010) and as far as I know Lucas has never commented publicly about them.

TonyPH

(3) One thing we know, at least, is that Lucas had come up with the idea of Darth Vader the father before starting work on The Empire Strikes Back. Something incredibly odd, though, is that the first draft written by Leigh Brackett does not feature the twist (and in fact introduces Anakin himself as a ghost); for a long time many fans took this as proof that Lucas hadn't thought of the idea at all by then, but after the series outline was discovered it was made apparent that Lucas simply hadn't told Brackett for some reason. Perhaps he wasn't sure yet that he wanted to go through with it, or maybe at that point he was thinking of revealing it in the third film. Either way, Lucas would write the second draft himself, and that's where the twist first appears in script form.

TonyPH

(2) Something that must be understood about Star Wars (1977) is that it was an ALTERNATIVE to his original plans of a saga. By then he didn't think it was realistic that he would be able to make a long series of many movies, so he came up with a "Plan B": he crammed the general story of the trilogy into one movie. So we know that when Star Wars (1977) was filming, Darth Vader was NOT Luke's father, because this one movie was IT, that was the whole story. But what we DON'T know, is whether that means Lucas had abandoned the idea of Vader being the father in order to simplify the story, or if Lucas simply hadn't thought of that at all just yet.

TonyPH

(2, cont.) On a side note, you can tell by watching Star Wars (1977) how it has condensed the story of the trilogy. The middle portion has the characters trying to escape capture from the Empire while one of them loses a duel with Darth Vader (like The Empire Strikes Back) and the third act is a final battle against the Death Star above a forest moon (like Return of the Jedi). The first act features a member of royalty on the run while a couple of protagonists find the main hero on a desert planet, resembling the original drafts and by extension Star Wars: Episode I. Because of this we've arguably never actually had a "pure" first chapter to the original trilogy, even though Lucas eventually had the film serve this purpose anyway.

TonyPH

Answer: Yes, however, he didn't want anyone to KNOW about it. In fact, the original script said "'Obi Wan never told you what happened to your father.' 'He told me enough... he told me YOU killed him!' 'No, Obi-Wan killed your father'" Even Hamill was only told the real line just before shooting, so his reaction is somewhat natural.

SexyIrishLeprechaun

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