Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

Other mistake: After Vader cuts through a pillar with his lightsaber in the beginning of the duel, the hole in the pillar is much bigger than it should be. (01:37:35)

Continuity mistake: In the shot from behind Luke right before he falls into the carbon-freezing chamber, Vader's lightsaber is pointed at his chest, but in the previous shot, the sabre was held in a different angle.

Continuity mistake: In the second shot of Luke in his X-wing after he leaves Hoth, some white wires on his right are in a different position from the previous shot. This also happens in the third shot of him as he's approaching Dagobah.

Continuity mistake: During the battle of Hoth, the weather keeps changing between shots. The sky alternates between being totally clear of clouds, clear with some clouds, and very grey and overcast.

Continuity mistake: When Vader attempts to turn Luke to the dark side, he says, "With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy." As the second shot begins, Luke is standing much closer to the structure he's holding onto, than in the previous shot. (01:46:20)

Continuity mistake: When Yoda levitates Luke's X-wing, Luke comes over to watch, and his jacket is open. Two shots later, his jacket is closed. (01:09:05)

Revealing mistake: After Princess Leia switches C-3PO off and the camera angle switches to a close up of Han and Leia discussing where to go next, you can see C-3PO moving in the background as the actor inside the suit is breathing. (01:16:10)

Continuity mistake: During the battle of Hoth, Wedge flies a full circle around the AT-AT walker and when the walker begins to fall, you can see the cable around its legs, but in a side view of the walker falling, the cable is nowhere to be seen.

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

Suggested correction: The cable is thin and we only see closer in shots until the walker falls, but you still can see it, barely in 1080p, right as the head hits as a line between the top of the front leg connecting to the back leg.

jimba

Continuity mistake: When Han says "Watch this!" when trying to get the Millennium Falcon to jump into hyperspace, C3PO turns his head around twice. (00:37:40)

Continuity mistake: When Han attempts to shoot Vader, Vader deflects the bolts into the walls. As he says, "We would be honored if you would join us," you can see burn marks by the door and on the wall to the left. Two shots later, the burn mark by the door has changed shape and size, and in the last shot of the scene, the other one has disappeared. (01:25:05)

Continuity mistake: During the first scene in the lightsaber duel, Luke is holding his in different angles between shots, depending on the camera angle. (01:41:05)

Continuity mistake: Just after the Falcon leaves the hangar on Hoth, we see Luke watching the Falcon as it rises up into the sky. Look closely at Luke's head - he is looking at a point ahead of where the Falcon actually is. (00:35:45)

Factual error: There are three major mistakes regarding gravity in the escape sequence in the asteroid field. Han and Chewie take the Millennium Falcon to refuge on an asteroid that, while visually huge, is still far too tiny to have sufficient gravity to allow humans to walk in anything like a normal fashion; yet, they walk normally both inside and outside of the ship. They also do not use pressurized suits outside of the ship, even though the asteroid's gravity should be far too weak to accumulate any significant atmospheric pressure; they use oxygen masks, but their blood should have boiled in near-zero atmospheric pressure. Finally, and most ridiculously, they fly straight down the giant cave worm's throat and land on the side of its throat (this is obvious in the shot where the Millennium Falcon lifts off and heads toward the toothy exit), and they get out and walk around on the side of its throat, which would mean the asteroid's gravity was impossibly perpendicular to its mass. (00:57:50)

Charles Austin Miller

Revealing mistake: After Luke escapes from the snow monster, he collapses, and there's a shot of Han riding. When the camera pans down, there are no tracks in the snow where the tauntaun just ran. (00:11:00)

Continuity mistake: When Han punches Lando, Lando's cape stays on his back, but in the following shots, it's folded over his arm., before he puts it back on again. (01:29:45)

Continuity mistake: When Luke crash lands on Dagobah, the view through his cockpit is crystal clear. But when the canopy pops open, the glass is dark tinted. (00:39:45)

Continuity mistake: When Lando invites Han, Leia and Chewbacca for refreshments at Cloud City, we see a box containing C-3PO's remains and the head of C-3PO is looking to the right. But when the four of them leave the room, we see a close up of C-3PO's head and it is now looking to the left. (01:27:30)

Continuity mistake: Widescreen version: In the shot where Luke's hand is cut off, two of the poles that Vader just cut through can be seen in the lower right hand corner. The poles are much closer together than in the rest of the scene. (01:45:55)

Other mistake: When the AT-AT (Imperial Walker) blasts the shield generator, when it explodes, you can see the glowing remains of it (only visible on widescreen DVD). It was fixed in the 2019 version.

Continuity mistake: At the rebel base, Leia is informed that there is nothing more can do about Han and Luke until the morning and agrees to the hangar doors being closed. In the wide shot, you can see the doors starting to close, although the code hasn't been put in yet. In the next shot the code is put in and the doors start closing again. (00:12:10)

Gavin Jackson

Luke: All right, I'll give it a try.
Yoda: No. Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.

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

Trivia: When Billy Dee Williams (Lando) picked up his daughter from elementary school after the film's release, kids would run up to Williams and say "You betrayed Han Solo!"

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

More questions & answers from Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

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.