Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

31 pictures

★★★★☆

Starring: Harrison Ford, Frank Oz, James Earl Jones, Mark Hamill, Alec Guinness, Carrie Fisher, Anthony Daniels, Billy Dee Williams, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, David Prowse

Genres: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Star Wars, Thriller

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Visible crew/equipment: A boom microphone is reflected in Luke's goggles when he says "Hey, what's the matter? You smell something?"

Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the original 1980 version, in the first wideshot of Darth Vader's Star Destroyer, the light of a Star Destroyer can be seen on the right side just flying through space. This is fixed in the 2004 DVD release.

Continuity mistake: When one of the stormtroopers unties Han Solo before he is put into the carbonite, watch his wardrobe - he has a disappearing / reappearing jacket on. This is fixed to an extent on the DVD - the jacket is now lightened to almost match his shirt, but it's still shiny like leather. (01:32:05)

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Suggested correction: It just looks like a jacket because it's a shadow.

That is incorrect. You can see the contrast between the jacket and the shirt, with the white collar of his shirt sticking out of the brown jacket.

Catwalk ★

The shadow isn't touching all of the shoulders, which gives the illusion that there is a jacket on him, but there isn't.

Continuity mistake: After Luke says to Yoda, "You want the impossible," Yoda's position jumps from the ground to a rocky boulder, where he then lifts Luke's X-Wing fighter from the swamp. (01:11:30 - 01:13:05)

Cubs Fan ★

Visible crew/equipment: This can only be seen in the widescreen version. When Han, Leia and Chewie venture out of the Falcon to investigate the cave they're hiding in on the asteroid, as they walk towards the left of the screen you can see the edge of the tarpaulin sheet they're standing on as well as the faint outline of a crew member trying to get out of the camera shot. (00:58:40)

Visible crew/equipment: When the Wampa (ice creature) kills Luke's Tauntaun, the end of the "glove" used as the Wampa's arm can be seen in the bottom left corner, as well as the arm of the crew member wearing it. Widescreen only. Note that this has been fixed on the 2011 Blu-ray release. (00:03:55)

Revealing mistake: After the headless AT-AT begins to fall over, watch its back leg on the right side of the screen. You can see a broomstick being pushed up from under the set. It raises that foot up in order to ensure that the AT-AT falls to the left side of the screen. (00:33:00)

Continuity mistake: When Han first walks into the command center on Hoth, there's a shot of Leia looking at him. The shot has been flipped. This can be seen, for example, from that the men on either side of her have switched sides. (00:04:50)

Continuity mistake: After Han is frozen in carbonite, the outline of his shirt indicates that he is wearing a different shirt from when he was frozen. It isn't the shirt he's wearing after being unfrozen in "Return of the Jedi", it looks more like the shirt he was wearing in "Star Wars". (01:36:00 - 01:37:10)

Continuity mistake: When Vader cuts through three poles at the end of the lightsaber duel, there are different poles in the shot where he cuts through them and the next shot where they fall. The poles that are cut have a white color, while the ones that fall are dark grey. (01:45:50)

Revealing mistake: In Cloud City, Lando, Leia and Chewbacca are running to the Millennium Falcon, and when then they run into a door after Leia shoots a stormtrooper, a white rubber sole can be seen under one of Chewie's feet. (01:42:40)

Continuity mistake: When Han and Leia kiss in the Millennium Falcon, Leia's arms are around Han's head in the wideshot, but not in the close-up. (00:49:55)

Revealing mistake: Vader cuts off Luke's hand at the wrist. When Luke is holding on to the antennae-like assembly underneath Cloud City, in one shot, Mark Hamill bends his wrist, revealing the gimmick. (01:52:55)

Continuity mistake: Special edition only: Viewed from inside, the hotel where Leia, Han and Chewbacca are in Cloud City has a flat glass roof, but viewed from outside, it is flat with sloped edges. (01:22:25)

Dr Wilson

Continuity mistake: When Vader is seen in Cloud City, Lando says, "I had no choice, they arrived right before you did" and two of the stormtroopers on the lowest step are standing about a metre apart. In the following close-up of Lando, they are standing so close together that their ankles are touching. This can only be seen in the widescreen version. (01:25:05)

Continuity mistake: When Han is trying to keep Luke warm, his rank insignia badge alternates between being on the right and left side of his chest. The amount of snow on Han and Luke's clothes also changes repeatedly, especially Luke's. (00:14:15)

Continuity mistake: When Luke is hanging upside down from the roof of the ice creature's cave, his legs are apart. But in the close-up of his feet, his legs are together. (00:08:40)

Visible crew/equipment: When the Snow Speeders are looking for Luke and Han, you can see the blue screen reflected on the angled side of the pilots' goggles. (00:16:00)

Matty W

Continuity mistake: When the stormtroopers push Leia into the cell in Cloud City, she is wearing a completely different outfit from when she was taken captive. (01:25:20 - 01:28:35)

Continuity mistake: As already noted in another mistake, when Han is about to be frozen in carbonite, his jacket appears and disappears between shots. This jacket can also be seen when Lando says, "You're being put into carbon freeze." This shot was not fixed in the DVD. (01:35:05)

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

Suggested correction: That is a shadow, giving the illusion it's a jacket.

That is incorrect. You can see the contrast between the jacket and the shirt, with the white collar of his shirt sticking out of the brown jacket.

Catwalk ★

The shadow isn't touching all of the shoulders, which gives the illusion that there is a jacket on him, but there's not.

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

Mistakes

Visible crew/equipment: When C-3PO is on the conveyor belt, if you look in the reflection in his head you can see the camera crew. (01:26:40)

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Quotes

Darth Vader: Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.
Luke Skywalker: He told me enough! He told me you killed him!
Darth Vader: No. I am your father!

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

Trivia

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!"

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Questions

Question: Was it always Lucas' original plan to have Darth Vader be Luke's father?

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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