Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi

Revealing mistake: During the speeder bike chase scenes, speeders bikes don't affect any vegetation, even though they're flying near the ground at incredible speed.

Continuity mistake: On Jabba's sail barge, Luke gets shot in his mechanical hand. This leaves a large burn mark on the back of the hand, but when he swings to the skiff on the rope with Leia, the burn is gone. (00:36:00)

Continuity mistake: In the bunker, just after R2 gets shot, Han tries to hotwire the door. A second blast door closes, and you can see that it is very flat and cardboard looking. A few moments later, Leia gets shot, and as Han is tending to her, notice that the door is now massively armored and three-dimensional, completely different from the door seen earlier.

Visible crew/equipment: During the speederbike chase, there are several shots where the support arms holding up the fronts of the bikes are visible.

Matty W

Continuity mistake: When Han enters the cockpit of the shuttle Tyderium, as the shot ends, he is about to walk past Luke. In the next shot, he has already walked past him and has begun to sit down. (00:50:25)

Continuity mistake: When Vader's shuttle exits the Star Destroyer in the beginning of the film, it is followed by two TIE fighters. The TIE fighters are far apart, but in the next shot, they're close together. (00:02:15)

Revealing mistake: When Luke and Vader enter the Emperor's throne room, in the shot from behind, you can see the stairs through Luke. (01:26:30)

Continuity mistake: When the Imperials are tricked into leaving the bunker, they are surrounded by Ewoks, and as the shot ends, if you look through the crowd, you can see that Han turns his head to his right. In the next shot, he's facing forward again. (01:46:55)

Continuity mistake: After Han is released from the carbonite, he falls to the ground, soiling his shirt. In the following shots, the amount of dirt changes continuously between shots. Later, when Han and Luke are brought before Jabba, his shirt is clean.

Continuity mistake: In the first shot of the Emperor's force striking Luke, the Emperor's hands are in a different position from the previous shot. This also happens after he says, "You have paid the price for your lack of vision." (01:50:30 - 01:51:10)

Continuity mistake: On the forest moon of Endor, when the stormtrooper punches Han, he falls and has a blaster in his hand but it disappears when he hits the ground. He can't have thrown it during the time he was falling, because he shot accidentally when he was near the ground. If he has thrown it, it should have been near him.

Dr Wilson

Revealing mistake: When Leia takes a speeder to chase the stormtrooopers, there is an SFX box around it and it makes no shadow on the ground.

Dr Wilson

Continuity mistake: When the little Ewok finds Leia, and she rises up, he points his spear at her and you can see that the front of his leather hood is over the spear's shaft. The shot changes to Leia, the back to the Ewok and now spear is over the hood, the shots change again and now the hood's front is crumbled up between the spear and the Ewok´s body.

Continuity mistake: After Vader enters the Emperor's throne room to tell him that Luke is one of the Rebels landing on Endor, as the shot ends, he is just about to walk up the stairs. In the next shot, he has already walked up the stairs. (01:03:50)

Continuity mistake: When Vader is searching for Luke in the dark, in the first shot, he is walking around a computer terminal, with the great window behind him. In the next shot, he's on the other side of the terminal, with the window in front of him. (01:47:10)

Revealing mistake: After the Rebels break into the bunker, a Rebel in the background punches an officer. But if you watch closely or play it in slow motion, the Rebel's hand never comes into contact with the officer's face. (01:33:25)

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

Suggested correction: If you have to use slow motion to see something, it's not a mistake.

Sacha

It says "if you watch closely OR play it in slow motion." It is perfectly visible at normal speed.

Catwalk

Continuity mistake: Before the Emperor gives permission to fire the Death Star, in the scene at the bridge of the Star Destroyer, the blue rank insignia of Admiral Piett and another Imperial officer is coloured black. This is probably caused by bluescreen effects replacing everything blue with the colour of space. This can also be seen when a Rebel ship hits the Star Destroyer at the end of the film.

Revealing mistake: In the scene where Han and Lando are talking in the hangar after the big meeting about the new Death Star, right when the scene opens and the shot pans down, notice how half the hangar is real and the other half is a matte painting. (00:49:30)

Continuity mistake: In the beginning of the scene where Luke is being electrocuted by the Emperor, the Emperor is standing at the bottom of the stairs. When he says, "Young fool... Only now, at the end, do you understand", he is standing in front of the great window. However, in the next shot of the Emperor, he is standing at the bottom of the stairs again, before he walks down to his previous position. (01:50:50)

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

Revealing mistake: In the wide-shot where Luke leaps from the prisoner skiff over to another skiff, you can see the stick used during the filming, which is much shorter than the regular one. The blade is not even glowing. (It is not just simply the hilt of the sabre, it's too long for that.). (00:32:15)

Yoda: When 900 years old you reach, look as good you will not.

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: 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.