Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

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.

Revealing mistake: In the shot where the Falcon is underneath the Star Destroyer, it is transparent and you can see the part of the Star Destroyer through it.

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

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.

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

Continuity mistake: When Luke crashes on the snow he tries to open the cockpit pushing the canopy. A shot later he is pushing the windshield. This changes back and forth several times.

Sacha ★

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

Continuity mistake: After Luke's snowspeeder crashes on the snow, right before he exits, there's no damage on the right window. From the outside shot it's broken all over.

Sacha ★

Continuity mistake: After Boba Fett's ship takes off, C-3PO yells, "Oh no. Chewie, they're behind you." Chewbacca shoots at the newly arrived stormtroopers and one of them falls over dead, next to the big white sculpture at the top of the stairs. In the next shot, where R2-D2 spins around before going after the others, the stormtrooper's body is gone. (01:43:55)

Catwalk ★

Continuity mistake: When the Imperial stormtroopers arrive to prevent Leia, Han and Chewbacca from escaping after being captured by Darth Vader, Lobot (Lando's aide) walks down the steps and stands in front of two of the stormtroopers. When we see Lando saying "I'm sorry" in the next shot, Lobot has disappeared. (01:28:40)

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

Continuity mistake: When the Falcon is being pursued by the Star Destroyers after escaping Hoth, C-3PO enters the cockpit, attempting to talk with Han, but the ship shakes and he lands on Chewie. After Han says to check the deflector shields, Chewie pushes C-3PO off him, though C-3PO leaves his hand on Chewie's shoulder. In the next shot, C-3PO is suddenly standing at the other end of the cockpit, with his hand nowhere near Chewie. (00:37:10)

Casual Person

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

Quotes

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

Trivia

Trivia: This was the only movie in the Star Wars series until Episode VII in 2015 without a scene on the planet Tattooine.

Xofer

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

Questions

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.