Continuity mistake: During the speeder chase scene, Leia jumps from her speeder and it blows up, the stormtrooper then hits a tree. The camera shows the tree as a hollow shaft, but when the stormtrooper smashes into it, suddenly it is solid. (01:58:15)
Continuity mistake: Widescreen version: After Leia tells Han that Luke is her brother, she kisses him, and then removes her hand from his neck twice. (01:59:20)
Continuity mistake: When Han and Leia kiss after the Death Star explodes, after Wicket shows up, Han's hand is on the back of Leia's head. In the next shot, his hand is on her arm, and Leia's thumb is touching his jaw, which it didn't do in the previous shot. (01:59:30)
Continuity mistake: Widescreen version: When Darth Vader dies, the chin part of his helmet is missing in the last shot. (02:01:30)
Revealing mistake: In many of the scenes taking place in outer space, if you look closely you can see polygon borders surrounding space vehicles (X-Wings, Star Destroyers, and even the Death Star) indicating the objects being superimposed into the outer space background. [This mistake may only apply to the Blu Ray version.]
Revealing mistake: When Luke is being fed to the Rancor, in Jabba the Hutt's dungeon, there are black outlines around the beast's legs, from the composite's blue screen special effect. This was edited out in the special edition rerelease.
Suggested correction: This was not a "mistake". The outlines showing around the beast's leg were due to the limited CGI technology at the time the film was made. With advances in special effects in the following decades, the filmmakers were able to enhance the CGI quality in later releases.
But it is a mistake to show that the Rancor is not real, and the outlines show that. It's certainly not intentional.
Not sure what you mean that the rancor is not real. Of course it's not real. The issue is, at that time, it was not technically possible to show the beastie without the lines showing. I classify a mistake as something that was not intentional. In this case, it was, due to the limitations of CGI in the 1980s.
Continuity mistake: On the forest moon of Endor when Princess Leia first meets the Ewok, she takes her helmet off and is holding it in her hand (which frightens the Ewok) in the very next shot she is removing it again to show it to him.
Revealing mistake: The shots at the end of the movie with the emperor are obviously lit from the front. This exposed too much of the emperor's head inside the cowl so it was darkened to make him look more menacing. Look for the added shadow - it looks like someone took a black magic marker and coloured on the film. (This may be corrected on the re-release).
Audio problem: When they are fighting on the smaller skiffs above the Great Pit of Carkoon, Luke beckons to Leia to get her to swing on that rope with him to safety. He says "come on", but his mouth never moves.
Other mistake: DVD and Blu-ray only: in the Battle of Endor, right after the rebel fighter says "there's too many of them." The Millennium Falcon goes into 1/4 of the picture, you can see a black square spot on the right side of the flash frame due to a bad filter usage. Widescreen only. It does not appear in the 4K release even though it wasn't removed.
Continuity mistake: When Vader is driven to his knees during the duel, his elbow is over the handrail, but when Luke cuts off his hand, Vader's wrist is lying over the handrail instead.
Continuity mistake: When Lando is hanging over the pit, he has gloves on, then he has no gloves, then they're back and so on.
Revealing mistake: When Admiral Piett says "I have orders from the emperor myself," the right edge of the matte can be seen on the right. Theater version only. This has been corrected on the 1997 special edition release.
Visible crew/equipment: The rancor puppeteer's arm can be seen on the far right side of the screen as it starts poking at a hiding Luke. Widescreen version only.
Continuity mistake: When Wicket wakes up Leia in the woods, the hooded garment he is wearing changes length between shots.
Revealing mistake: (Original theatrical release) When the imperial officer yells "Freeze", he is transparent and you can see the reactor through him.
Visible crew/equipment: After Luke cuts Vader's hand, there's a shot of the Emperor walking downstairs. The shadow of the crew is visible on the lower left corner of the image. It can't be the shadow of Luke.
Revealing mistake: In many far away shots of the sail barge you can see it is on a dune rather than in mid air.
Continuity mistake: Before Chewbacca and two Ewoks swing on a vine to the roof of one of the AT-ST walkers, in a shot of them running, Chewie's bandolier is on the wrong side.
Continuity mistake: In the sequence of the Emperor torturing Luke, there are several close-ups of Vader. Look at his helmet - it goes back and forth between being clean and being dusty.
