Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi

Correction: The creatures take the handcuffs off him just before the carbonite is poured in - when there is a close-up of the frozen Han, at the end of Empire, his hands are visible, partly raised and sticking out of the carbonite. He is in the same position when Leia frees him in Jedi.

STP

Corrected entry: In the scene where the Admiral of the rebel fleet indicates that the ships should wait for his signal before entering hyperspace to go to attack the death star all of the ships make the jump immediately.

Correction: He probably used a computer signal that was broadcast to every screen in the fleet at one time, not an auditory command that you may have expected. There was also probably some kind of computer link up to make sure they went to the same place at the same speed or else faster ships would get there earlier or facing the wrong way in space or something. On "his mark" could have meant a computer command that fed all of this info straight to the ship computers. He told them that he would give them a signal, he did, then they left.

Corrected entry: Because of the angle of the rope that Luke and Leia take to escape from Jabba's ship, they shouldn't be able to swing as far as they do. (01:34:50)

Correction: Due to Luke's connection to the Force, he may have used the Force to swing himself and Leia all the way onto the skiff.

Corrected entry: When Han was frozen in carbonite in "The Empire Strikes Back", there were straps around his upper arms, which were not removed before he was frozen, like the handcuffs were. But when he's unfrozen this film, the straps are gone. (00:18:25)

Correction: Already listed and corrected. The Ugnaught guards can be seen removing all his constraints before he is frozen, both handcuffs and these straps.

Twotall

Corrected entry: When Oola the dancing girl is trying to get away from Jabba, we can hear her talk, but her lips don't move. (00:13:00)

Correction: There are several dozen people in the Throne Room. It looks more like Oola is only busy trying to free herself, while someone else, quite possibly the large dancing girl, is the one who is trying to plead for her life.

Corrected entry: When the technicians on the new Death star are preparing to fire, they look suspiciously like stock footage of the technicians preparing to fire the old Death Star in Star Wars, only reversed.

Correction: What else is it suppossed to look like? It's the same procedure, and should look the same.

Corrected entry: When Han was frozen in carbonite in "the Empire Strikes Back", his arms were bound by a leather strap. But when he is unfrozen, his arms are free. (01:18:25)

Correction: Just before Han was frozen, his hands were unbound by the Ugnaughts.

Cubs Fan

Corrected entry: When the Ewok steals the speeder to distract the stormtroopers (first time code), he gets on it, starts it up and takes off at a high enough rate of speed that he is left dangling horizontally from the handlebars. In an earlier shot (second time code), however, we see that the throttle for these bikes is a foot pedal which he couldn't have reached in the first place. How did he get this thing moving? (01:28:30)

Correction: The throttle was in the handlebars which they twisted to make it go faster, while the gear shift was in the foot pedals.

Soylent Purple

Corrected entry: After Han is released from the carbonite, he is blind, but when he turns around to face Jabba, he moves his arm to avoid Leia's head. (00:19:30)

Correction: Because he knows how tall she is and that she is standing right next to him.

Corrected entry: When Vader throws his lightsaber at Luke during the duel, watch in slow motion: in the first shot of Luke, the blade is coming out of the wrong end of the hilt.

Correction: On closer inspection, the blade comes out of the correct end the entire time.

There's already an entry about that with a picture.

Corrected entry: When a damaged Rebel ship is heading towards the bridge of a Star Destroyer, an Imperial officer begins to run for cover, as does Admiral Piet--immediately afterwards. In the next shot, Piett is further away from the window of the bridge than in the previous shot.

Correction: That is because he is running away!

Vernon Gilmore

Corrected entry: When Luke is on Jabba's skiff, he gets shot in his bionic hand. If you watch in slow-motion, you will see that his hand sparks before the laser even hits it. Also, the laser is heading for his wrist, but the sparks explode from higher up.

Correction: This does not appear to be a mistake. There are actually many examples of this happening in the Star Wars movies. This suggests that the blaster bolts have two components; the visible part of the bolt and a faster, invisible part of the bolt.

Corrected entry: When the Rancor eats the pig guard he bites his own hand.

Correction: The rancor is what we would consider "primitive". He's probably a messy eater, and probably bites his hand a lot.

Corrected entry: I think that this is only on the Special Edition version. What is that annoying little black spot on the left side of Emperor Palpatine's face? This takes place while the Emperor is sitting on his throne and talking to Luke (he is looking out of the window) about his friends failure. It is like this error on the side of his hood that the restoring people forgot to edit out.

Correction: The shadow that can be seen on either side of Emperor Palpatine's eyes are caused by an insert matte. The eyes are actually those of a monkey.

It's a black shape that covers the eyelight of the hood. It was digitally covered in the Blu-ray.

Corrected entry: During the battle on the skiff, Luke kicks the air and his opponent a few inches away falls back.

Correction: That's the beauty of the force: no physical contact needed.

Phixius

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.

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

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.

raywest

But it is a mistake to show that the Rancor is not real, and the outlines show that. It's certainly not intentional.

lionhead

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.

raywest

More mistakes in Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi

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 filming ROTJ, Lucas didn't want anyone to find out that they were shooting the third Star Wars movie, because pandemonium could break out. So when someone asked the crew what they were filming, they said "Blue Harvest". All of the crew had shirts and hats that said Blue Harvest on them. The fictitious film's tagline was "Horror beyond imagination."

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.