Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi

Other mistake: When Vader first arrives at the station, he and the Commander are walking past rows of troops. If you look carefully, you will see a Stormtrooper in the back row with his helmet tipped so far forward it's almost off.

Other mistake: Widescreen version: When Luke and Vader enter the Emperor's throne room, the stars seen through the window behind the Emperor move a little faster than the stars seen through the two other windows. (01:26:35)

Other mistake: During the final confrontation with Vader on the Death Star, Luke bashes a catwalk railing with his light saber several times, but there are no burns, marks, or indentations on it at all. Considering the power of a light saber (Qui Gon melted a steel door in Phantom Menace), some damage should be visible. Only when he hacks off Vader's hand does the light saber slice through the rail.

Other mistake: When the ground battle on Endor begins, Leia runs to the bunker, and as the doors close, she fires a shot. In the original version of the movie, the blaster smokes, but no laser beam comes out of it and no sound is heard (do not confuse this with the sound of the doors closing). In the Special Edition, the sound has been added, but the laser is still missing. (01:38:05)

Other mistake: In the original cinema release, one of the subtitles for Jabba's conversation is incorrectly spelled - 'there will be no bargin'. This was corrected for the video release.

STP

Other mistake: When Vader's shuttle lands on the forest moon of Endor, an Imperial AT-AT walks near the landing pad. There's a strange shadow that keeps appearing and disappearing on one of its leg. Maybe the shadow of the puppeteers?

Dr Wilson

Other mistake: After the catwalk that Luke is standing on collapses, Vader walks down the stairs to find him. In the first shot, there's a shadow of a lightsaber blade on the right side of the steps, but Vader's sabre is extinguished at this point. It can't be the shadow of Luke's sabre. Widescreen version only. (01:46:00)

Other mistake: Look at the shots of the windows in the Emperor's chamber on the Death Star. When they are seen from a distance, the window frames are out of focus, but the stars remain in clear focus.

Other mistake: Widescreen version: When Han calls after Luke and Leia when they leave on the speeder bike, the head of the stormtrooper that attacks him can be seen in the lower right hand corner, as the actor is waiting for his cue. After Han calls after Luke and Leia, the stormtrooper suddenly pops up and attacks him. (00:56:15)

Other mistake: When R2-D2 cuts the net, only Han, Luke, and Chewbacca fall from it. Maybe C3P0 would have held for a moment because his leg was stuck in the net, but R2 was right over the hole.

Dr Wilson

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

Other mistake: During the fight between Luke and Darth Vader, when Vader throws his lightsaber at Luke, it is not only Luke's lightsaber from Episodes IV & V instead of his own, it is ignited upside-down, with the blade protruding from the pommel rather than the emitter. (01:50:20)

Other mistake: On Endor, after Han Solo's group was captured, C-3PO called out to the Empire's soldiers. One of them said "Bring those two down here!" Both C-3PO and R2-D2 were up there, but from the Imperials were standing, they could only see C-3PO. R2 was hidden behind a tree. They wouldn't know that he was there until they actually got close to the two.

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

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.

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: Who is Luke talking about when he covers up his hand and says that he has a promise to keep to an old friend? Who is the old friend?

Tyler R

Answer: Yoda. When he was departing for Cloud City to save his friends in the previous film, he promised Yoda that he would return to Dagobah to complete his training.

Phaneron

OK. But I thought he was talking about the holeish thing in his hand since he covered it up when he said it. I must have misunderstood it.

The hole in Luke's robotic hand reminds him that he got that robotic hand in the first place because he lost his duel with Darth Vader at Cloud City - a confrontation Yoda warned him he was not ready for.

TonyPH

More questions & answers from Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi

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