Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi

Revealing mistake: If you watch closely (or play it in slow motion) when the scout trooper punches Han, you can see that the troopers hand never actually comes into contact with is face. (00:55:45)

Revealing mistake: When Luke somersaults over up to a platform above him when fighting Vader, If you look at the hair of Luke jumping, you will notice that the stunt double's hair is much more blonde than Mark Hamill's.

Revealing mistake: When Luke jumps from Jabba's prisoner's skiff over to another skiff, if you watch Lando hanging underneath the prisoner's skiff, you can easily see that he is a matte painting in this shot, because he doesn't move at all (visible on widescreen).

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

Revealing mistake: Vader tosses the Emperor and then collapses on some barrels next to the railing. Look at Vader's arm - the one with the severed hand. His arm is bent at the forearm in a way that arms just don't bend. This is because David Prowse's hand was inside an "elongated" arm to simulate it being chopped off. He couldn't keep his wrist straight, giving the appearance of a bent forearm. (01:57:00)

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

Revealing mistake: When Jabba's sail barge begins to explode, you can see that one of the floating skiffs is standing on stilts. (00:36:30)

Revealing mistake: The interior matte painting of the hangar on the Rebel ship holding the stolen Imperial shuttle doesn't match the appearance of the hangar from the exterior shot of the Rebel ship. The interior hangar shows an extended platform and four banks of vertical lights bordering the opening and then walls. From the exterior, the hangar appears to have a big light bank near the opening, and then thinner light banks behind it spaced further apart than the interior shot. The exterior shot also doesn't have a platform. (00:50:45 - 00:53:20)

Vader47000

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.

Revealing mistake: The close-up of R2-D2 waiting for Leia to return has a clear shot of the middle wire section of C-3PO in which you can see Anthony Daniels breathing as the spandex underneath the wires expands. This is especially clear on the Blu-ray. (01:02:00)

Vader47000

Revealing mistake: When Han Solo lifts his hands up and he spots the Walker that Chewie and two Ewoks are in, one of his hands is transparent, and the trees are visible through his hand.

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Suggested correction: They are not transparent. What you are seeing is glare from the bright sky in the background. You can see other ghost images matching the bright white portions of the shot. Besides, there would be no reason for it to be transparent. It appears to be a fully on-location shot with no compositing.

Completely not true. You can see the trees through his hands; therefore, they are transparent.

Look closer. There is a white ghost image that matches the bright white sky, offset to the left and rotated slightly. And why would the hand be transparent? This is not a composite shot.

While it's not a composite shot, that would mean that the shot of the imperial officer yelling "freeze" in the original version wouldn't have been transparent. But it's not a composite shot too, therefore, they are transparent.

Vector9061138

This comment makes no sense. What Imperial officer are you referring to and what does it have to do with this shot? And if this isn't a composite shot, which you seem to be admitting, why would the hand be transparent? Do you think Harrison Ford's hand actually became see-through?

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.

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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."

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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

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