Continuity mistake: When Luke is about to climb the ladder to get into the X-wing, there's a man fixing the ladder who starts to walk away, and another man walking under the wing and leaving. A shot later, the man by the ladder is gone, and the second guy is metres behind, though now he walks away going straight ahead. (01:43:42)
Continuity mistake: In the beginning of the movie, aboard Blockade runner, a big smudge of dirt appears on top of R2-D2, close to his square-framed lens 'eye'. This was not present a minute earlier and when the droids have landed on the desert, the smudge is gone again. (00:02:40 - 00:09:50)
Continuity mistake: When the garbage compactor is going to crush them, Chewbacca takes his weapon to retain the walls. He takes it again in the next shot. [Duplicated mistake]
Continuity mistake: During the medal ceremony, there is a close-up of Han followed by a shot of Leia with a big smile. She turns to the right to get a medal, then there is a wider shot of her and she's not smiling.
Continuity mistake: When the walls of the trash compactor start moving, Han is holding the pole, and leans it against the wall to his left (we hear it hit the wall). In the next shot, the pole leaning on the wall to his right instead., and the right side of the pole moves up and down between the next few shots.
Continuity mistake: When Darth Vader kills Obi-Wan Kenobi, there is a gunfight between Luke, Han and stormtroopers. While this is happening, Vader is seen leaving the hallway, but in one shot he is back in the hallway standing on Obi-Wan's cloak.
Continuity mistake: Widescreen version: In the trash compactor, before the scene where the droids leave the control room, both ends of the pole used to stop the compactor are coming into contact with the walls. After the droids leave the room, the right end of the pole is not coming into contact with the wall. (01:18:50 - 01:19:45)
Continuity mistake: When Luke sees Red Leader hit the Death Star surface, an explosion appears out of nowhere and the X-Wing is not seen at all. Furthermore, the plummeting ship would have spread debris over a much wider area considering it was falling at such a shallow angle. (01:48:30)
Continuity mistake: When they are leaving Mos Eisley Han wears gloves, but when he pulls the lever to jump into hyperspace, they disappear. (00:54:15)
Continuity mistake: When R2D2 is captured by the Jawas, a Jawa welds a restraining bolt to the middle of a panel on R2. When the shot changes to a close up, it's being attached to the top of the panel. The shot changes again, and it's welded to the middle again.
Continuity mistake: In the garbage crushing facility, when the walls are coming in, you see them with about 15 feet space, then it zooms to the actors, they talk for about 5 seconds, and then it zooms out again with still 15 feet of space. The walls are coming in for about a minute. At the rate they were moving, they should have been crushed in around 20 seconds.
Continuity mistake: Just after the creature lets Luke go, Leia says, "It could be worse." In the next shot (after the compactor makes its first sound), Luke can clearly be seen saying, "What's that?", but his question has been edited out.
Continuity mistake: When Luke and R2 are doing the trench run, a tie shoots at Luke and blows the top of R2's head off. But in the next scene R2's top is on again.
Continuity mistake: During the Death Star trench run, Wedge quits because his X-Wing is damaged. The sky behind him changes from grey to black in the same shot.
Continuity mistake: Widescreen version: In the trash compactor, Han says to Leia, "Get on top of it." In the next shot, Leia can be seen in the background, in a totally different position from the previous shot. For example, she is holding the pole differently. (01:20:25)
Continuity mistake: When Luke sees the holograph of Princess Leia for the first time, and says, "Who is she, she's beautiful," Mark Hamill's hair is rather tousled. In the next shot of him, it's neatly combed. Then, when he gets up and says, "Well I don't know anyone named Obi-Wan...," his hair is tousled again!
Continuity mistake: When Luke has been knocked unconscious by the Sand People and Obi-Wan appears and scares them off, there's a shot of Luke lying there and one of his sleeves is in disarray, halfway up his arm. But when Obi-Wan checks his pulse, he does it right through a fully-covered-by-the-sleeve wrist. (00:28:25)
Continuity mistake: When in the Death Star, there is a shot of five stormtroopers standing next to the Millennium Falcon. Two of the stormtroopers are right next to the boarding ramp. The camera instantly changes to a higher point of view and the two stormtroopers have moved about four feet farther away from their original spots.
Continuity mistake: In the scene just before Luke goes to eat dinner, C3PO has a towel or rag in his hand in some scenes, and it is missing in others. This continues as he admonishes R2 about replaying the message.
Continuity mistake: When Luke first sees the holomessage from Leia, she is bending down to stop the recording while still saying "Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope." When the message is viewed for the second time, she finishes speaking, looks around, and then bends down to stop the recording.
Answer: While planning Star Wars, Lucas had a vague notion of doing a long series of movies inspired by old serials, then dropped that idea in favor of just one. When Star Wars became a phenomenon and sequels became feasible, Lucas revisited the idea. He thought of three trilogies along with some stand-alone "in-between" stories for a total of 12 films. By the time of The Empire Strikes Back's release, this was pared down to the 9 mainline films, going by interviews with Lucas and the cast at the time. By Return of the Jedi, Lucas had decided to end the saga there, with the option that he could revisit the first three at some later point. It's unclear if Lucas ever had any specific story ideas for the proposed sequel trilogy, and they never had any scripts. Producer Gary Kurtz suggested in an interview they would've been about Luke's twin sister (not Leia), though many fans are skeptical about just how much he would know about them. Of course since this question was asked a sequel trilogy was written and released.
TonyPH