Star Wars
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Suggested correction: Actually, Luke's hair is still wet; it's just drying.

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Revealing mistake: When an Imperial Officer is running down the tunnel in the Detention Block towards Han, Luke and Chewbacca, Han clearly shoots the top-left hand corner of the tunnel and the Imperial Officer falls down the stairs as if he shot him. (01:14:55)

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Suggested correction: This is definitely intentional, not an error. We see stormtroopers being killed by nearby shots throughout the movie, blasters having a smaller 'shock wave' is just a retcon.

Corrected entry: In the Judland Wastes, right before Obi-Wan first appears, Luke is alerted to the presence of what turns out to be Tusken Raiders nearby and goes to investigate, instead of simply leaving with R2 and 3PO.

Cubs Fan

Correction: Luke has an insatiable appetite for adventure, it is well within his behavior to investigate the Sand People; he even took a rifle with him suggesting he was expecting to engage with them.

Corrected entry: When the stormtroopers breaks into the Blockade Runner, the explosion leaves a lot of debris on the floor, but when Lord Vader arrives a little bit later, there is much less debris.

Dr Wilson

Correction: The debris would have been moved by all the personnel (rebel soldiers and stormtroopers) moving about. Also, there are a lot of dead bodies, these would cover up a lot of debris.

Bruce Minnick

Correction: Also, since it is implied that the stormtroopers moved the bodies out of the middle of the hallway (since we see them lined up on the side rather than sprawled out in the middle), they probably also moved any debris that was in the hallway out of the way as well.

Corrected entry: In the bar on Tattooine (where Luke and Obi-Wan meet Han Solo), you see lots of aliens at the bar. Look carefully in the background of these shots, and you'll see a NASA astronaut in full space walk gear (helmet etc) walking across the back of the shot, complete with American flag on his arm. It's quite obvious once you know where to look.

Correction: I recently watched the scene and can see what looks a bit like the astronaut you're describing. However, while the helmet is similar, the costume is not a spacewalk suit, and is partially orange. This is more likely to be a generic alien than an easter egg.

Correction: There's no supporting evidence for this entry. I've watched the Cantina scene many times and no US astronaut is ever visible in the background. There are no stills from this scene on Google, Bing, or Ask that show the supposed astronaut.

Correction: Internet searches only bring up images of a character that looks somewhat like a mid-60s test pilot/astronaut. It's however, basically Bossk's costume with a "space helmet."

kayelbe

Stupidity: The Death Star comes equipped with a powerful tractor beam capable of capturing a ship the size and agility of the Millennium Falcon. Why don't they use it against the rebel fighters attacking them at the end of the film? Okay, Obi-Wan Kenobi turned it off earlier but I find it hard to believe that someone who has never before visited the largest, most complex space station in the Universe and who was previously unaware of its very existence can disable a fundamental security system but the people who designed, built and run the whole thing can't work out how to switch it back on. They should have no problems with this, considering the fact that Obi-Wan didn't damage it.

PEDAUNT

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Suggested correction: Obi Wan disrupted the battle at a critical time causing much confusion. We could chalk this oversight up to "Fog of War" - that in the heat of battle it's normal for commanders to overlook obvious things and seem to act stupidly. It would also be reasonable to assume that the fighters were too close for the tractor beam emitter to target them.

This scenario would require every single person on the Death Star who was involved in the maintenance of vital defence systems not noticing that one of them had been switched off! Not ONE person noticed? Obi Wan did not disable the tractor beam during "the heat of battle." There was a considerable time lapse between his switching off the tractor beam and the climactic final battle, during which time it would have been switched back on. When the Millenium Falcon leavs the Death Star Han Solo remarks that he hopes that "old man" succeeded in disabling the tractor beam, implying that those on the Death Star would be trying to use it. Even then, they didn't notice it had been switched off? Not sabotaged, not disabled, switched off.

Good point. This was definitely stupidity on the part of the Death Star crew, but not stupid as a plot point. It does happen in combat regularly. In 1987 the USS Stark was hit by 2 Iraqi Exocet missiles after challenging a single fighter. The ships' Close-in Weapons System should have easily shot the missiles down, but the investigation showed that no-one had noticed that the system had not been turned on.

They didn't use the tractor beam when the gang was escaping in the Falcon because they WANTED them to get away. The Empire placed a tracking beacon onboard so as to be able to find the hidden Rebel Base. As to how the Falcon was snagged originally: yes, they had just exited hyperspace, but they were not relatively fast; they were preoccupied with the TIE fighter (incapable of light speed) and the small moon right up to the point they were trapped in the tractor beam (and realizing "that's no moon!"

kayelbe

Suggested correction: The Falcon was travelling towards the Death Star when it was caught in the tractor beam. The tractor beam was properly turned back on by the time it travelled to Yavin. The rebel fighters are too small and quick to be held in a tractor beam and there are so many of them so it would be near impossible to trap enough to make a difference.

As I have already pointed out, assigning technical limitations to a wholly fictional piece of technology is absurd. As to "flying towards the Death Star" - the X and Y wing fighters are shown doing just that. As for being too quick, the Millenium Falcon is decelerating from superluminal speeds when it is captured in the tractor beam. That's pretty bloody fast in anyone's books.

The key phrase here is "fictional piece of technology", there is no way to understand how it works. Any explanations is pure conjecture.

ctown28

It's flat out stated by General Dodonna in the battle briefing that the Death Star's defenses are based around repelling attacks by capital ships, not fighters. The targeting may not be exact enough.

LorgSkyegon

Actually, claiming a fictional piece of equipment can't behave the way you think it should is somewhat silly. The previous explanation that the tractor beam's limitations were the reason for not using it during the battle makes perfect sense.

Corrected entry: After the Death star, the stick that is used to move the Millennium Falcon is visible when the first TIE fighter attacks it.

Dr Wilson

Correction: Just loaded up the scene on YouTube. That's literally just a part of the TIE fighter. It's not attached to the Falcon at all, and moves with the camera. I feel like this had to have been uploaded as a joke, because if you watch the scene, it's laughably obvious that it's not attached to the Falcon.

TedStixon

Correction: That's the stick used to control the Tie Fighter, not to move the Falcon.

Continuity mistake: During the fight against the TIE fighters, the interior shot shows the turrets on the Falcon both point straight up and down respectfully, when in other shots the top turret for example is facing forward.

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Suggested correction: There is no objective up or down on a spaceship. The artificial gravity for the turrets are at 90 degree angle to the rest of the ship.

You missed the point of the mistake. Luke and Han are sitting so their backs are parallel to the deck of the Falcon, the guns are then perpendicular to their back, making them perpendicular to the deck of the Falcon. But in exterior shots, the guns are more parallel to the deck than they should be.

Bishop73

Corrected entry: R2's beeps and whistles can only be interpreted by another droid (3PO), or Luke's on board X-Wing computer (as seen in TESB). With the Death Star approaching the Rebels begin to mount their attack from the Fourth Moon of Yavin. As Luke jumps into the cockpit of his X-Wing a member of the ground crew says "Hey this R2 unit of yours is a little beat-up, do you want a new one?". To which Luke replies "Not on your life, that little droid and I have been through a lot together. You okay R2". The little droid then beeps at Luke and Luke says "Good". For all we know R2 could well have been saying "No not really, I've been shot at and chased by Imperial Troops all day. I'm a little scared of this whole being in space making suicide runs on the Death Star caper, and if it's all the same to you I'll stay here". To which his new master says "Good", and promptly blasts off into space.

Correction: How do you know that Luke can't understand a little bit of R2's language? I don't speak Spanish fluently, but I can understand if a Spanish-speaking person responds "si" to my question.

Correction: Whenever he is happy, the bleeps are sometimes high pitched.

Corrected entry: When Luke and Ben first see R2D2 and C3po, Ben says he doesn't remember owning or know the droids, but we know he knows them from episodes 1 - 3.

Correction: Obi-Wan never says he doesn't know the droids. Just that he never owned them. R2-D2 claimed to have been owned by Obi-Wan, Luke passed the comment along to him, and Obi-Wan denied it. It's not a mistake. Even if Obi-Wan were lying, it'd still just be a character decision.

Phixius

Correction: He's not lying. Obi-Wan never owned a droid. Anakin owned R2-D2 and the only other droids Obi-Wan is to use were in ships and presumably owned by the Jedi Order.

LorgSkyegon

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Other mistake: When the stormtroopers break into the control room, the stormtrooper on the right of the screen hits his head on the door frame. On the DVD release they've added a thump when he hits it. (01:18:55)

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Trivia: When Alec Guinness was offered the part of Obi-Wan Kenobi he was offered about $25,000 to play the part. After reading the script he was one of the few cast members who believed that the film would be a box office hit; he negotiated a deal for 2% of the gross royalties paid to the director, George Lucas, who received one fifth of the box office takings. Guinness made over $3,000,000, making him very wealthy in his later life.

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Question: During the trash compacter scene, Luke gets sucked under by the one-eyed monster thing, which leads to Han and Leia trying to find him. But if the water's only about knee deep, why is it so hard for him to be found?

Answer: Presumably because the monster has pulled him through the lair of whatever they are standing on into whatever space the rest of the body of the monster lives in. Obviously, the monster doesn't live in the part of the part of the compactor that does the compacting or it would be already compacted.

Myridon

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