Continuity mistake: When Obi-Wan falls off the walkway during the duel with Darth Maul, his lightsaber lands on a lit strip of the floor. A few shots later he jumps up and retrieves his saber, which is now resting on a dark area on the floor. Even if the saber continued to roll on the floor between the shots, it couldn't have ended up in this position. (01:50:50)
Continuity mistake: When Anakin's friends show up while he is working on the Pod, in the second shot, the youngest girl is standing in front of Wald (the young Rodian), to his left. In the same shot, Padmé begins to walk past them and Anakin begins turning right. In the next shot, the girl is standing on Wald's right, the older girl is standing further away from him, Anakin has turned the other way and Padmé is nowhere to be seen. Then, when Anakin says, "That isn't the half of it", the youngest girl is crouching down, but in the next shot, she's standing straight up. And when the oldest girl says, "You've been working on that thing for years", she is standing closer to Wald than in the previous shot, and the other girl has moved from his right to in front of him. (00:45:55)
Continuity mistake: In the beginning of the scene where Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are addressing Boss Nass, they change positions between shots. This can be seen from the pattern on the floor. (00:14:25)
Continuity mistake: After R2-D2 repairs the shield generator of the Queen's ship and the power comes back, in the next shot of Artoo on top of the ship, the hose that the droid plugged into the generator is gone. (00:25:20)
Continuity mistake: When Anakin and Kitster are talking to Padmé in the Podracer hangar, Kitster says,"Finish the race, of course" and in the background, Qui-Gon walks into the shot from the right and touches the arm of an alien. In the next shot of the boys, Qui-Gon enters the shot from the right again, and touches the alien's arm a second time. (00:52:20)
Continuity mistake: During the climatic light-saber duel, just as Qui-Gonn and Obi-Wan have forced Darth Maul onto a ledge, look quickly and you will see that the red blade of Maul's light saber goes from being behind his waist to in front of it between shots.
Continuity mistake: When the Queen and her entourage enter the hangar where the pilots are being held, Jar Jar is not among the first people who walk in. In the next shot from behind, he is suddenly walking in the front part of the group. (00:25:15)
Continuity mistake: At the end, after Darth Maul has knocked Obi-Wan into the pit, Obi-Wan is beginning to remember about Qui-Gon's lightsaber. The scene shows Darth Maul with the lightsaber in his right hand. When Obi-Wan leaps out of the pit and flies over Darth Maul, the lightsaber switches to Maul's left hand. (01:58:55)
Continuity mistake: During the pod-race, as the racers pass the start/finish line between laps, we see a view of R2, C3PO and Anakin's friends. R2 turns his head to watch the pods go by and it raises up about an inch and a half on one side, then seems to be stuck, the view changes and R2's head is swivelling fine, then we get another view of the wonky lid. (01:00:25)
Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the Battle of Naboo, the Gungans create a shield around themselves using a number of shield generators on the backs of their mounted creatures. In a later scene, only one of these creatures has a shield generator on its back.
Continuity mistake: When Qui-Gon dies, you see him fall down - his hands clearly hit the ground and rest there after sliding off his body. In the close-up shot, Qui-Gon's right hand does not and rests on his stomach. (01:55:00)
Continuity mistake: When the storm is approaching and Anakin offers them a safe haven, as they set off you can see R2D2 in the background and there are no tread tracks leading to him - he's obviously been carried there and set down to wheel away. (00:36:20)
Continuity mistake: After Obi Wan halves Darth Maul, his lightsaber is in his hand as his body falls downward. Next shot is overhead and no saber is in hand or plummeting down the shaft.
Continuity mistake: Immediately before Watto throws the chance cube, watch the shot as he says "...Red, the mother.", there are no colours on the cube for a second. (00:51:20)
Continuity mistake: The shadows change angles all over the movie. First the shadows appear right beneath the characters, then in the next clip they are cast with an angle. And the shadows that ships and computer-animated animals cast are different from the "real" characters.
Continuity mistake: When Qui-Gon is cleaning Anakin's wound there's no blood on the swab after he wipes the cut. (00:48:00)
Continuity mistake: During the Podrace, the announcer says, "Skywalker's been forced onto he service ramp," and the people standing behind the gate begin to run away. At the end of the shot, they are still behind the gate, but in the next shot, all of them have moved away from it. (01:03:30)
Continuity mistake: When Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and Darth Maul get cut off from each other in the corridor and Qui-Gon kneels down, Obi-Wan is standing in the background with his lightsaber pointed downwards. In the next shot, it's pointing upwards. (01:51:45)
Continuity mistake: When Anakin says his last words to his mother, she is closer to the door than in the previous shot.
Continuity mistake: Tey How says that she lost the transmission. The screen behind Nute Gunray is blank. A few shots later, the transmission works again, although no-one went to the bridge corridor and fixed it.
Chosen answer: According to "Inside the Worlds of Star Wars: Episode I" by Kristin Lund, they are "laser doors which lock into position in response to potentially lethal power outputs that occur intermittently during plasma activation process" (the fight takes place in a plasma energy processing plant). There are six laser doors in deference to an ancient Naboo legend in which Chaos is held back by six inpentrable gates. As you say though, they're really just a plot device to add dramatic tension to the duel!
Sierra1 ★