Goofs

In the cantina, when Dr. Evazan says to Luke, "He doesn't like you," and "I don't like you either," his mouth doesn't match both lines.

Just before Alderaan is destroyed, Governor Tarkin asks the Princess "You would prefer another target, a military target, then name the system!" In the reaction shot of the Princess you can see Tarkin's mouth moving but there is no sound.

During the heroes' procession into the award ceremony, the assembled rebel soldiers turn (either left-face or right-face, depending on which side of the aisle they were standing), accompanied by the appropriate sound of their feet stomping to complete the movement. However, only a few actors (visible on the left side of the aisle) actually stomp their feet after making their turn.

When C-3PO and R2-D2 are in the control room of the Death Star, the storm troopers barge in, and one hits his head on the door. This goof was highlighted in the remastered version with a comedy "donk" sound effect.

In the music in the ending credits, a trumpet overblows and hits a wrong note

When C-3PO and R2-D2 depart in the escape pod, the gunners on the Star Destroyer who spot it remark "there goes another one," as if several have been jettisoned. Back on board Leia's ship, however, the officer tells Darth Vader that only one was jettisoned.

When Uncle Owen says to Luke that Obi-Wan "died around the same time as your father", Luke immediately says "He knew my father?". Owen didn't say anything about him knowing his father.

Han hides himself and his passengers under the floor panels of the Millenium Falcon, easily evading the Imperial search party. He also says he frequently uses them for smuggling. Yet he is in debt to Jabba the Hutt for dumping a shipment because he feared an Imperial boarding party, rather than hiding his shipment.

When Darth Vader strikes down Ben Kenobi, his cloak is empty the entire take. However, his cloak doesn't fall until he gets hit with Darth's lightsaber.

When Luke and Obi Wan Kenobi are talking at the Jawa's Sandcrawler, Luke refers to R2D2 and C3PO as "Robots." All other times they are referred to as Droids.

After escaping the Death Star, the Millennium Flacon flies back to the rebel base. During the flight, Solo asks Leia about the information in R2-D2's memory. Leia right away blurts out that the data is actually the complete plans for the Death Star and they hope to find its weakness by analyzing them. Why would Leia divulge such mission critical information to anyone? She certainly wouldn't divulge it to Han, a proven scoundrel and mercenary with no loyalties.

When Ben and Luke are boarding the Millennium Falcon at Mos Eisley, the Stormtroopers are told to "load your weapons". However, their blasters would have already been loaded given the heightened state of The Empire looking for the droids and that Mos Eisley is a "wretched hive of scum and villainy".

When Luke is practicing with the lightsaber in the Millennium Falcon, his lightsaber blade is a very pale green. He turns it off to talk to Ben and when he turns it back on, it is back to its "proper" light blue. This mistake is only in the 2004 DVD release.

C-3PO sustains a dent on his head during the Sandpeople attack, but the dent appears, disappears, and swaps sides frequently during the movie.

When Ben gives Luke the lightsaber, and Luke activates it, the cape hanging on the wall behind him disappears while the saber is active, and re-appears when it is shut off.

The windows at the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon do not match when viewed from outside and when viewed from inside.

Princess Leia is in the trash compactor with her bright white robes on standing almost knee-deep in alien muck and filthy water (and metal junk which is oddly enough floating on the water). She climbs up on the metal chunks, as the compactor closes to almost the width of a human body (which oddly enough also hasn't crushed the team or been pushed upward much as the width of the trash compactor has decreased). Yet, when the trash compactor has been stopped, and they exit it, in the next scene, Princess Leia's robes are still pristine white, unsoiled, not wet and not ripped.

When the Falcon is escaping the Death Star, they are pursued by four fighter craft. After three of the fighters are destroyed, what should be the lone remaining craft is next seen accompanied by another. The second craft apparently reassembles itself just long enough for this one fly-by, as it is not seen again (this was corrected in the Special Edition, as only one TIE fighter is visible in the shot).

The Jawa that stuns R2D2 puts his gun into the holster twice in subsequent shots.

In the original theatrical release, when the laser bolt from the Death Star is fired at Alderaan, two separate explosions take place, not one, and some rubble that is fired from the planet during the first explosion disappears when the second explosion is taking place.

The blue panels on R2-D2 appear black when he is in the X-Wing with Luke in space. This is a blue screen shot which effectively makes R2's panels transparent. In the Special Edition, they left them as black but the newly added CGI X-Wing shots with R2-D2 are blue.

When C-3PO and R2-D2 take over the control room, three guns are leaning against the little window that overlooks the hanger. But in a few different shots, there are four guns.

The hologram of Leia that Luke discovers changes for one repetition as Luke and C3PO discuss it.

The restraining bolt placed on R2-D2 by the Jawas moves between scenes.

For the 1997 Special Edition, Industrial Light and Magic made CG models of the X-Wings (based on the "Red 2" filming model, Wedge's ship) and the Millennium Falcon (based on the filming model built for Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back). Thus in the new, CG Special Edition shots, Luke's X-Wing incorrectly has two red stripes on each wing (instead of five), and the Falcon has the two extra landing gear bays on its underside it didn't *originally* have until Empire (it also has a slightly different paint scheme).

A cloud appears over one of Tatooine's suns too quickly.

In the scene with the oil bath in Luke's garage, C3PO is holding a rag. We cut away to R2D2, then cut back to C3PO, and the rag is gone. Then cut to R2D2 again and cut back to C3PO, then the rag is back.

When Luke enters the Yavin hangar bay, the rebel "bird" insignia on his helmet is a uniform bright red. In subsequent shots it's a dark, blotchy red and the insignia is outlined in black.

After their escape from the trash compactor, Han and Luke exchange their belts for stormtrooper belts and blasters. As they escape from the Death Star, Han sits in the pilot's chair wearing the stormtrooper belt, but when he gets up to go to the gunnery chair he's wearing his original gun belt and blaster.

The pitcher in Luke's hand while he is talking to Uncle Owen changes hands a few times.

In the escape from Mos Eisley, Obi-Wan is visible in the background, out of position, with a green light shining on his white shirt, making it appear green.

When Luke and his uncle are talking at supper he takes the cup of blue milk away from his face and in the next shot when he asks, "He knew my father?" the cup is at his mouth again and he is again taking it away. Also, the cup continually switches from Luke's right hand to his left and back throughout the scene.

On the way to the turbo lift to the detention area, the position of the rifle Han Solo (dressed as a stormtrooper) jumps from shot to shot.

In the shot directly before Owen approaches C-3PO, R5D4 is visible in the background in drive mode (body tilted, 3rd leg lowered). In the following shot, R5D4 stands straight with 3rd leg most likely retracted.

When Han steps off the transport on Gavin his blaster is in the wrong leg as the image is reversed.

In the sand crawler, when C-3P0 tells R2-D2 "Wake up!" (at around 16 mins) the rim of R2's hologram projector is damaged, with a piece of it missing. Soon after, when R2 tries to follow 3P0 and is stopped by the Jawa (at around 18 mins) the rim of the projector is undamaged.

Just after Leia has been rescued from her cell on the Death Star and says sarcastically, "Great Rescue!" as they are being fired at, her fringe is smoothed away from her face. The next time we see her part of her fringe is falling across her forehead, and in the shot after that it is back in place.

Direction of the shadows changes several times by almost 180 degrees between shots when R2D2 and C3PO are sold to Owen. Light conditions change simultaneously several times from bright to moderate and back.

Items on Ben's table as he watches the hologram.

On Yavin base, Luke's X Wing has a continuous red line on the side of it's fuselage both before & after the Death Star battle,but when Luke's X Wing is flying,the red line on the side of the fuselage is broken or'dashed'.

In the second run to destroy the Death Star, the bomb explodes on the surface and is such a big explosion that the interior shot of the hallway (@1:52) shows the explosion inside along with Troopers being tossed around.

The three TIE fighters behind the explosion do not take any damage and are unaffected. They also suddenly show up behind the final X-Wing fighter and shoot them down, even though it was further ahead and there was an explosion blocking their path.

When Luke is being pursued by the tie fighter, someone asks red 6 if he can see red 5 (which is Luke). Red 6 was already shot down at that point.

During the front shots of Darth Vader and the TIE pilots attacking the rebels during the trench run there is no view of the trench, only the star field. During the front shots of the rebel pilots you see both the star field and trench.

After C3P0 fools the stormtroopers into leaving the command room, the tall one remains to stand guard. The blast door is not all the way up, and clearly at his head level (see Goofs). In the very next shot, when C3P0 talks to the tall stormtrooper, the blast door has now moved up so that it is clear of his head.

Ben Kenobi says that the Force is an Energy Field that surrounds all living things, despite learning from his Master, Qui-Gon, that the more midichlorians someone has, the more Force they have.

Lightsabers are weapons that generate bright shafts of laser beam energy 1 meter long. However these shafts of light do not cast any light upon people that they are near.

When Luke is walking with Uncle Owen to greet the Jawas (with their new lot of captured droids), he is called back by Aunt Beru. She reminds Luke about getting a droid that speaks Botchi. As he walks to the edge of the dwelling to answer her, his shadow is short and "in front" of him. When he reaches the edge there is no bright sun at all to cast a shadow. When he finishes with Aunt Beru, he turns around and walks toward where Uncle Owen is negotiating with the Jawas. Luke's shadow is now distinct, long and "in front" of him; where it should be short and "behind" him. Clearly, these scenes were shot at distinctively different times of the day even though only a few seconds have passed.

When 3PO is arguing with R2D2 about which direction they should walk, the camera and the dolly track are reflected in 3PO's helmet.

When the Falcon is on approach to the Death Star's docking bay, you can see the support prop under the vehicle. This was not corrected on the DVD releases.

Studio lights reflected in C-3POs head (at least 3) just before he enters the garage for the oil bath.

When the stormtroopers approach docking bay 94 and one asks 'which way did they go' studio lighting is reflected on top of the helmet.

When R2D2 is entering the chasm, his front top blue plate is sideways so Kenny Baker can see out of R2D2 as he moves him. At 11:46, Kenny Baker's hand is visible as he rotates R2D2's head right, before the Jawas "jump" R2D2.

While the escape pod falls away from the star destroyer, both the ship and the star spangled sky are zooming out. However only the star destroyer should scale down, as the increase of the pod's distance to the stars is negligible.

When the walls of the trash compactor converge, the level of trash should rise. But it stays low until the walls almost touch each other.

When Porkins is losing control of his ship after getting hit by enemy fire, Biggs tells him to eject right before the ship explodes. However, they are not wearing spacesuits, only a helmet (which is not even sealed to hold in some small remnant of air). If Porkins had ejected, he wouldn't have survived very long in the vacuum of space without oxygen.

Han tells Obi-Wan and Luke the Millennium Falcon made the Kessel Run in less than 3 parsecs. A parsec is a measure of distance (3.26 light years) not a measure of time.

For the 1997 Special Edition (and all subsequent re-edits) of the film, George Lucas famously altered the scene where Han Solo is confronted by Greedo to make it appear as though Greedo shoots first, thereby making Han's shot an act of self-defense (rather than appearing to sneakily murder Greedo). However, this alteration is in conflict with the dialogue in the scene. It is established by Greedo's dialogue that he intends to capture Han and take him alive to Jabba the Hutt. So Han's act of shooting Greedo, as originally established in the 1977 version, was purposely intended to be a sneak attack, not an act of self-defense. This fact is also established by the re-edited scene of Han confronting Jabba in the hanger when Jabba complains about Han shooting Greedo and Han countering that if Jabba wants him, he shouldn't send his underlings to get him.

When fleeing the Death Star in the Falcon, Han and Luke climb into gun turrets. Han climbs upward to one and Luke climbs downward. When reaching their turrets, they sit down as if they were back to back on a lateral plain. This would mean Luke would be facing downwards when strapping into the chair and possibly falling out of it. From the way the guns are positioned from the inside of the gun turret, Han would only be able to hit ships directly above the Falcon and Luke would only be able to hit ships directly below the Falcon. Any TIE fighters approaching from either the sides, in front or behind the Falcon would be safe from their fire.

Throughout most of the film, the lightsaber is shown to slowly ignite for dramatic purposes, generally at stand-offs. However, for a Jedi's primary weapon for defence, and using light, it should in reality always ignite instantly, as evident in the Mos Eisley canteen scene, and earlier prequels.

Han appears to suddenly switch from a DLT-19 Heavy Blaster Rifle to a smaller E-11 blaster rifle during the Detention Block Ambush. However, the E-11 is visible in a holster on his left hip as he exits the turbolift, and a closeup shot of him as the firefight starts shows him passing the DLT-19 to Chewbacca before reaching for his holster.

When the Millennium Falcon comes out of light-speed, he runs in to a small, short range tie-fighter. As they chase it, Luke says that it is heading to the small moon. However, in order for the object to be a moon, it would have to be in orbit of a planet, which Luke should have seen from that distance.

When the group comes out of light-speed and they encounter the short ranged Tie Fighter, no one bothers to go man the guns to shoot it.

Considering what we now know from Star Wars 1-3, why doesn't Obi-Wan remember R2D2 and C3PO? We know C3PO's memory was wiped, so he wouldn't remember Obi-Wan, but Obi-Wan should remember R2D2, and vice-versa. However, there's no indication that he doesn't remember R2D2, he only says that he doesn't remember "owning a droid", which is actually true to some extent. (See also the FAQ entry about this issue.)

During the final Death Star battle, Red Leader says, "Stay there, I just lost my starboard engine" shortly before we see his fighter get hit. However, he may not have lost it due to a hit; it may have had a mechanical failure that just came at a really bad time.

During the Death Star battle, you hear: "Red 6, can you see Red 5?" and a voice seems to answer. This is after Tono Porkins, who was Red 6, has been destroyed. But there is a hectic space battle going on with tons of Rebel and Imperial ships - and as a result, tons of radio calls. The response was likely an irrelevant call that just happened to get picked up at an odd moment.

Some viewers have noted that the Jawas' eyes are obviously just light bulbs. However, in this fictional universe it is possible that Jawas' eyes have coincidentally evolved to look like light-bulbs.

When first questioned by Tarkin, Princess Leia speaks using a "British" accent. She abandons this for the rest of the film. This is not an error, Leia was deliberately mocking the way Tarkin speaks as a way of insulting him.

When Han jumps into the garbage chute it takes about 5 seconds until he lands. A simple physics calculation, distance=1/2 * acceleration * time-squared (for initial velocity zero), shows that this would indicate a fall of about 400 feet, which would have certainly killed them all. However, this does not mean it was a sheer drop and the group probably slid down a shaft (or series of shafts) which would break their fall before ending up in the compactor room.

Han Solo is in debt to Jabba the Hutt for dumping spice into space when boarded by the Empire. When boarded by the Empire on board the Death Star, this time he hides his cargo under the floor boards. Why could he not have done the same with the spice? We don't know how big of a spice shipment Han had when this happened; it could have been far too big to fit in the relatively small hidden compartments.

There are 3 attack runs along the Death Star trench, the first was aborted without a torpedo being fired, the second run failed with the torpedo impacting on the surface which, judging by the way the Stormtroopers rocked about must have been quite some explosion. The third run sees the torpedo enter the exhaust port however the whole area should have been blown to smithereens. The torpedo entered the exhaust port; it did not explode there and therefore did not cause damage to the area.

Despite a popular rumor, when Luke got back from the Death Star battle, he did not yell out "Carrie", when seeing Princess Leia (played by Carrie Fisher). He simply yelled out "Hey" weirdly.

Luke and Han steal the stormtroopers' outfits, which fit surprisingly well and change on board the Falcon, but after escaping the trash compacter, they change back into their regular clothes, belts, boots, weapons and all before they make it back to the ship! How did they get their clothes back? Also, how did Luke wash and dry his hair after going underwater in the compacter?

When the Death Star approaches Yavin prime, it goes into orbit until it can get a clear shot at the moon with the Rebel base. This allows the Rebellion time to attack and destroy the Death Star. The DS could simply have blasted the planet, and if debris didn't destroy the moon it could have then blasted the moon to destroy the Rebel base.

The arm of the crane supporting the floating torture device is visible for a second or two when it enters Leia's cell. The needle on the device bears the letters "British Made".

(Special Edition) On the morning after R2's escape the image fades up to reveal the deserted courtyard of the homestead. Uncle Owen is heard calling for Luke who, as we find out a few seconds later, has already left with his Landspeeder in order to look for the missing droid. However, a close inspection of the courtyard shot reveals a ghost-like image of Luke in a doorway to the right. He seems frozen in mid-stride and has been slightly blended into the surrounding set, thereby turning somewhat transparent. This strange cameo is not featured in the original release.

The technical data that R2D2 uploads to the Rebels shows a schematic image of the Death Star with at the "laser divot" along the equator of the Death Star, not off-center like it was constructed. This is because the schematics were from different concept art of the Death Star not used in the final movie version.

At the end of the movie, many of the gathered soldiers are plainly cardboard cutouts.

When Luke tries to put the handcuffs on Chewie in the Death Star control room, you can see two holes in Chewie's mouth that let Peter Mayhew breathe through the costume.

In the Special Edition, as a figure passes in front of Luke and Biggs in the rebel hangar, R2D2's position jumps as he is being lifted up to the top of the X-Wing fighter (right side of the frame). This is a result of editing out a section of the scene where Red Leader mentions having known Luke's father. The passing figure is intended to mask the edit, but the jump in R2's position reveals the edit. This is mainly evident in the widescreen format.

Most of the times, when Luke or Ben ignite or deactivate a lightsaber, the saber is not shown igniting or deactivating; just the sound effect his heard. And the times when it IS shown, even though it is supposed to be one shot, the character or his/her body part is in a slightly different location after the weapon is ignited than before the weapon is ignited, indicating two separate shots.

When Princess Leia grabs the bar to stop the compactor, her hand puts a dent in the bar itself.

At the start of the Vader vs. Ben lightsaber battle, when Ben turns his on, a cord can be seen that runs up Ben's sleeve.

The shot of Darth Vader dueling Ben and saying "You should not have come back" is a mirror image - the three silver buttons on his chest plate are on the right instead of the left.

One scene in the hangar on Yavin shows a technician assisting a pilot in a Y-Wing in the cockpit and then closing the cockpit canopy. As he does the the laser cannons in the nose roll back and forth slightly, revealing that they are not attached to anything.

Leia blasts a hole in the wall to escape the detention level, leaving the remains of bars at the top of the hole. When Luke jumps down the garbage chute, his feet hit the bars lightly, making them shake, since they are made of foam.

When Han puts his feet on the control board where Kenobi leaves them you can see that the boots of his storm trooper armor are really just normal leather work boots painted white.You can see the elastic fabric on the sides of the boots are still there.

When Luke, Ben, and the droids are in the landspeeder approaching the stormtroopers at Mos Eisley just prior to the famous scene "These aren't the droids you're looking for" the starboard engine cover is clearly empty.

During the raid on the rebel ship there's a brief shot that shows the rebel troops with the small radio attachment on the right hand side of their helmets, where else it is on the left hand side (indicating flopped shot).

When Luke activates his light saber after Obi Wan gives it to him, the reflection on C3P0 only shows the hilt, not the blue blade

When Obi-Wan and Vader's sabers hit each other, you can see dust coming from the poles they are using that are serving as the sabers. This is most noticeable in the Blu-ray release.

When Red 10 is destroyed, it's a different character with a different helmet. As he's covering Red Leader in the trench run, he states "I can't hold them", looks left and the camera cuts to the tie-fighter firing on him. As the camera cuts back to Red 10 just as he starts to burn up and explode, the pilot and the helmet he's wearing are completely different than that of Red 10.

During the Death Star battle, several times a space ship is seen "being locked on" in the sight device, whereupon the pilot starts to shoot. However, when the camera cuts to the outside, it always takes several salvos until the ship is finally hit.

When Vader targets Luke's ship during the end battle, in the shot where he says "I have you now", the top part of his helmet clearly isn't on all the way.

In the waste chute, the debris continually changes position and height. When Leia Han and Luke fall down the chute, the debris are over their heads but when R2-D2 stops the two panels there is much less debris and Luke is either sitting or kneeling. The exit door and the grooves in the panels serve as reference points.

When the Jawas capture R2D2 on Tatooine and are about to vacuum him up into their Trawler, one of them attaches a security bolt to R2's torso (with a shower of sparks). As the tool used to attach the bolt becomes visible in the Jawa's hand, it's obvious that it's a common two-cylinder Microflame welding torch, sold for many years at Radio Shack.

When Obi-Wan turns off the tractor beam, there is an overhead shot showing the bridge he has the cross, the tractor beam platform, and the chasm below. The chasm was created by a glass matte painting. Obi-Wan's robes billow out over the lip of the platform that he was standing on, so this part is not covered by the matte painting. As a result, you can see the concrete floor of the set.

The Death Star control panel is actually a contemporary television studio production switcher. The lever used to activate the Death Star beam is one of the switcher's "fader" handles.