Goofs for
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

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• Continuity: The ladder that Luke uses to climb into his cockpit when leaving Dagobah disappears.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Reflected in C-3PO's head as it travels down the conveyor belt in Cloud City, and also during the carbon-freezing scene.
  
  
• Boom mic visible: In the opening scene, Luke is trying to calm his frightened tauntaun (before the wampa attack). As he says, "Hey, what's the matter? You smell something?" the boom microphone can be seen reflected in his goggles.
  
  

• Revealing mistakes: When the Snow Speeders are looking for Luke and Han, you can see the blue screen reflected on the angled side of the pilots goggles.
  
  
• Continuity: On Vader's Star Destroyer near the end of the movie, the rank insignia of the Imperial officers changes sides repeatedly. (This has been fixed on the 2004 DVD release.)
  
  
• Continuity: Imperial officers wear their rank insignia badges on the left. However, when Vader asks Admiral Piett if the Falcon's hyperdrive was deactivated, the shot appears to be flipped - the officers' badges are on their right. This also happens near the end of the movie on Vader's Star Destroyer, the rank insignia of the Imperial officers changes sides repeatedly, indicating that the shots were flipped intermittently. (This has been fixed on the 2004 DVD release.)
  
  
• Continuity: When Luke tries to use the force to take out the spaceship from the water and he can't, he goes behind a tree and puts on his jacket. When Yoda takes out the spaceship the jacket is clearly unzipped, and when Luke goes around the spaceship, it's zipped an tucked
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Chewbacca rescues Threepio from the Ugnaughts, you can see one of them adjusting his mask.
  
  
• Continuity: Just before Vader amputates Luke's hand, piece of shiny tape around the end of a recently cut pole changes to burn marks.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the Millennium Falcon is inside the worm and a tremor makes Princess Leia fall on Han Solo she says, "Captain, being held by you isn't quite enough to get me excited", Han Solo is mouthing her line.
  
  
• Continuity: When Lando opens Falcon's top hatch, bright light comes in, although it is dark outside. This small mistake is fixed in the Special Edition.
  
  
• Continuity: As they are are walking through cloud city, Leia is between Han and Lando. As they come around a corner, Han and Lando have switched places.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: One of Lando's lines don't match his jaw movements very well in the carbon-freezing chamber part.
  
  
• Continuity: Just before Han Solo is put into carbon freeze, he's wearing a tunic-style shirt. After he's frozen, his outline in the block of carbonite depicts him wearing the shirt he wore in Star Wars (1977). Then, when he's unfrozen in Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983), he's wearing a double-breasted shirt.
  
  
• Continuity: In a shot of Chewbacca, after the rebel soldiers are telling Princess Leia that "the shield doors must be closed", the shield doors can be seen moving soundlessly. In the next shot of Leia and the rebel soldiers, they aren't moving.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the part where Luke jumps off the platform in the carbon freezing chamber, you can clearly hear the sound of a trampoline and then you can see the top of Luke's head pop into the bottom left corner of the screen.
  
  
• Continuity: When Han Solo is lowered into the carbon freezing chamber, his hands are bound by metallic handcuffs. As soon as he's frozen, his hands are separated in the carbon block.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the carbon-freezing room fight, after Luke forces Vader off the platform, Luke steps back after peering over the edge and turns off his light-saber (we hear the sound effect of the saber shutting down). As he walks back from the edge beyond sight of the camera, you can see the tip of the fighting prop saber swing into view momentarily as a stage hand swaps Luke's "fighting prop" (with shaft) for the "shut off" belt prop (without shaft) out of view of the camera.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the Dagobah scene, before Luke and R2-D2 have found Yoda (or Yoda found them), Luke plugs something into R2 then says: "Now, all I gotta do is find this Yoda - if he even exists." When he says: "If he even exists.", Luke's mouth doesn't move. The DVD tried to fix this by adding a little more texture every few half-seconds to Luke's mouth, but it is barely visible; they couldn't fix it without ruining the shot.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: As Lando, Leia, R2, Chewie, and 3PO start boarding the Falcon to escape Bespin, you can see a blaster mark on the chest of one of the Stormtroopers firing at them from the doorway. Seconds later, Leia shoots the Stormtrooper in the exact spot and he falls down.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Luke is running out of the beast's cave you can hear the sound of his lightsaber being turned off. However, his lightsaber is on in his hand.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: Shortly after the Millennium Falcon's escape from Bespin, when it is flying alongside the Executor, several shots strike it. However, these shots make no noise of any kind.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the updated special edition TESB, as Han, Leia, Landa and Chewy are walking to the trap Vader has set, they walk past one of the new "visualisations" with a lift going up and a view of Bespin. Yet in the following shot, when you see Han holding his gun, the original browny white background is back in its place.
  
  
• Continuity: Towards the end of Luke's and Vader's duel, their lightsabers switch positions between shots - we see Luke parry against Vader's strike, with Luke's lightsaber pushing upwards against Vader's (towards Vader's body), but in subsequent shots we see Luke's lightsaber pushing downwards.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Luke is doing a handstand, lifting cases and Artoo, the wires holding his feet up are visible.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the letterbox version, when the wampa's arm swings into frame to kill Luke's tauntaun, the end of the "glove" can be seen at the bottom left, as well as the top of the head of the crew member wearing it. Afterwards, when he is grabbed by the monster's arm, for a short time you can see the real arm of the person who is wearing the wampa arm.
  
  
• Continuity: Han helps Leia in repairing the Falcon on the asteroid. They begin to kiss. When C3PO interrupts, we see a wide angle shot with the couple's arms around each other, but in the previous shot Leia's arms were not around Han's head.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When the AT-AT that Luke destroys with a thermal detonator begins to fall over, a stick can be seen popping up through the ground from under the walker's left back leg to tip it over.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the Battle for Hoth, several rebel soldiers fall down without being hit.
  
  
• Continuity: During the Battle of Hoth, Luke says of the AT-AT that the armor is too strong for blasters and that wrapping the tow cables around the legs was the only way, yet when the first AT-AT is brought down using the cable a speeder blows it up using its blasters.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the wide establishing shot of Luke riding a tauntaun, the tauntaun leaves no tracks in the snow.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: After being switched off on the Falcon, Threepio can be seen breathing during Han and Leia's dialogue about Lando.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When C-3PO interrupts Han and Leia's kiss on the Millennium Falcon, you can see parts of the Threepio costume break off and fall off at the elbow.
  
  
• Continuity: When he is about to be put into carbon freeze in the chamber on Bespin, Han Solo's jacket appears and disappears between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: Several times, during the escape from Cloud City, stormtroopers are shot, but no blast marks are left on their armor. In addition, the intenisty of the guns' blasters against the stormtroopers progressively decreases and increases during the episode.
  
  
• Continuity: The sounds for lasers and lightsabers change throughout the movie, even with same weapon being used more than once in a scene. A good example is Han's blaster in the asteroid cave, which makes at least two completely different noises when firing.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the escape on Cloud City, just after C3PO mentions the Millennium's hyperdrive (while R2 is plugged into the computer system), you see a stormtrooper's shot hit the wall. However, the black blast mark is there before the shot hits it.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In Cloud City when Chewbacca leaves the others to find C3PO, his foot crushes one of the steps on a small set of stairs.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During Darth Vader and Lukes light saber battle, Darth knocks Luke down a flight of stairs. Darth then leaps through the air and the wires attached to his back are visible.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Luke is attacked by the snow monster, when he is grabbed by the monster's arm, for a short time you can see the real arm of the person who is wearing the arm.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: After Luke amputates the Wampa Ice Creature's arm with his lightsaber, the sound of a lightsaber deactivating can be heard, but Luke's lightsaber is clearly still active.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Vader amputates Luke's hand with his lightsaber you can see that Vader's saber actually misses Luke's hand.
  
  
• Continuity: The colors of the different buttons on Darth Vader's chest plate were red, green, and white in the previous episode. In this and "Star Wars Episode VI", however, one of the buttons is blue instead of green.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: The Snow Speeder being able to destroy the AT after it is tripped is often said to be an error seen as the blasters are useless beforehand against the walkers. But from various sources (including Andrew Darling in the Q&A section in an early edition of the Official Star Wars Magazine) the explanation is that when the walker is tripped the armour is damaged and unable to deflect the power of the blasters. Also the pilots shoot at the much weaker neck area where no protection is offered.
  
  
• Continuity: After the Millenium Falcon lands on the Vader's ship and they can't track it, Vader kills the Admiral who informs him. However, when the two Imperial soldiers pick the Admiral up, he steps up even though he was killed. When the soldiers walk by, the admiral is lifeless again.
  
  
• Factual errors: Denis Lawson's name is misspelled as Dennis in the credits, and this was not fixed in the 1997 Special Edition or on the 2004 DVD release.
  
  
• Continuity: On Dagobah, when Luke is doing a handstand and levitating R2-D2, the long shots show Luke with arms fully extended but the closeups show him with bent elbows.
  
  
• Continuity: When Darth Vader uses the Force to throw things at Luke, one of them breaks the glass blowing Luke outside. This indicates Cloud City is pressurized. However, when the Millenium Falcon lands earlier, Lando is able to easily walk out the door, indicating there is equal pressure.
  
  
• Continuity: When Luke slides down the air shaft after the fight with Vader, he stops in the middle of the shaft and a hatch opens under him. The next shot show the hatch opening from the outside, but the shot after that shows Luke sliding through the shaft again.
  
  

• Continuity: SPOILER: After having his right hand cut of by Darth Vader, falling through a tunnel and reaching the end of the tunnel, you can clearly see Luke Skywalker's right arm, with the hand completely intact.
  
  

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