RETURN OF THE JEDI: TRIVIA
It is rumoured that a different ending was shot, but discarded later on. It featured the marriage between Leia Organa and Han Solo. Dark Horse's Comic "Dark Empire" is based on that fact and presents Han and Leia as a married couple.
Robert Watts, a co-producer, doubles as the scout walker driver who is thrown out of the scout walker by Chewbacca.
When the C-3PO and R2 first enter Jabba's throne room, there's the sound of alien voices and one of them is Greedo, saying the same line he said to Han in Star Wars ANH.
Just after R2 plays Luke's message to Jabba the film is running in reverse. You can tell as the smoke from Jabba's pipe is going downwards into the pipe, and the bubbles that would normally go up in the tank are going down.
Carrie Fisher's birthmark (near the small of her back) is visible in the desert scene where she turns her back to the camera to swing around a mounted laser gun.
Rumour has it that Nien Numb speaks a Kenyan dialect, and one of his lines is "One thousand herds of elephants are standing on my foot".
In Jabba's palace, when Boba Fett raises his
blaster his range finder is on the wrong side of his helmet and the emblems on his armor
and his Wookiee scalps are on the wrong sides. Fett also draws with his left
hand.
When Han is first frozen was wearing a tunic style shirt but when thawed he has on a double breasted style shirt.
Just before Luke is pushed into the sarlacc pit, he nods to his righ towards Lando. The camera switches to other shots and then returns to show Lando, now on Luke's left side, and then on the right again.
If you slow things down, you'll see that when Luke's slices Boba Fett's gun on the Skiff Barge, it explodes a few frames before it's hit.
One of Jabba's henchmen fires a shot into the platform that makes it wobble. As everybody struggles Han grabs the edge of the ship but a few frames later, you can see him hanging by his feet.
When Lando is dangling from the skiff, he is not wearing any gloves in the close up shots, but in the wide shots he is.
SFX crew claim to have included a trainer as one of the spaceships in a complex dog-fight scene.
Jabba's sail barge was filmed in Yuma, Arizona. The film crew had problems avoiding the 35,000 dune buggy enthusiasts in the area. To preserve secrecy, the producers claimed to be making a horror film called "Blue Harvest (Horror beyond your imagination)", and even had caps and t-shirts made up for the crew. A chain-link fence and a 24-hour security service could not prevent die-hard fans from entering the set and sneaking some photographs.
After R2 saves 3PO from Salacious Crumb, 3PO says: "Well, I can't possibly..." and R2 pushes him off the barge, but there are wires pulling him off the barge.
The swing that Luke and Leia take to the safety of the skiff is impossible. The angle of their departure and landing proves it.
In some scenes Admiral Piett's blue and red rank symbols are black and red, due to a blue screen effect. .
When Luke is on the speederbike on Endor, right before Luke's vehicle hits the tree, you can clearly see that in three different shots Luke's glove (masking his mechanical hand) is on different hands. In the first cut his glove is on his right hand, next shot, his left, and back to his right again.
After Leia regains consciousness after her fall from the speeder bike she sits on a log and takes her helmet off. The camera then shows a different angle that clearly has it removed, but then a closer shot shows her taking it off again. This blooper is best viewed in the widescreen format.
As Han runs away from the soon-to-explode bunker he shouts "Move, move!" As he gets away he yells "Move" again and this time you can see his reflection behind him, running the other way. This was caused by plexiglass between Harrison Ford and the explosion, to protect him in case of an accident.
As Luke and Vader continue to battle, they go behind a flight of stairs and then in front of a window. The camera cuts to an over head view of this battle, where we can, once again, see the very noticeable shadows of the lightsabers. This happens quite a few times in this sequence.
After Leia is wounded during the ground battle on Endor, Han inadvertantly grabs her by the breast to pull her to safety.
It
Several Ewok lines are in the Filipino language.
David Lynch was orignally offered the chance to direct this episode of the series. He turned it down because he believed it was "Lucas' thing."
Originally there was to be a sandstorm scene after Han's rescue. It was cut because it was unnecessary and was hectic to shoot.
The main chamber of Jabba's palace is connected to the entrance by a short flight of steps. When filming the scene where R2-D2 enters the chamber it was discovered that the droid could not roll down the stairs. In the movie we see R2-D2 approaching the stairs, then the camera moves to the left past the steps and the droid re-enters the field of view, having been manually hauled down the stairs.
As Lando enters Jabba's Palace for the first time you can see him bash his helmet on the ceiling.
Oola the dancer, who Jabba drops into the Rancor pit, loses her top as she falls in.
The dual stripes painted on rebel A-wing fighters were originally blue, but were changed to red because the blue made it a problem when filming blue-screen effects.
Lando
Calrissian and The Millennium Falcon were going to be destroyed in the Death Star
explosion, but this was changed after a poor preview audience reception. Note Han's line
when departing in the stolen Imperial shuttle: "I got a funny feeling, like I'm not
going to see her again."
Among the aliens in Jabba's entourage are ones named "Klaatu," "Barada" and "Nikto," after the command given to the robot Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still.
When the Emperor is leaving the Imperial Shuttle Craft and he's walking down the ramp, his head manages to go through the front of the Shuttle Craft. This also happens to Vader as he is leaves the shuttle on Endor. This is because the "ship" he left was no more than an enlarged matte painting.
During Mon Mothma's briefing of the Rebels, a holographic model of Endor and the orbiting Death Star come up.At first it goes from left to right, but in the rest of the shots, it's from right to left.
Han steps on a twig as he tries to surprise an Endor trooper, and it snaps. The trooper turns and hits Han in the face but slow things down and Han reacts to the blow before it occurs.
The name Ewok is never used to refer to the teddy-bear creatures in the film, though it does appear in the credits.
The Endor shots were filmed near Crescent City, California. Forest work was especially hard on the Ewok actors.
Production
Assistant Ian Bryce arrived on the set one day to find a note from the Ewok actors saying
that they had all had enough and they were on their way to the airport. Bryce tried to
drive to the airport, but got a flat tyre not far from the set. He found another car and
was about to leave when the Ewoks' bus pulled up, and all the Ewok actors got off wearing
"Revenge of the Ewok" t-shirts.
Darth Vader's body was played by Dave Prowse, his voice by James Earl Jones and his face by the late Sebastian Shaw.
One of the songs that the Ewoks sing sounds like: "Det luktar flingor har", which is Swedish for "It smells of cereal here." Another song sounds identical to a song sung in Caveman (1981).
The primitive warrior tribe at the end of this film was originally supposed to be a tribe of Wookiees. In pre-production, though the decision was made to go "cute" (probably for merchandising reasons) and, hence, the Ewoks were created by rearranging the sounds in the word Wookiee.
The title Revenge of the Jedi was leaked early in production, so that pirated merchandise could be easily spotted when the film was released. The official reason for the change was that "...a Jedi would not take revenge". Some authentic pre-release movie posters actually had "Revenge", and are worth a lot of money today.
Portions of the partially completed Death Star model resemble the San Francisco skyline.
At the end, when Luke cremates Darth Vader, he starts the fire at big toe of his right foot. He also apparently walks around the pyre. Those details and the style of the pyre correspond to Hindu tradition.