When Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out two years ago, it hit the world like only Star Wars can. Whether it was in advertising, social media, or just out on the street— Star Wars had come back in a massive way, and just about everyone was more than happy with the finished product.
Directed by J.J. Abrams, spearheaded by Kathleen Kennedy, and starring new actors and old favorites, the film took place after the events of Episode VI, featuring a new enemy and a new set of rebels. The film, unsurprisingly, broke records and is now one of the highest grossing films of all time, both domestically and worldwide.
Something that’s also unsurprising is the amount of mistakes that can be found throughout the film. Whether it’s the filmmakers trying to hide something, make us forget about another thing, or simply trick us with some editing and prop placements, a film of this size can’t hide all its stitching so easily— though it did come close.
Keep in mind mistakes such as these are very common in big budget films, and are very likely to not be noticed by the majority of movie goers. It takes prior knowledge and eagle eyes to make note of many of these flubs, be they major or minor.
Here are the 15 Mistakes You Completely Missed In The Force Awakens.
BB-8’s changing antenna
Rey and BB-8’s first meeting occurs when she sees the droid being taken by a nearby scavenger, just outside her own make-shift home. After the rescue, Rey tries to send the droid on its way, but it’s insistent on hanging out with her. Rey notices BB’s antenna is bent, so she removes and straightens it, before placing back on its head.
Throughout the film, the way this antenna looks alternates between metallic (which makes sense for a droid), and white coating (which makes sense for a movie prop). Since BB-8 is portrayed using both a physical animatronic device and computer generated, the use of a metallic antenna and a white coated one pops up and different points, with most audience members none the wiser.
Poe’s magically healing wound
Poe Dameron gets captured in his first scene, when Kylo Ren lands on Jakku to retrieve the missing piece to the Luke Skywalker puzzle. Poe hides it in BB-8, but regardless, Ren is still able to torture Poe for information.
After leaving Jakku, we next see Poe in extreme close-up, as he’s strapped and confined to be tortured. This extreme close-up reveals a wound on his right cheek—nothing too significant, but a wound nonetheless. However, as this scene progresses, the wound starts to disappear.
By the time Poe and Finn are escaping the First Order, Poe’s cheek wound is essentially just some red blood on his face, which can easily fool and pass an audience wrapped up in the action and excitement. Oddly enough, when Poe reappears later in the film, remnants of the wound are still on his face.
Finn’s distance from a crashed TIE fighter
Even though Poe and Finn managed to escape from the First Order starship, they’re shot down and crash land on nearby Jakku (which is where Poe wanted to go back to anyway). When we next see Finn, he’s alone, in the desert, while the TIE fighter’s wreckage is some ways away.
Finn gets to the fighter, but is unable to locate or uncover Poe, save for his jacket. Soon, however, the fighter is sinking into the sand, and we see Finn take a step or two away from it. Very next shot, he’s several feet away, as the fighter completely sinks into the sand, followed by an explosion that would have likely hurt Finn, had he not been even further away from the crash site another few seconds later.
The ramp to nowhere
When Finn runs into Rey and BB-8 on Jakku, the First Order inevitably catch up with them, resulting in a bit of a chase. It becomes clear that the trio need a way out of there, which leads to them somewhat reluctantly boarding what Rey calls “garbage” (read: the Millennium Falcon).
Before the Falcon reveals itself, the camera has been following the trio from the front. Once they stop and turn to the ship, the camera moves to the left to reveal the model in the distance. We then cut to them boarding it via its ramp, though the whole ship itself isn’t fully visible. If one pays very close attention to the ramp used to climb aboard the Falcon, they’ll notice it wobble ever so slightly.
This is where the movie shows its hand: They’re not climbing a sturdy ramp, but a prop that most likely leads to nowhere.
The Millennium Falcon’s stuck cannon
Rey, Finn, and BB-8 have boarded and started the Millennium Flacon and are running away from a couple First Order TIE fighters. They’re still on Jakku, so Rey uses the junkyard-wasteland environment to her advantage. While Rey’s flying the Falcon, Finn is on blaster duty, using the ship’s cannon to defend them.
At one point, the cannon is damaged and stuck in a forward position, which means Finn can’t aim at any enemies unless they’re right in front of him. Rey manages to flee from a TIE fighter through wreckage. She uses the exit of the wreckage as her chance to maneuver the Falcon in such a way that Finn can shoot down the last TIE fighter. He succeeds, and we see him, for less than a second, celebrate in the cockpit…with an unstuck, upright cannon.
Finn gets a blaster, but never uses or acknowledges it
This one’s pretty amusing. When the Millennium Falcon lands on Takodana, Han hands Finn a blaster; it has a strap that goes around his upper torso. During their time on the planet, Finn never uses the blaster and doesn’t even acknowledge it—except for when he’s leaving the cantina and gestures it towards Han as a way of returning it to him (“Keep it”).
Later, when the First Order invades, Maz Kanata gives Finn Luke’s lightsaber, for safe keeping and to give to Rey. Once they’re facing the First Order head-on, Finn says he needs a weapon, at which point Maz reminds him of the lightsaber.
But what happened to his blaster? He was wearing it on his torso when the First Order started to invade, but once he got outside to face them, it’s inexplicably (and conveniently) gone.
Rey’s changing bar snack
In Maz’s cantina, we join our heroes at a round table. Here we can see Rey munching on something; from what can be guessed from the wide shot, it’s some sort of bread-like food with a green topping. Simple enough, especially for a wide shot of everyone at the table.
Once the camera gets closer, we see her snack go from “bread and topping” to something much more intricate. It appears to still be a piece of bread-like food, but instead of a topping, it’s stuffed with more than just a green substance.
It’s an interesting change in the scene, and definitely not one you’d notice immediately, especially since we see Rey mostly just hold onto and not so much eat it.
A Stormtrooper that sticks out during General Hux’s speech
General Hux’s impassioned speech is pretty notable, especially since it precedes the first use of the Starkiller Base’s planetary weapon. It’s very much a turning point in the story, reminiscent of the older Death Star destroying Alderaan, only on a grander and more frightening scale, since this weapon can destroy not one, but several planets in one stroke.
At the very beginning of Hux’s speech, you'll notice something odd to the left of the screen: a Stormtrooper whose red shoulder pad is down and on their chest. This is clearly a mistake, especially since the Stormtrooper right next to them has their shoulder pad on their shoulder, as it should be. This mistake is only in this shot, as any other shot featuring the trooper has the pad correctly on their shoulder.
Watching the Starkiller’s first death beam
This is one of those mistakes that was probably made for the sake of drama. Our heroes on the planet Takodana are able to witness the real time firing of the Starkiller Base weapon. They’re also able to witness the destruction of the Republic planets targeted by Starkiller Base targets.
For starters, the base, Takodana, and the Republic planets that got destroyed are all in different star systems. This means that the Starkiller’s Red Beam of Death would be light years away, not just from our heroes in Takodana, but from the Republic planets that were destroyed.
Additionally, those on the destroyed planets wouldn’t be able to see the rays of the weapon until it was already destroying them all, but again, it helps make the scene and situation more dramatic.
Two pilots running to nowhere
After the Resistance picks up the heroes from Takodana, they return to their base on D’Qar. Here we see a familiar locale: hangers, X-wings, pilots in orange gear, and plenty of people running around. All in all, typical of what a Star Wars fan is likely to expect.
Towards the beginning of the first scene introducing this base, one can witness the aforementioned running around of people across the base. Again, this is nothing out of the ordinary and it’s very likely the audience wouldn’t balk at anything they see on-screen.
Unless, of course, they keep their eyes peeled at two pilots running near the left, lower right, and then lower left, of the screen. If you keep watching, you’ll notice them running towards an open area with absolutely nothing there. No props, no X-wings, nothing.
Kylo Ren’s missing table of ashes
The First Order have now captured Rey. Kylo Ren has her in his interrogation room and plans to use the force to get the information he needs. He knows she’s seen the map to Skywalker, so it’s only a matter of forcing her to share what she knows.
However, before Ren does any of that, he removes his helmet, turns to a corner of the room, and puts the helmet on what appears to be a table of ashes. The audience doesn’t really see where this ash table is; Ren just goes to some barely-on-screen corner, which fools the audience into thinking there’s something there we can’t see.
Turns out the ash table is from another scene entirely (taking place in Ren’s quarters) which was inserted into this scene, explaining why it doesn’t appear in any of the long shots.
Kylo Ren’s disappearing and reappearing cowl
Another one of those brief things that you’d probably never notice otherwise, Kylo Ren’s outfit sometimes comes with a cowl, hood included. After Ren has trouble interrogating Rey, he leaves her, but later returns after consulting with holographic Supreme Leader Snoke.
On his way back to the interrogation room, we see two shots of Ren making his way. The first has Ren with no cowl, but the next one (a minute or so later) has him with his cowl. From here on out, he seems to sport the cowl till his last scene.
So why was he not wearing it for one sole moment on his way back to see Rey? It’s likely this scene was just added for suspense, but in the process, the filmmakers didn’t keep his cowl, for whatever reason.
Finn’s distance to Poe and Snap Wexley
Like any good story about rebels and oppressors, the Resistance has a meeting to discuss their best course of action for preventing Starkiller Base from destroying more planets. Finn volunteers to help out, since he used to work there and all, and suggests a way to shut down the base’s defenses.
During this scene, Finn is near Snap Wexley, while Poe is on another side of where they are. A little bit later in the scene, Finn is talking and moving, making his way towards where Poe has been standing. By this point, he’s now next to Poe, but only a few seconds prior to this, the movie cuts to a shot— less than a second in total— that shows Poe and Finn already side-by-side. It can count as a “blink and you’ll miss it” moment, but more eagle eyes viewers probably noticed it immediately.
The Millennium Falcon’s undamaged underside
With the assurance that they can help bring down and destroy Starkiller Base, Finn, Han, and Chewy take the Millennium Falcon to the planet. Since they need to stay off the base’s radar, they have to come to it via hyperspace, which means a likely rough landing.
Sure enough, making it to Starkiller Base isn’t so smooth, and the Falcon trudges along the planet’s surface through trees and snowy ground before finally coming to a pause. Much later, right before the Falcon hyperspaces away from the exploding planet, the audience can notice that the Falcon’s underside appears to be undamaged, with its bottom cannon intact.
This is pretty strange, considering how rough the Falcon landed earlier, and there’s no way anyone would have managed to fix anything in time. As far as the movie is concerned, the Falcon sustained no damage during its landing.
C-3PO’s golden arm returns
It’s debatable how much of a goof or intentional choice this is, but all the same, it raises the same question: when did C-3PO replace his red arm?
When he’s introduced in TFA, C-3PO makes note of this (“You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.”), and a single-issue comic book gives backstory as to how he came to bear the arm. He also mentions to BB-8 at one point that he really does need to reinstall his regular arm. So when we come to the end of TFA, when everyone’s waving the Millennium Falcon goodbye, if we pay attention, we’ll notice 3PO no longer has a red arm.
If he did change it, when? Wouldn’t that have been a bigger deal, not just a little thing the filmmakers put in at the end? Or was it really a small goof?
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Did you catch any other mistakes in The Force Awakens? Let us know in the comments!