ESB Reference

I’m starting my TE2 ESB TK build and so went through Empire the other night and frame-by-framed all the scenes with stormtroopers taking screen grabs of anything that caught my eye. I was looking specifically for shots that showed details in the armor. How something was cut, assembled, attached or so on.

One thing I noticed more of than I knew was the number of times they “mirrored” the film for continuity. You can tell they’ve done it when Chewbacca pushes the stormtroopers off the ledge in the carbon-freezing chamber, and then again as the rebels are making their escape and shooting at the TKs in the hallways of Cloud City. It’s easy to spot because the stormtrooper knee plates (which are on their left knee) and holsters (which are on their right side) switch sides. Look for those pics below.

Other things I noticed are that the hand plates — which are “snowtrooper” hand plates for ESB and ROTJ — are sewn onto the gloves in some scenes and not in others.

There are plenty of other “goofs” that you never notice until you’re doing a frame-by-frame walk through of the movie. Things such as shoulder bells around their elbows, gaffers tape holding up armor bits, helmets without gray trap areas painted, biceps spun around backwards, and belts almost to fall off.

So, all that being said, here are the reference pics I got.