Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith is packed with details that Star Wars fans have discussed in great depth, but it also contains a fascinating mistake that most people have missed for the past 20 years. In a special effects extravaganza as big as Star Wars, there are bound to be some mistakes that slip through the cracks. These are movies made by people, and many Star Wars mistakes can be quite charming.

However, one particular mistake has baffled Star Wars fans who noticed it when taking a closer look at Revenge of the Sith. Notable online discussions about this error have been circulating since at least 2015, but no one has ever been able to provide a good explanation for why it happened until recently. So what is this bizarre Star Wars mistake, and how did it end up in the final cut of Revenge of the Sith?

There’s A Secret “Mustafar Man” Only Visible If You Watch RotS Frame-By-Frame

He’s just barely visible for a brief moment

During Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker’s final lightsaber duel on the planet Mustafar, there is a tiny man who mysteriously appears at Anakin’s shoulder. It happens just before Anakin jumps to flip over Obi-Wan, revealing this “Mustafar Man” floating in place. It’s virtually impossible to see when played at normal speed, so you have to pause and move frame by frame to get a good look.

This man appears to be a ghostly-robed figure, leading some to wonder if it was a Force ghost or just a fun easter egg. Others knew it was likely a simple mistake, but that didn’t explain who this man was or how he had ended up in the sH๏τ of such a carefully crafted production. One seasoned ILM veteran was curious as well, so after years of wondering, he went searching for an answer.

ILM Veteran Todd Vaziri Did The Digging To Find Out The Truth

He went through ILM’s archives to find the original set pH๏τos

Todd Vaziri, who worked on Revenge of the Sith as a compositor, shared how he figured out the truth on his blog, FXRant. His story was originally explained in “The Force Ghost in the Machine” by Ian Kintzle for Star Wars Celebration Japan, which he includes in the post. The piece explains how the film required the combined effort of hundreds of artists and technicians crafting hundreds of models, environments, miniatures, renders, and composites.

Small mistakes were bound to slip in, but the internet began talking about the Mustafar Man in 2015. Vaziri heard about this on social media shortly before Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out, and while he was intrigued, getting the answer would require sifting through tons of archived data no longer available on the ILM servers. However, when social media began discussing the Mustafar Man again in 2024, he decided to finally get to the bottom of it.

Vaziri explained that “I think it took 24 hours to unearth the footage and put it back on our servers,” and he was incredibly excited because “No one had seen the original greenscreen footage for nearly twenty years.” It took a lot of digging, but eventually, he found the sH๏τ he was looking for:

I couldn’t believe it. There on set was a man—likely a stunt rigger—wearing not a robe, but a peculiar shirt that resembled one, standing behind Hayden, manually puppeteering the greenscreen lava skiff that he and Ewan were fighting on.

He also discovered early versions of the sH๏τ attempting to remove the man, but the green screen extraction complicated the process:

At some point during the process of refining the edges of the green screen extraction—which required new garbage mattes—the stunt rigger’s head was inadvertently revealed again in that paint process—but because you can’t see it unless you are stepping through it frame-by-frame— it was deemed finished by the artist, by the compositing supervisor, by the visual effects supervisor, by the editors, and by George Lucas himself.

So, the mysterious “Force Ghost” behind Anakin was really a stunt rigger, and the process of compositing the final sH๏τs accidentally left him there for a moment. While it’s undoubtedly a glaring mistake once you know it’s there, Vaziri himself is unbothered by it being in the movie. He believes that “perfect is the enemy of good,” and having human hands on every sH๏τ means “This world is handmade, and little things like this become part of ILM history.”

I’m inclined to agree with Vaziri’s take on the Mustafar Man and Star Wars mistakes in general. It doesn’t ruin the movie on first viewing, and once you see it, it’s a fun easter egg to discuss, and a reminder of the people who brought the story to life. I look forward to spotting this “Force Ghost” for myself when my brother and I go see the 20th anniversary re-release of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.

Source: FXRant