10 Most Notorious Star Wars Urban Legends
3. Yoghurt Pots And Tennis Shoes Over Endor
Verdict: True (probably)
Nowadays practically every frame of each new movie trailer is isolated and inspected for clues, and the finished products are subjected to equally heavy scrutiny to uncover every goof and blooper.
George Lucas isnt someone who likes to let things be; the tinkering and retrofitting that greeted each new special edition and re-release has become the stuff of legend and the source of many a grumble from diehard fans.
It can also make evaluating the odd urban legend a tricky business. It's long been rumoured that a couple of unexpected objects can be found in an asteroid field in The Empire Strikes Back and in the extended space battle over Endor in Return Of The Jedi. The Industrial Light & Magic team tasked with the grunt work to bring the ambitious sequences to life ultimately took a playful approach, and supervisor Ken Ralston used the chaos of the Jedi scene to add a few UFOs of his own.
I was always trying to stick stuff into shots. Jedi has my tennis shoes and also a yoghurt container as part of the ships in the background! Who would know? It's like there's all this stuff going on, and I thought, Hey, itd be fun. It was my way of just saying, See what you can get away with.
As it's almost impossible to discern the objects in old VHS freeze frames, there's no option other than to take Ralston at his word on this one.