'Return of the Jedi' Tennis Shoe Easter Egg

Hello dear members.

Many of us have known that during the making of ‘Return of the Jedi’ one of the special effects artists, Ken Ralston, placed a sneaker as an easter egg within the Battle of Endor. For many years, fans have been trying to figure out where - and if - one can see this shoe. So far there has been no notice.

The YouTuber EC Henry claims to have found the shoe in one of the shots (www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyomUOwLBpA). But he admits himself during the video, that the model he found may look like a shoe, but not like a tennis shoe - as stated by one of the special effects guys. It looks more like a slipper.

I have my doubt about this conclusion that this has to be the tennis shoe easter egg. The problem with the new releases of ‘Return of the Jedi’ is that they denoised the hell out of the movies for the newer blu-rays, streaming and 4k versions of the movies.

I recently saw the teaser from a complete scan of an original 35mm print. And immediately my eyes catched something:

Are you seeing it? Let’s take a closer look with a little help from me:

Let’s zoom in one more time:

It is still blurried, but this looks more like a tennis shoe/sneaker from the 80s.

And it became clear to me why the fans couldn’t find this easter egg for years - simply because the newer ROTJ releases have this and a few other models removed from this shot:

Of course this isn’t a 100% confirmation, but I think it is at least a little closer to the real thing.

Huh I just saw that EC Henry video, it was fun. As for this screenshot… it’s kind of odd they removed it. Maybe they deleted it because they spotted it?

Earlier today, after reading these posts, I pulled up 4k83 to look at the scene in question. Specifically, I looked at the object circled in the above pics. I was looking at in still mode, and in slow motion, and it really does look like it might be the tennis shoe that many have sought out.

I also feel that there is some validity that (lucasfilm) may have removed it for the later releases.

I made a quick YouTube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAVyXMNrdC0

…
And I really hope EC Henry doesn’t consider this as an insult! I just think he is mistaken or did find another shoe used as another model specifically in the Executor destruction scene.

Both those videos were a fun watch.

It makes sense there could be two tennis shoes in ROTJ. Ken Ralston’s quote from the 2003 Star Wars Insider interview:

“I was always trying to stick stuff into shots,” Ralston laughs. “JEDI has my tennis shoes and also a yogurt 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, it’d be fun.’ It was my way of just saying, ‘See what you can get away with?’ Some people noodle this stuff so much, fretting about it, but it’s like, you know, you can’t tell what this stuff is – just stick it out there!”

Roobyoo said:

I made a quick YouTube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAVyXMNrdC0

Top video, and well presented. I think you may be right!

I think you and EC Henry could both be correct if there were two tennis shoes used, as from Ken Ralton’s quote by Juno.

That much huh? Jeez.

Imagine buying that shoe for like $50,000 and displaying it in your house. Then people come over and ask what the hell it is, and you’re like “That’s the shoe from Return of the Jedi!” And then your guests would be like “What? There’s no tennis shoe in Return of the Jedi, are you insane?” And then you’d have to explain, “Well actually it’s in this one shot during the space battle, but they removed it in 1997 or something.” At which point, your guests are likely to respond “Suuuuure they did. Are you sure you didn’t get scammed?”

timdiggerm said:

LexX said:

Well, there’s the confirmation. Congrats to the OP, he was probably the first one to find it.

I almost wonder if OP was actually a researcher for Prop Store, running this by the fans discretely to judge if we’d accept this as true.

(for the record, I do think it’s true)

Haha, no, I am not. It was just a coincidence. I saw EC Henry’s YouTube video and thought ‘Na, this definitely looks nothing like a tennis shoe’. A few days after that I saw 4K83 (or a scanned 35mm ROTJ trailer), and then out of nowhere it hit me directly in the face.

It’s great to finally see the real ‘prop’ after all these years, I must admit. Now give me all the TESB asteroid potatoes!