The explosion of the Death Star at the end of the film was altered to match new explosions found in the previous two remastered "Star Wars" films. Instead of the original, "popcorn" shaped, yellowish explosion, the new one added in more red and orange colors as well as a shock wave emerging from the center of the explosion in a ring shape. The coloring found on both Luke Skywalker's and Darth Vader's lightsabers were heightened and corrected to make them more discernible from each other and easier to see clearly on the screen.
Toward the beginning of the film, a band is seen playing in Jabba the Hutt's palace. Originally this band included three performers, all made out of puppet parts and prosthetics, and including a pipe player, a vocalist, and a keyboard player. The vocalist danced a little and sang the song "Lapti Nek." In the remastered version of the film, the band was expanded to include another vocalist as well as backup singers, and the original members were redone in CGI effects. The song was changed to a more rock-and-roll style tune called "Jedi Rocks" and the number went on longer than it had originally. The celebration scenes featuring the Ewok village at the end of the film were extended as well. A clip of Luke Skywalker hugging Wedge Antilles was added, as were more moments of Ewoks singing, dancing and blowing horns.
The Sarlacc was originally a giant mouth immersed in a sand pit. It included circular rows of teeth and several long tentacles. This monster was updated to include not only more tentacles, but also a pod-shaped head with a mouth full of more teeth, rising from the center of the rings of original teeth. CGI contributed to all these additions. The original song at the Ewok celebration was called "Yub Nub" but this was replaced for the remastered scenes with a tune by John Williams composed for the new release.
In the scene where Han Solo rescues Lando Calrissian from the Sarlacc, he originally shouted "It's all right, trust me" when reaching for his friend. This was changed to "It's all right, I can see a lot better now" in the remastered edition.
Several new scenes were created and added to the film for the special edition re-release. These include two at Jaba's palace: Oola the dancer in the Rancor pit and Boba Fett flirting with some dancers. Celebrations after the destruction of the Death Star were originally only seen on the Moon of Endor, but new scenes also included those celebrations on Tattooine, Coruscant, and Bespin (the location of Cloud City).