# What's with all the hand chopping in star wars?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 29, 2010, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940 "2010-01-29T20:00:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@The\_Piranha\_Brothers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Piranha_Brothers)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2010, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/1 "2010-01-29T20:00:59Z")
Take for example [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akF2ljenqYE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akF2ljenqYE)
Why does it happen all the time? Why can’t they just kill people instead?
And also, why are there no hands lost in episode I or the holiday special?
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2010, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/2 "2010-01-29T20:04:01Z")
It’s not just arms and hands – there’s other body parts too. And, in the case of Darth Maul, actual body chopping (so there’s _that_ in Episode I).
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### Author:  [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/3 "2010-01-29T20:14:46Z")
Maybe Lucas is a fan of Chop Chop Square , they are big on cutting off hands there.
[Deera Square - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deera_Square)
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### Author:  [@The\_Piranha\_Brothers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Piranha_Brothers)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2010, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/4 "2010-01-29T20:31:28Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> It’s not just arms and hands – there’s other body parts too. And, in the case of Darth Maul, actual body chopping (so there’s _that_ in Episode I).
It gave me the feeling that for the new trilogy, he briefly experimented with full body chopping, but decided it was not his thing and let it go. There’s only 1 full body chop and dozens of arms and legs flying in all directions.
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### Author:  [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2010, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/5 "2010-01-29T20:35:56Z")
It’s natural for an energy sword, presented as having the ability to cut through things rather easily, to be shown dismembering a combatant in a duel. It both allows a character to be injured in a significant way, without being killed, and allows the character to have something of value taken from him. This second item is important to character growth and plot development.
For the purposes of the Star Wars saga, it provides information to the audience to the technological capabilities of the world, and insight into the background of Darth Vader, who is said to be “more machine, now, than human” in the first film. Vader doing the chopping of Luke both reinforces Vader as a real and direct threat, and, along with the revelation of being Luke’s father, sets up a connection between the two.
In ROTJ, Luke brings the connection full circle by chopping off his father’s hand. This action shows both Luke and the audience that yes, they are truly father and son, in more ways than simple bloodlines.
(For the prequels, they just went fruitcake over it all. At least with Anakin’s lost hand you have a connection with the future dismemberments and a gradual transformation into machine. However, that isn’t really explored much until the lava incident. Expanded Universe canon says that mechanical body parts make it harder for Jedi to suppress the Dark Side, but it’s not really touched upon in the movies themselves.)
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### Author:  [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2010, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/6 "2010-01-29T20:36:12Z")
If you’re looking for a PG rating and invent a weapon that cauterizes as it cuts then by god your going to use it every chance you get.
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### Author:  [@kelly5078](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kelly5078)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2010, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/7 "2010-01-29T21:38:36Z")
> [@Hampshire](#):
>
> If you’re looking for a PG rating and invent a weapon that cauterizes as it cuts then by god your going to use it every chance you get.
An excellent point. Too bad they didn’t have light sabers in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” or they could have had a garden of Black Knights.
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### Author:  [@Mike\_Fun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mike_Fun)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/8 "2010-01-29T22:23:36Z")
Freudian castration anxiety.
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### Author:  [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2010, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/9 "2010-01-29T22:38:29Z")
> [@Mike\_Fun](#):
>
> Freudian castration anxiety.
Or [this](http://www.zwixy.com/images/1612686471253290694452.jpg).
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### Author:  [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2010, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/10 "2010-01-29T22:42:29Z")
We actually noticed this way back when there was ONLY one STAR WARS (now “episode 4.”) And there’s another reference to hand-chopping in that movie that this sequence doesn’t include: when they’re in the Millenium Falcon, during the holographic chess game between R2 and Chewie. (I’m going from memory, so I’m paraphrasing here.) Han says not to upset the wookie. C3PO says, “Nobody worries about upsetting a droid.” Han replied says, “That’s 'cause droids don’t **pull people’s arms out of their socket** when they lose.” (Bolding mine.)
I think this situation is disarming.
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### Author:  [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2010, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/11 "2010-01-29T22:52:42Z")
> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#):
>
> We actually noticed this way back when there was ONLY one STAR WARS (now “episode 4.”) And there’s another reference to hand-chopping in that movie that this sequence doesn’t include: when they’re in the Millenium Falcon, during the holographic chess game between R2 and Chewie. (I’m going from memory, so I’m paraphrasing here.) Han says not to upset the wookie. C3PO says, “Nobody worries about upsetting a droid.” Han replied says, “That’s 'cause droids don’t **pull people’s arms out of their socket** when they lose.” (Bolding mine.)
>
> I think this situation is disarming.
Which brings up a question: Why did 3PO advise R2 to lose?
3PO was repaired after more serious damage… the droids should not feel pain, and so on.
Who cares if Chewy tears out one of R2’s legs?
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### Author:  [@GESancMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GESancMan)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2010, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/12 "2010-01-29T22:57:11Z")
> [@kelly5078](#):
>
> An excellent point. Too bad they didn’t have light sabers in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” or they could have had a garden of Black Knights.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BDO3pyavOY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BDO3pyavOY)
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### Author:  [@Tanbarkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tanbarkie)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2010, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/13 "2010-01-29T22:58:08Z")
> [@mlees](#):
>
> Which brings up a question: Why did 3PO advise R2 to lose?
>
> 3PO was repaired after more serious damage… the droids should not feel pain, and so on.
>
> Who cares if Chewy tears out one of R2’s legs?
Well, 3PO wasn’t exactly _happy_ about being blown to pieces. Maybe he was just warning R2 away from a minor inconvenience (“Do you really want to lose the ability to walk for the next few hours? I mean, Luke could be playing his stupid little pin-the-laser-on-the-droid game with Obi-wan all afternoon.”). 😃
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### Author:  [@The\_Piranha\_Brothers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Piranha_Brothers)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2010, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/14 "2010-01-29T23:06:59Z")
> [@mlees](#):
>
> Which brings up a question: Why did 3PO advise R2 to lose?
>
> 3PO was repaired after more serious damage… the droids should not feel pain, and so on.
>
> Who cares if Chewy tears out one of R2’s legs?
R2D2 originally had twelve arms. By the time the saga starts, they had all been cut off by clumsy jedi.
> [@Mike\_Fun](#):
>
> Freudian castration anxiety.
No doubt the hands are cut off because hands are used for masturbation. And fathers don’t approve of that, wether it’s biological fathers or moral elders like Obi-Wan.
Another recurring theme is people falling down very deep shafts when they die. No doubt this is a Freudian reversal from the process of birth??
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### Author:  [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2010, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/15 "2010-01-29T23:13:09Z")
> [@Hampshire](#):
>
> If you’re looking for a PG rating and invent a weapon that cauterizes as it cuts then by god your going to use it every chance you get.
I’ve always wondered about the lone case that I can remember of a light saber NOT cauterizing as it cuts. There’s plainly blood splattered around the stump of the arm of the bounty hunter in the bar (Ep IV). Cool, poorly-maintained saber? Heat-resistant flesh? 🙂
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### Author:  [@The\_Piranha\_Brothers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Piranha_Brothers)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2010, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/16 "2010-01-29T23:19:07Z")
> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#):
>
> We actually noticed this way back when there was ONLY one STAR WARS (now “episode 4.”) And there’s another reference to hand-chopping in that movie that this sequence doesn’t include: when they’re in the Millenium Falcon, during the holographic chess game between R2 and Chewie. (I’m going from memory, so I’m paraphrasing here.) Han says not to upset the wookie. C3PO says, “Nobody worries about upsetting a droid.” Han replied says, “That’s 'cause droids don’t **pull people’s arms out of their socket** when they lose.” (Bolding mine.)
>
> I think this situation is disarming.
Well, Chewy scores exactly 0 arms in all 4 movies he appears in. He doesn’t loose any either, so his score is 0. No 'arm done.
> [@kelly5078](#):
>
> An excellent point. Too bad they didn’t have light sabers in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” or they could have had a garden of Black Knights.
Can you honestly say you watched the end of episode iii without thinking “It’s just a fleshwound!”?
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2010, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/17 "2010-01-29T23:25:18Z")
I’d guess it also had a fair bit to do with the kendo influence on light-sabre duelling - the wrist (_kote_) is one of the target zones in kendo.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2010, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/18 "2010-01-29T23:25:57Z")
What is the Sound of One Hand Chopping?
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### Author:  [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2010, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/19 "2010-01-30T00:19:05Z")
> [@Ogre](#):
>
> I’ve always wondered about the lone case that I can remember of a light saber NOT cauterizing as it cuts. There’s plainly blood splattered around the stump of the arm of the bounty hunter in the bar (Ep IV). Cool, poorly-maintained saber? Heat-resistant flesh? 🙂
Non-human anatomy?
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### Author:  [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2010, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-all-the-hand-chopping-in-star-wars/526940/20 "2010-01-30T04:04:49Z")
> [@garygnu](#):
>
> Non-human anatomy?
Why would that matter? It should still cauterize the wound.
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