what is it with the chopping off of arms thing. . .?

well, obi-wan does it to the guy in the cantina, luke does it to the hoth beast (wampa or whatever), vader does it to luke, luke does it to vader etc. What is with that?

 

Its a way to disarm their opponents without killing them. It is more honerable than dealing a death blow, like when Obi-Wan cuts Maul in half, or when Anakin decapitates the Sand People. The Jedi strive to use only the amount of force required, and to only kill when there is no other choice.

 

It is symbolism common in many myths.

 

its symbolic of a good movie. you may notice that TPM is the only film where no limbs are lost and C3PO stays in one piece. interesting correlation, eh?

 

just look in adam's sig

 

\\ waits for Adam to link you to his site \\

(And while he's at it probably plug RLR again. )

 

you may notice that TPM is the only film where no limbs are lost and C3PO stays in one piece. interesting correlation, eh?

3PO, built by Anakin, is not complete (his parts are showing!) in TPM.

Anakin, (made by the midichlorians ) is also not complete (we get to see his true inner self).

 

There are droids that lose their limbs, and as mentioned 3-PO isn't fully assembled in TPM.

So the theory that loss of limbs and a disassembled 3-PO are symbolic of a good movie.

 

The hand is symbolic of your choices. You have your intellenct (mind) to guide you, you have your heart (emotions, feelings) to guide you. But what you actually do with your life is a choice your have to make. Do you choose to do things for your good and the good of others?

What is it that a swordsman needs in order to wield his weapon of actions? A hand.

Vader is mostly machine. Luke looses his hand and has a taste of what Anakin has become. When Luke takes off Vader's hand, he realizes he's about to become his father if he gives in to the dark side. Rather than do that, he tosses aside his lightsaber and chooses not to seek power, which saves his life when his father kills the Emperor.

 

Is this Adam's site? Freakin Hilarious(!):

The Chopped-Off Hands of Star Wars

 

3PO isn't complete in TPM, but he doesn't break either. He breaks in some way in all the other movies.

I stand by my comments!

 

There was a great quote about Lucas and his penchant for getting arms cut off. I'll have to find it.

 

Does anything happen to 3PO in AoTC?

 

he loses his head (literally) and get a battle droid's head attached to his body. in the mean time, his head gets attached to a battle droid's body and the hilarity ensues.

 

Proof that just about anything anybody ever talks about here can become fertile ground for prequel bashing.

That aside, it's explained pretty well in an issue of the Insider from last year, as was mentioned before, a way of disarming (no pun intended) your opponent while retaining honor. Dramatically, of course, it's a way for GL to show real injury without risking a PG-13 or greater. The slashing of Obi-Wan in AOTC is the first time we've seen that in the films, and it just doesn't pack the same punch as dismemberment. As symbolism, I think it only works in the Anakin-Vader-Luke plot thread...the Wampa, Ponda Baba & 3PO are incidental.

 

a way of disarming (no pun intended) your opponent while retaining honor.

What does dismemberment have to do with honor? David West Reynold's hierarchy of slashing hands, arms, and bodies has nothing to do with honor. In battle, you use a weapon to prevent an opponent from injuring you, usually accomplished most effectively (and efficiently) by killing him. DWR, as an anthropologist, gives hierarchy to a battle imperative -- survival -- where it doesn't exist. It's obvious to me that he's never been in a fight, much less a combat situation.

As symbolism, I think it only works in the Anakin-Vader-Luke plot thread...the Wampa, Ponda Baba & 3PO are incidental.

Agreed. The latter could be considered foreshadowing (at best).

 

Yes, but Reynolds (and Lucas, really) don't see a Jedi with a lightsaber as necessarily "in battle" or combat, despite the last 40 minutes of AOTC. Use of a saber is more symbolically tied with the rules of chivalry than the use of ballistic weaponry. A blaster's a blaster, but a saber is used with thought, consideration, and yes, honor. It's an extension of the Jedi philosophy, not just something to use in battle. Going for the arm is a specific choice - notice how in every instance, it's done very specifically, on the offense, not as a reaction to attack, and that in the major instances, it's almost a last resort. And it IS more honorable than taking a life when it's not necessary.

 

Yes, but Reynolds (and Lucas, really) don't see a Jedi with a lightsaber as necessarily "in battle" or combat, despite the last 40 minutes of AOTC. Use of a saber is more symbolically tied with the rules of chivalry than the use of ballistic weaponry. A blaster's a blaster, but a saber is used with thought, consideration, and yes, honor. It's an extension of the Jedi philosophy, not just something to use in battle. Going for the arm is a specific choice - notice how in every instance, it's done very specifically, on the offense, not as a reaction to attack, and that in the major instances, it's almost a last resort. And it IS more honorable than taking a life when it's not necessary.

In no serious weapons training is there any hierarchy of injury in the use of the weapon as Reynolds describes in in SW Insider. It?s all conveniently (and quaintly) made up by him. You don?t have to accept my argument for the symbolism of going for the hand, but I don?t see any pattern to the use of the lightsabers that makes any real world sense. Just because Maul kills Qui-Gon by putting a hole into his chest, doesn?t mean it?s representative of some Sith contempt for his opponent.

The idea of honor is to preserve face by engaging in and limiting a life threatening situation. In European duels, what was important was that the two men agreed to the fight, not always its outcome. You could have honor and still loose.

In combat, the idea is to defeat (which usually means kill) your enemy. For a police officer, the ideal is to arrest an individual with the least amount of injury. In both instances, law does not grant the privilege of a hierarchy of injury. In combat and in police academies, the use of a deadly weapon is to kill. If a police officer feels threatened, he?s trained to use his gun to kill (or else he might be killed). Officers are not trained to aim for the hand or to aim for the leg or to hit the upper bicep of the arm holding the knife. If they were, and an officer accidentally kills the person instead of hitting the person?s leg, the officer and the police institution would be legally liable. That threshold is too difficult for an institution to impose on its officers and soldiers. And can you imagine Yoda reprimanding Obi-Wan, "Your orders were to cut off his hand, not cut him in half."

[The counter argument is that marines during WW II were told it was preferred to injure instead of kill. But that?s not because American soldiers were nicer than their opponents. The idea was that the opponents would probably send one or two others to recover and save their injured comrade. By injuring the opponent, you ?took out? two or more opponents (at least temporarily).]

It's an extension of the Jedi philosophy, not just something to use in battle.

That's a very romantic notion of sword fighting. All philosophy aside. If you use a weapon, use it to do what it was intended -- to kill. When I train in kendo and fencing, I learn moves that are used to kill opponents. Think of the Jedi. Do you think they're all training with their lightsaber skills to aim for the wrist to be nice? Or to cut their opponent in half because they want to show how much they really hated their opponent? The techniques I learn (as would the Jedi) are horrible skills, but whether for personal protection or developing discipline and to improve myself as a person, no one can make nice of an utterly repugnant skill. Learning how to kill is necessary only because people feel a potential threat exists.

A blaster's a blaster, but a saber is used with thought, consideration, and yes, honor.

Yes, blasters are ranged weapons, and thus less personal, but a lightsaber is as terrible a weapon. All weapons should be used with thought and consideration, but also with purpose.

And it IS more honorable than taking a life when it's not necessary.

Injuring (to any degree) or killing an individual is both odious and repugnant, though it is sometimes necessary for self-defense or perhaps to ?right? a wrong (i.e. punishmen

 

Now I get it. I hadn't seen your website until just now. It's very interesting. I am (was, at least, before a back injury) a student of Western fencing, and a casual enthusiast of other forms.

What I find interesting is your correlation between real-world fencing and the SW universe, which very obviously plays by its own rules. I can now understand some of your frustration with Reynolds, who attempted to put a formal structure into a fictional setting that clearly doesn't want it. It's not just this topic - look too closely at anything in Lucas' universe in a real-world context, and you'll find fault. It's why a lot of EU doesn't work for me; it runs to the scientific, which is clearly out of place in SW.

Certainly, you must admit that, Reynolds' article aside, Lucas' idea of the lightsaber was meant to be, as you said I saw it, romantic. Think of the first time we see one: "An elegant weapon, for a more civilized age." Don't you agree that this was Lucas' intent, no matter how "repugnant" the saber's original purpose?

Truthfully, I was arguing only from the standpoint of Reynolds' article, which I have a lot of problems with. When it gets right down to it, I'm quite baffled (and morbidly amused) by the whole dismemberment issue.

 

Lucas' idea of the lightsaber was meant to be, as you said I saw it, romantic. Think of the first time we see one: "An elegant weapon, for a more civilized age." Don't you agree that this was Lucas' intent, no matter how "repugnant" the saber's original purpose?

I, and I think most people, would agree that Lucas saw the sword as a "romantic" object of an earlier age. I also think that he's always been very aware of the repugnance of the violence, as well as the immorality of violent acts. Owen and Beru were never showed actually being fried, you never see the arm lopped off in the cantina, you don't see the needle being injected into Leia when she was captured on the Death Star, and Captain Antilles' face isn't showing when Vader stranggles him. There's actually quite a lot of violence, but it's not graphic.

The lesson of ROTJ is that violence isn't the answer to the universe's problems. It's when Luke see's Vader's chopped off stump that he realizes the futility of continuing the fight. It's Vader's love for his son (not his defeat) which turns him from the Dark Side.

And what does "An elegant weapon, for a more civilized age" mean? After all of the things I've seen Obi-Wan say and do in the PT and the OT, I'd take his words with a grain of salt. Don't get me wrong. I love that line! It's a very passionate statement about the lightsaber. I understand the point Obi-Wan is making (it's a time when hand-to-hand combat which is in one respect superior to distance blasters), but isn't the statement a silly platitude?

Throughout all of the films Obi-Wan is continually doing stuff with his lightsaber. He uses it rather overtly in the cantina (it IS effective though), he's chided by Qui-Gon for loosing it in the water (yeah, I know that scene was cut), and Qui-Gon chides Anakin that his lightsaber is his life.

Yoda doesn't talk about weapons. He talks about a connection with the Force (i.e. the universe). He teaches Luke discipline. He tells Luke that he doesn't need his weapons when he goes into the cave. (Of course Luke takes them anyway.)

 

I don't think arms getting chopped off is symbolic at all. What else are you going to do with a lightsaber? They're designed to cut things.

The only symbolism is Luke getting his hand chopped off and Vader getting his hand chopped off, and the parallel in similar events between the two.

Other than that, it's just lightsabers doing their thing.

 

If Jedi just carried guns and shot things up, we wouldn't be looking for symbolism in it. We don't looking for meaning in Han's blaster.

But when there is a repeating motif (limbs being cut off), people begin to look at the artistic creativity of the artist. If your assumption is that the movie is just fun, no problem, no worry in examining the art critically. On the other side, there's the problem of looking too deeply into the art and creating meaning that isn't there or was never intended.

In spite of those two extremes, I like to say that good art provokes some kind of response from the audience. The art is successful if the reaction is positive or negative. If it's positive, it supports the idea that the artist was successful in getting people to reflect on something greater than the banality of life. If negative, it's at least gotten that person to emotionally or intellectually reject the art, which similarly gets a person to reflect on something greater than the banality of life. Bad art illicits no reaction from people. Or the person isn't creative enough (in that particular art) to invest intellectual or emotional interest in the art.

I'm of the opinion that art must be part of public for it to be art. Otherwise, it's purely a creative egocentric creation meant to make the artist happy. In this situation, it is not necessary to think critically about the art. If art is to be considered art, it needs to be shared publically so that critique and criticism can be made about that art. This provides a standard that goes beyond individual taste. The public could be completely wrong in its judgment, or their tastes or critical and analytical ability can be lacking, but on the other side, when some art is deemed praiseworthy (or even critically novel in artistic expression) society (and the artist) benefits.

I certainly don't consider SW high art, but no one can deny the huge cultural impact GL has made on the world's society. I was watching Dune last night and the plot and setting are extremely complicated and sophisticated, but on a basic level Dune's impact is not as far reaching as SW. LOTR is not critically of the highest literary caliber, but it has made a huge impact on its genre and now with the movies an even larger impact on general culture.

 

I think the limbs coming off is symbolic only in the case of the Skywalkers and one does not see that symbolism until Lukes moment of truth at the end of RotJ. The way there used in some instances are just
ways to keep the story rolling in an interesting manner. For example when Luke cuts open the bottom of the Imperial Walker or when Anakin uses his saber to kill the poison centipedes. However there are many instances when GL purposely pays homage to the Samurai warrior and European style duels: Vader using a one-handed technique to fight his son, Dookus precision sword-wielding when disarming Obi-Wan, and of course
Yodas style which would have made Kurasawa very proud, not to mention Oggami Itto. ( Yoda vs. Dooku is a heavily symbolic fight if you ask me - symbolic from a cinematic history pov, not SW - it suggests a duel between a swordsman with a heavy eastern influence versus a sort of westernized style. )

 

I think the only symbolic arm dismemberment was Vader's in ROTJ.

The rest is basically what happens when you get guys fighting each other with sabres that happen to be able to melt through metal. Bits of people get chopped off.

 

I think Kurosawa would have hated the Yoda fight. He would probably like what we will see in Episode 3, swordfights involving emotion and energy, not eyecandy. The directors of Iron Monkey or Charlies Angels might like the Yoda fight more.