Why did Anakin require a robotic arm?

After Anakin was maimed why couldn't medics simply reattach his arm through surgery. We understand that they could not have performed this with Luke since his arm fell into some sort of abyss, but Anakin's arm was lying a few metres away.

 

He's gotta start becoming "more machine than man" sometime....not to mention he needs a reason to hate Dooku. He'll have to have some kind of an emotional connection to him so he can destroy Dooku and take his place at Palpatine's side. Assuming Lucas goes for a parallel with the end of ROTJ, which seems likely.

 

Well its supposed to contrast and parallel Luke.
Remember by ESB we realise that Luke is becoming more like his father than even he can realise.

Plus maybe they can't re-attach arms which have been cut off by a lightsaber.

not to mention he needs a reason to hate Dooku. He'll have to have some kind of an emotional connection to him so he can destroy Dooku and take his place at Palpatine's side. Assuming Lucas goes for a parallel with the end of ROTJ, which seems likely.

I don't think Lucas will do that kind of parallel. There is no emotional connection with Dooku, if you want to see Anakin become Vader its going to be mostly because of his emotional connection Padme.

 

Come on, at least have his arm cloned by the Kaminoans, and have it reattached.

 

Maybe, in the SW universe, their medical technology and knowledge isn't as advanced as their robotics \ mechanics expertise. Plus, the arm was cut off by lightsaber and cauterised. The nerve endings were burnt off. They'd have to shorten the arm and the stump to reattach it. As for the cloning issue, it seems to me that the Kaminoans can only clone entire organisms, not bodyparts... erg arms legs etc. Or maybe they can't clone his arm because of the midichlorians issue.

 

Re-attaching severed limbs is extremely complex and not always possible.

 

But then how do you explain the mechanic arm of Vader in Episode VI? Maybe there is no time in Episode III to explain this, so that Lucas did that in EII.

 

Remember that the difference between the time of AOTc & ESB is that they probably didnt have prosthetic body parts such as hands etc like they did for Luke.
And as has been mentioned an arm cannot be re-attached after its been cut off by a lightsaber because it burns out the nerve endings.

And Lucas did explain the robotic arm that Vader had, both Anakins robotic arm and the hand from ROTJ are the same arm

Plus remember in EP3 Anakin will be pretty much a mess after his fight with Obi-Wan

 

Look at Anakin's arm at his wedding to Padme. You can see the mechanics of it.

Look at Luke's synthetic hand at the end of TESB. Its realistic looking skin.

Therefore the tech of Star Wars evolves with time.

By the way you say that a lightsaber cuts nerve endings... my memory on OT is a little rusty but didn't Darth Vader cut Luke's hand off?

 

Yes he did, so we can assume that they had to remove a little bit extra of the wrist to get to working nerve endings. They could either make the artificial hand connections a little longer, or just leave Luke with a fractionally shorter right arm.

 

It has cut off by a lightaber. The lightsaber sheers the wound shut so there is bleeding. ( It burns the blood vessels and nerves shut ) So therefore, they would have to cut off more of each half of each arm, then reattach it, then you have uneven arm lengths. Oh what fun that would be. [fac_plain]

 

Yea they couldn't cause the lightsaber fuses everything shut and kills it

But by the time of ESB my assumption is they have gotten more advanced and can now work around this. Luke's hand looks a like better then anakin's, so they've advanced their medical tech. and I'm betting being able to attach severed and not just torn off arms was one of the advancements

 

They didn't reattach Luke's severed hand - they attached a robotic hand like they did for Anakin. A part of his arm was probably shortened to get to the live nerve endings and blood vessels. If you recall in ROTJ, when his hand "shorts" out after he is zapped, he opens up a panel in his wrist. Vader cut Luke's hand off above the wrist. So yes, his arm was shortened slightly and the robotic hand attached to open vessels and nerves. In Anakin's case, they have to shorten each end of the severed arm to reattach it. A Robotic arm was the only real option.

 

"If you recall in ROTJ, when his hand "shorts" out after he is zapped, he opens up a panel in his wrist."

When in ROTJ did Luke open a panel in his wrist? And when did his hand short out? He was shot in the hand/wrist on the sail barge, and that allowed us to see the inner workings of his hand later. The only time we saw an open wrist panel was at the end or TESB when Luke got his new hand.

I do have to agree with the shortening of the arm though. Vader slices Luke's hand off at the wrist, and when we see Luke getting the finishing touches on his new hand, the open panel is on the wrist, not the hand.

 

'I don't think Lucas will do that kind of parallel. There is no emotional connection with Dooku, "

Have to disagree. First Anakin is mad Dooku killed all those jedi, then for his hand, and wecan imagine he's none too happy for trying to kill Padme. So there's lots of anger towards Dooku.

 

Ah Ret but that doesn't justify the same kind of parallel duel between Anakin & Dooku to Luke & Vader.

You're morely to see Anakins darkside turn because of his emotional attachment to Padme and his responses to her fate.

Dooku is not an essential part of Anakins downturn, there isn't enough emotional sway for him to be that significant to Anakin.

 

Or they could ruin it all and have Anakin become obsessed with Dooku because he took his arm and he even calls Dooku his "white whale"

 

Count Mobey Dooku =D

 

Can I just say that me and all my sick minded friends all winced when we saw the robotic arm...I mean since it was the wedding scene that they showed it during our sick little minds immediately thought of the wedding night and how...uh...uncomfortable and wierd having your husband have a robotic gold hand would be.

Just thought I'd throw that in...

 

There may not be an emotional connection to Dooku, but there is a symbolic one. He is the first Jedi under Palpatine's reign to be converted to the Dark Side.

 

When you get a limb cut off and put back on again it's never the same as it used to be. So droid arms are much stronger and you won't have any weakness.

 

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Anakin didn't want it reattached because he wanted to have the robotic arm remind him of his failures. However, I don't remember where I read that, and I don't remember what the source was. It's probably some sort of EU explanation, so you don't have to believe it.

 

The only reason GL gave Anakin a mechanical arm was to give a Darth Vader reference and to show that Anakin was loosing his humanity.

 

I think that the arm we see Anakin with at the end is a cheap little filler prosthetic, and he'll get a more Luke-esqe one later.

 

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think Anakin's prosthetic at the end of AOTC looks much like the severed stump in ROTJ. The stump in ROTJ looks like solid plastic with a few wires sticking out of it, not a brass/copper wireframe. Just my .02, take it for what it's worth.