Why did Luke hide his Light Saber in R2 in ROTJ???

It was part of the plan in case Jabba insisted he had his weapons taken from him before they spoke.

 

I disagree about the rancor. I think Luke knew, or at least had an idea tht something like that would happen. Remember, it's not until Luke kills the rancor that Jabba gets angry and orders them all to be killed.

As for the plan itself...well it goes like this.

- Lando infiltrates Jabba's security, so he can be in position at the sarlaac pit.

- Leia brings Chewie to Jabba so he will be taken prisoner and be scheduld to be executed along with Luke and Han.

- Leia then has to free Han from the carbonite so he can be mobile and play a role in the final stages of the plan. The question is, did Leia know she would be captured or was she genuinely trying to get Han away from Jabba. I think she didn't know, however Luke knew but didn't tell her so her reactions would be genuine and also because he knew that Jabba would make her his slave, putting her in a position to kill Jabba if if the Hutt refused to negotiate.

- The droids are sent there, also to put them in position. Luke knew that Threepio would be needed to translate for Leia when she's handing Chewie over and that R2, given his skills and equipment, would be best used serving on Jabba's sail barge...a luxury droid for a luxury yacht.

- Finally, Luke...the key to the whole operation. The first thing he does is record the message to Jabba, so that the Hutt will essentially know who he is. Once Luke gets inside the palace and it becomes obvious that Jabba won't negotiate, Luke implements stage 2 of his plan...getting Jabba angry, first he tries to kill Jabba, knowing that he would fail and get dropped into the pit and then, by killing Jabba's prized rancor, Luke ensures that Jabba is so angry that he decides to just kill them all (apart from Leia and the droids who are his servants now and Lando who he doesn't know about).

And so, everything is set up and in place for the final stage of the plan...Han is out of the carbonite, Lando is on the skiff, Chewie and Luke are there too, R2 is on the sail barge with threepio (who has no real role at this point) and Leia is with Jabba.

Basically, for the plan to succeed, everything up to the sarlaac pit had to fail.

The reason Luke doesn't take his lightsaber with him into the palace, is simply that, knowing he had to be captured, the lightsaber would have been taken from him after the rancor incident and so, he wouldn't have had access to it at the sarlaac pit. By hiding it in Artoo, Luke can go ahead with the plan and let it play out, knowing that the droid will be in a position to give him the weapon when the time is right.

The plan is either outrageously ridiculous or a work of genius depending on your point of view, but in any case, it worked.

 

I just watched this a few days ago, and had been pondering on the situation. I was thinking that it certainly was very lucky that Luke foresaw that they would not bind his hands, like they did with Han and Chewie. If they hsd, I fail to see how he would have caught the lightsaber.

 

because Jabba would have taken it from him

 

I thought his hands were bound. Aren't they behind his back when Han, Chewie, and him are brought before Jabba? Doesn't Luke rub his wrists/hands on the skiff? That always indicated to me that he was just loosed and was trying to get circulation back in.

Even with bound hands he could have used the force to get his lightsaber ala RotS. Now, Jumping off the plank is another matter.

 

Somehow I just don't see Luke intentionally putting himself into the Rancor pit???
That was an obstacle that he had to overcome!

 

So he could do that awesome flip and catch it duh!

 

Because C3PO throws like a girl.

 

Well, there is one obvious place he could have hidden it, albeit in plain sight, but then I remember that Star Wars is a family friendly franchise

 

Their are children on this site!

 

A better question is why didn't Luke have multiple lightsabers?

 

He built this lightsabre between ESB and ROTJ out of spare parts and the required crystal.

He built ONE and only one, a jedi doesn't need multiple lightsabers as he showed in ROTJ.

 

i like most of the explanations here. but what
i'm not buying is luke taking a chance that
r2 would be at the sarlaac pit. he could have
just as easily been left behind at the palace.

 

this whole section of the film just shows how powerful luke as become with the force . lets not forget he is the son of the chosen one .
he enters jabba,s place unarmed , because he as forseen everything that is about to happen . thats why the lightsaber is in r2 ,