「𝕾𝖍𝖆𝖉𝖔𝖜_𝕭𝖚𝖗𝖓」

Fun fact: When Alec Guinness first read the script for the original Star Wars and agreed to play Ben Kenobi, the character was a cyborg with a mechanical left arm. At one point in this version of the script, inside his home shortly after meeting Luke, Ben Kenobi slams his mechanical arm down on a table in frustration while trying to explain why he isn't the man he used to be. The arm splits apart, "spewing forth wires and electronic components," a symbol of his impotence. Ben admits he "lost control" and apologizes, and subsequently he is described as resting his head in "his one good arm" while he explains the Force to Luke. By the time they set out for Mos Eisley the next morning (Luke has already agreed to come along), Artoo has repaired Ben's damaged left arm, and Ben "emerges into the sunlight and stretches his new arm," clearly feeling renewed and in much better spirits. After Guinness was cast, this plot point was completely written out of the script, and all the business about a damaged mechanical left arm was, interestingly enough, transferred to Threepio. Now it is Threepio whose left arm is damaged, splitting off at the shoulder to reveal the wiring inside, and now Luke has to reattach and repair Threepio's arm in the subsequent scene in Ben's home. But for whatever reason, Guinness appears to have retained aspects of this earlier characterization of Ben Kenobi. As the scene in his home begins, Luke temporarily pauses his work on Threepio as Ben sits down next to them. At the very moment Luke resumes fiddling with Threepio's left arm, Ben moves to stroke his beard, and in this same motion he seems to go out of his way to hide his own left arm from view as he fondly reminisces to Luke about his father. Ben's left arm remains obscured like this until an idea occurs to him, and he gets up to give Luke his father's lightsaber. Then, on at least two other occasions throughout the film, Ben seems to exhibit a tic of gingerly grabbing his left arm when warning of impending danger or experiencing acute anxiety. This habit of the character is pronounced enough that Ewan McGregor even adopts it as a nervous tic in the prequels, though, interestingly, he swaps the arm. Another interesting data point: Originally, in The Empire Strikes Back, it was specifically Luke's left arm that was to be severed, not his right. The description of Luke's mechanical left arm in a script insert clearly evokes the discarded scene from the first film where Ben's mechanical left arm is split open, and the innards of Luke's mechanical arm are also specifically likened to what we've seen of Threepio: "Luke's lower left arm is exposed, revealing metal struts and electronic circuits, similar to Threepio." Most of the scenes in the first film where Ben exhibits this tic were filmed after George Lucas had decided to kill the character off, so it seems relatively unlikely this had to do with him wanting to seed hints about Ben that he could potentially choose to pay off in later films. A likelier explanation is that this is something Guinness developed as part of his conception of the character based on the original script he received, and he decided to keep it; maybe Ben simply has a bad left arm. However, it is curious that Lucas actively chose to transfer this visual symbol of impotence to Threepio and to keep it as part of basically the same scenes involving Ben. It is even more curious that (to my eyes) Alec Guinness seems to be deliberately making himself resemble an amputee in that first wide shot where Luke is reattaching Threepio's arm, dropping the apparent affectation only when he rises to retrieve Anakin's sword.