Episode VI: Luke's Shot Hand

In Return of the Jedi, when Luke is cutting down Jabba's minions, one of Jabba's soldiers shoots Luke's mechanical hand while Luke was holding his saber up in the air.

The scene just shows him in a defensive stance before the shooter came up, but then he was suddenly holding his lightsaber up like it was Mjölnir, and got shot in the hand because of it.

So, my question is, what exactly was Luke doing with his lightsaber then? There were no enemies nearby to defend against, and most certainly there wasn't one above him, so why was the saber held up the way it was?

To enjoy the color.

That's what I was thinking, he was doing nothing to benefit anybody, essentially just dicking-around.

he was pretending his lightsaber was a torch

He was pretending he was the statue of liberty.

Even more confusing is how Luke was able to kick that one guy without making any physical contact.

But that was just the Force, right? Certainly not a minor oversight in the production process that merits a pathetic amount of over-analyzing, right?

Right?

Originally posted by queeq
He was pretending he was the statue of liberty.

Maybe Luke thought he was in the olympics

^ If that is true, then he failed as hard as Sochi is failing now.

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
Even more confusing is how Luke was able to kick that one guy without making any physical contact.

But that was just the Force, right? Certainly not a minor oversight in the production process that merits a pathetic amount of over-analyzing, right?

Right?

I'm not saying we should over-analyze. I'm merely pointing out something that made no sense. The no-contact-kick could be explained by the Force. Luke holding up his lightsaber like the statue of liberty in the middle of a battle, however, really can't be explained away as anything other than Luke just dicking-around, or as a minor production error.

It's probably something that happened during editing. Maybe the action was more extensive and part of the fight was cut. They needed the hand to be shot though, because that was a character device.

^that one makes sense.

If I was gonna shoot Luke I wouldn't shoot his hand

Originally posted by jmoul
^ If that is true, then he failed as hard as Sochi is failing now.

Originally posted by steverules_2
If I was gonna shoot Luke I wouldn't shoot his hand

It looks like an accident anyway.

aim for the robot hand?

Luke was taking queues from He-Man. Clearly.

Good point. Guess he got the blue lightning a bit later on in the movie. 😉

Yes, the dots were yearning to be connected. 👆

Wasn't blue lightning that hit Luke, it was violet.

Details.