C-3PO’s Red Arm Explained!

Disney and JJ Abrams decided to jazz up the legacy characters a bit for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, most notably by fitting the classic droid C-3PO with a red arm in place of his normal golden one. For the explanation on how he loses his arm, read on after the jump!

It seems that one of the many ingenious subplot’s of The Force Awakens synergizes two key elements from the previous films. Firstly, there’s an element of betting and competition from The Phantom Menace, coupled with a harkening back to some safety advice that C-3PO gave to his counterpart R2-D2 regarding Wookiees in A New Hope.

Early in the first act, Chewbacca and C-3PO find themselves strapped for cash in a grimy bar on Jakku. In order to get the money they need for space gas, they challenge another droid/wookiee duo to a friendly game of galactic beer pong. Unfortunately for C-3PO, they absolutely destroy the other pair. In a drunken feud after the match, the opponent wookiee pulls C-3PO’s arm out of his socket in an ironic case of not heeding one’s own advice.

It turns out that C-3PO has an incredible talent for beer pong and in this case definitely does NOT let the wookiee win. Thankfully though, Chewie is right by his side to protect him from graver harm.

The two then visit Max Von Sydow’s character Lor San Tekka, and in exchange for a few tufts of chewie’s valuable furry coat, they jimmy-rig the red prosthesis on him.

This also explains the patch seen on Chewie’s arm in the new trailer, since wookiees, in addition to being known for pulling arms out of their sockets when they lose, are also extremely shy and embarrassed about baldness in their culture.

Look for more surprising revelations here at Faking Star Wars as our sources bring us all the info you don’t care to know!

Liked it? Take a second to support Faking Star Wars on Patreon!