The Mystery of C-3PO’s Red Arm in The Force Awakens
By Elaine Tveit
As if JJ Abrams’s The Force Awakens mystery box wasn’t full enough, we have yet another mystery surrounding the biggest film of 2015, this time about another of the franchise’s most iconic characters.
Someone in Mexico found a can that features BB-8, R2 D2, and C-3PO on its front. As BB-8 appears to be the trademark droid of The Force Awakens, it makes sense that this can may be promoting that same film.
The mysterious portion of it is, 3PO is inexplicably sporting a red left arm.
Have a look below (tweet via Marc Zachacki, who discovered the picture).
Interesting can via Mexico.... pic.twitter.com/L2YW5mKibJ
— Zahack (@SWzahack) June 5, 2015
At first, I thought this might just be a mistake; an error in printing, perhaps. But then, I saw this picture, tweeted to me by Yakface.com. If you look closely at the blue chair on the left, you’ll see that one of C-3PO’s arms is red (according to Yakface, the image of the chair was mirrored, so even though it looks like it’s 3PO’s right arm that is red, it would still be his left arm that is the red replacement).
What’s the story behind this mysterious red arm? Is it really a mistake, like I originally thought, or is it a deliberate choice that we will see evidence of in the The Force Awakens? The latter certainly seems probable. After all, the photos in this post are all we have to go on concerning 3PO’s appearance, and both are indicating the same peculiar choice of limb color. We haven’t seen Goldenrod in any The Force Awakens footage whatsoever so far, so there’s nothing official to contradict what these photos are showing. And it’s not farfetched to imagine that the fussy droid could have lost a limb on another one of his adventures with the Skywalkers (he’s lost limbs more than once in the first six Star Wars films alone).
But why the red arm? That’s what makes it all so mysterious and strange.
I’m sure we’ll solve this mystery of C-3PO’s red arm soon enough, though, what with toy leaks and the occasional hint from Disney and Lucasfilm. We may even find out something about it in the Journey to The Force Awakens comic that is set to star the gold- (and possibly red) colored protocol droid. As always, stay tuned to Dork Side for more developments.