It’s All About The Hands.
By now, everyone’s heard this statement.
Everyone is also familiar with these two moments from The Last Jedi:
These two scenes have always stuck out to me and after Mark’s tweet it got me thinking about other hand references in the Star Wars universe.
These scenes come to mind immediately:
Anakin and Luke both lose a hand. This isn’t necessarily “unusual” in the Star Wars galaxy. Jedi looove cutting hands off and we see it a lot. I believe it’s actually a named maneuver used when learning lightsaber fighting.
I do find it interesting that Mark’s tweet included a video that shows Luke’s mechanical hand:
I suppose that could just be a coincidence.
For a while, I didn’t find anything that referenced hands in a way that felt important… until I watched Star Wars Rebels and boy, do I think there is some SERIOUSLY important stuff there…
The episode A World Between Worlds is probably pretty familiar to most Star Wars fans but I think there are some really significant similarities to scenes in The Last Jedi.
In the episode, Ezra uses an ancient tablet to decipher how to open and close the world between worlds (which for anyone unfamiliar is an interdimensional portal that shows and allows a person to alter time).
Here’s a shot of the tablet and mural Ezra has to interact with in order to reach the world between worlds:
Each hand represents a figure from the Mortis arc, father, daughter, son. The son, the clenched fist, is the embodiment of the dark side of the force- violence, anger, greed. The daughter, or the outstretched hand, represents the light side- peace and selflessness.
We’ve already seen the clenched fist in The Last Jedi, but we’ve also seen the outstreched hand here:
Do me a favor and stretch your hand out. The natural position of the hand is similar to Ben’s, with the thumb rolled forward. Pushing the thumb to the top of the hand, like Rey has, requires intention, it’s almost uncomfortable, but it matches the position of the daughter’s hand on the tablet exactly.
In Rebels, Ezra seems to close the portal by extending the daughters hand against the image of the son’s fist. I would argue that Rey is doing the exact same thing for Ben. Who knows what might have happened had Luke not interrupted them.
And let’s add the fact that both Kylo and Rey dress similarly to the figures of the son and daughter.
I think we’ve seen something similar to the world between worlds in The Last Jedi too, in the cave mirror scene.
When Ezra first enters the portal, we see a ghostly image of what we know is on the other side:
That seems pretty similar to this:
What’s really interesting to me is that seems to be happening in “real time”, with the figure on the other side mimicking Rey’s hand position. Adds a whole other possible interpretation to “What girl?”
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