10 Times Star Wars Broke Its Own Rules (And You Didn't Notice)
5. Lightsabers Cauterising Wounds (Except When They Don't)
One of the key characteristics of a lightsaber is its extreme heat, which allows it to not only cut through basically any material with ease, but instantly cauterise wounds while cutting human flesh.
Except that's not always the case.
Take Obi-Wan's run-in with Ponda Baba (Tommy Ilsley) in the Mos Eisley cantina in A New Hope, where Obi-Wan effortlessly slices Baba's arm off with a lightsaber, before we catch a lingering glimpse of Baba's severed appendage covered in blood.
Sure, you can argue that Ponda Baba's circulatory system and blood pressure act in a different way to humans', but it's another reach.
In reality, most every other time we've seen someone lose a limb to a lightsaber - say, Luke in The Empire Strikes Back - it's been entirely bloodless.
Essentially George Lucas hadn't yet mapped out the rules for lightsaber strikes during production of A New Hope, ensuring Ponda Baba's gory dispatch continues to stick out like a sore thumb compared to the more "family-friendly" dismemberments in subsequent Star Wars movies.