I think that because we don’t actually see the gun fired although there is footage for it… Basically Obi-wan deflects the doctors Laser at Walrus Man then cut’s off the doctors hand. Thus Killing Walrus and seriously maiming the Doctor who does not like anyone.
The Laser being deflected is missing even though we hear the gun go off… That is what the first swipe is for. They just forgot to rotoscope the Laser in and bouncing off. This is also why Luke trains to deflect blasters.
Any good?
and
In the book Ponda Baba was cut in half:
and
They chopped off the Walrus head too! there is a still for it. there must have been many permutations for the sequence but the lightsaber is no where near the Walrus.
Ronster, that was an interesting notion about Dr. Evazan’s laserbolt being deflected into Ponda Baba, and if that works for you, then great.
But it’s not the way I personally choose to view the inconclusive footage. Due to the positioning of all the actors, I’ve always preferred to imagine that Obi-wan makes his 1st swipe on Dr. Evazan’s RIGHT arm, as he raises his blaster…and then takes his 2nd swipe at Ponda Baba’s RIGHT arm too, because he then started to raise his blaster also.
And because various behind-the-scenes pics do confirm that Ponda Baba was originally given a blaster too (not seen onscreen), it didn’t matter to me WHICH character’s arm adywan decided to show as dismembered…as I would just imagine the OTHER arm (and blaster) had also fallen on the cantina floor somewhere offscreen.
However, I’m ALSO okay with the notion that Ponda Baba might have actually got sliced in HALF by Obi-wan’s swipe at him…as I can still imagine that his RIGHT arm was cut off at the same time if he did indeed do that! - so due to the way the footage is filmed and edited, EITHER of these scenarios work fine for me when I watch the movie.
Along with George’s decision to ultimately go with the ‘hairy hand’ prop instead of the ‘flipper’, the behind-the-scenes pics of a Ponda Baba ‘decapitated head prop’ show just how much revision was involved in this scene overall - but the REALLY head-scratching aspect for me is the fact that the Ponda Baba actor has his LEFT arm missing in this particular behind-the-scenes pic - abload.de/img/ponda2apjc2.jpg
…when in fact we end up seeing a prop of Ponda Baba’s RIGHT arm in the final shot! - vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/f/f1/Ponda_arm.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20070326183107&path-prefix=nl
(However, while it was interesting to see Ponda Baba with his ‘hairy hand’ attached in ROGUE ONE, I reckon I’d prefer to remove that ‘coincidental cameo’ of those guys from my own ideal cutlist of the movie) 😃 - https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/a/a2/PondaEvazan.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20170402092052
