That would have made for a way better opening imo, although I can see why they wanted to shy away from having a 30-year-old rotting hand be literally the first thing you see in the film. Maybe they didn’t want to set the bar too high.
Well, it certainly would have been a memorable SW moment, even if it doesn’t really make much sense.
However, I do wish they had stuck with this opening concept that was even storyboarded.