Could Anyone Do Luke’s Plank Flip From ‘Return of the Jedi’?

It’s Might 4, so joyful Star Wars Day—might the fourth be with you!

One of many iconic scenes from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi is the battle on Tatooine on the Sarlacc Pit, the house of a large creature that simply waits to eat the issues that fall into its sand gap. (No spoiler alert: It has been nearly 30 years since Return of the Jedi hit the theaters. If you have not seen it by now, you most likely aren’t going to.)

Luke Skywalker is being held captive by Jabba the Hutt’s guards. They’re on a skiff above the Sarlacc Pit, and Luke is standing on a plank, about to be pushed into the creature’s maw. R2-D2 is a long way away on Jabba’s sail barge—and he has been preserving Luke’s lightsaber. Now for the most effective half: At simply the fitting second, R2 launches Luke’s lightsaber in order that it flies throughout the pit for Luke to catch. As that occurs, Luke jumps off the plank and spins round. He catches the sting of the plank and makes use of it to springboard himself right into a flip again onto the skiff. Now the battle begins.

I am going to take a look at these two motions—the lightsaber toss and the plank flip—and see if it is doable for an strange human to do that, or if you must be a Jedi like Luke. However I’m going to make one huge assumption about this scene, and also you won’t prefer it. I will assume that the planet Tatooine has the identical floor gravity as Earth, in order that g = 9.8 newtons per kilogram. This may imply {that a} leaping human and a thrown lightsaber would comply with comparable trajectories on each planets.

Oh, I get it: Tatooine shouldn’t be the identical as Earth. Nonetheless, within the film it appears to be like lots like Earth (you recognize why), and this permits me to make some precise calculations. Let’s do it.

Movement of a Lightsaber

I will begin with the lightsaber that R2-D2 launches in direction of Luke. What can we determine from this a part of the motion sequence? Effectively, let’s begin with some information.

First I will get the whole flight time because the lightsaber strikes from R2 to Luke. The best means to do that is to make use of a video evaluation program; my favourite is Tracker. With this, I can mark the video body that exhibits the weapon leaving R2-D2’s head (which is type of bizarre when you concentrate on it) after which mark the body the place it will get to Luke. This offers a flight time of three.84 seconds.

I will assume that is not the precise flight time. Why? First, it is a fairly very long time for the lightsaber to be within the air. Additionally, there’s fairly a bit occurring throughout that shot. Within the sequence seen within the film, R2-D2 shoots the saber and we see it rising. Reduce to Luke doing a entrance flip onto the skiff. Reduce to Luke touchdown, then a shot of the lightsaber falling in direction of him. The ultimate shot exhibits Luke’s hand catching the weapon. That is a number of cuts, and so it won’t be a real-time sequence. Don’t fret, that is advantageous. That is what film administrators do.