How many hands / arms have been cut off in Star Wars?

Question

The Star Wars franchise is rife with dismemberments, particularly involving arms and hands.

User DVK had compiled a table of arm / hand removals via lightsaber from Episodes IV-VI in an answer to this question:

• Symbolic meanings of everyone losing their hands

How many hands or arms have been cut off in the entirety of on-screen Star Wars, including The Force Awakens and The Clone Wars?

Limb removals count even if they were NOT cut off with a lightsaber.

Novels, comics, and other media do not count for the purposes of this question. Since Star Wars Rebels is still ongoing, I am not including it.

Answer 1

Episode I: The Phantom Menace

(Darth Maul loses both legs. After Qui-Gon Jinn dies at the hands of Darth Maul, Obi-Wan Kenobi continues the duel. Obi-Wan manages to turn the fight around, take Maul by surprise, and chops him in two near the waist.)

Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Zam Wesell loses her right arm. After the Clawdite shape-shifter Zam Wesell makes an attempt on Padmé Amidala’s life, Obi-Wan and Anakin Skywalker chase her through Coruscant. They locate her when she ducks into a bar, and Obi-Wan uses his lightsaber to remove her right forearm before she can shoot him.

(Acklay loses two legs. One of the creatures in the arena during the Battle of Geonosis was the formidable acklay. It tried to take down Obi-Wan, but he escaped its pincers by slicing off two of the acklay’s front legs with his lightsaber.)

Anakin loses his right arm. When Anakin recovers from being hit with Force lightning from Count Dooku, he leaps back into battle only to lose more than half of his right arm to Dooku’s blade.

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Count Dooku loses both hands. In one of many turning points for Anakin, he exacts revenge upon Count Dooku and uses his lightsaber to cut off both the Sith’s hands. (Dooku would also lose his head.)

General Grievous loses two hands. General Grievous is quite the force to be reckoned with given his multiple appendages. Still, Obi-Wan sliced off two of his robotic hands in battle.

Mace Windu loses his right hand. When Mace discovers that Palpatine is the Sith they’ve been looking for, he decides to handle things himself rather than going through appropriate channels. Anakin stops Mace from killing Palpatine by removing Mace’s right hand from the rest of his body.

Anakin loses his left arm and both his legs. We all know how Revenge of the Sith ends, and it isn’t pretty. Anakin comes to hate Obi-Wan, and they engage in a brutal battle on Mustafar. Obi-Wan cuts off Anakin’s left arm and both legs in one swipe.

Episode IV: A New Hope

C-3PO loses his left arm. The Jundland Wastes are not to be traveled lightly, as C-3PO learned. He loses an arm to a Tusken Raider while trying to find R2-D2.

Ponda Baba loses his right arm. When Doctor Evazan and Ponda Baba give Luke a rough time in the Mos Eisley cantina, Obi-Wan steps in to help. He helps by cutting off Ponda Baba’s right arm.

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Wampa loses its right arm. Wampas are no match for the Force. Luke summons the Force to retrieve his lightsaber, cuts himself down, and debilitates the wampa by, you guessed it, removing its right arm.

C-3PO loses all his limbs. Threepio really does not have good luck. Or any luck. This time around he puts his nose where it doesn’t belong while on Bespin, and Ugnaughts remove his limbs and later completely disassemble him.

Luke loses his right hand. When Luke encounters Darth Vader in Cloud City, he is in no way prepared for the duel. Luke does manage to put up a fight, but Vader has no trouble chopping off Luke’s right hand.

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

Vader loses his right hand. Again. The next time Luke stands off against Vader, he’s more prepared. He’s wiser and more skilled. Before it’s all over, he pulls a reverse and cuts off Vader’s right hand.

Episode VII: The Force Awakens

This is the first film in which nobody loses any limbs! However, if we count Alan Dean Foster's novelisation as canon (and rumour has it that this was also a deleted scene), then there is one instance.

Unkar Plutt loses an arm. Rey bumps into Unkar Plutt, the scrap dealer from whom she stole the Millennium Falcon back on Jakku. Plutt's tracked the Falcon to Takodana, and isn't too happy that his prized possession's been stolen from under his nose. Rey aims her newly-acquired blaster at Plutt, only for him to snatch it off her. Chewbacca steps in to protect Rey, when Plutt lashes out. Chewie does what Han once warned C-3P0 about: he rips Plutt's arm out of its socket.

Other (less canonical)

(Padawan Hardin lost half a leg. At the climax of the Seventh Battle of Ruusan, Sith Lord Githany severed Padawan Hardin's leg from the knee down with her lightwhip. (In Star Wars: Jedi vs. Sith (comics).))

Balog lost a finger. Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn sliced a finger off Balog before the treacherous Absolute could press a transmitter to end Tahl's life. (In Jedi Apprentice: the Death of Hope (novel).)

Zule Xiss lost her left arm. Dark Jedi Asajj Ventress applied cho mok against Zule Xiss, slicing off her left arm. (In Star Wars: Republic: the Battle of Jabiim (comics).)

Nom Anor lost a limb. Leia Organa Solo used this technique on Nom Anor at the end of Yuuzhan Vong War. (In The New Jedi Order: the Unifying Force (novel).)

UnuThul lost an arm. Luke Skywalker also severed UnuThul's arm during their duel aboard the Admiral Ackbar. (In Dark Nest: the Swarm War (novel).)

(Nelani Dinn lost his right leg. Jacen Solo performed cho mok when he chopped off Nelani Dinn's right leg at Darth Vectivus's lair near Bimmiel in 40 ABY, beginning his path towards his grandfather's footsteps. (In Legacies of the Force: Betrayal (novel).))

(Tresina Lobi lost both legs. Jedi Master Tresina Lobi received a cho mok strike from Dark Lady of the Sith Lumiya from her lightwhip, during their duel in Coruscant's Fellowship Plaza, having both of her legs severed at the knees. (In Legacies of the Force: Tempest (novel).))

Salle Serpa lost an arm. Salle Serpa would have his arm cut off by Zekk. (In Legacies of the Force: Inferno (novel).)

(The last surviving Sith Lord lost both legs. Cade Skywalker severed the legs of the last surviving Sith Lord during the Mission to Daluuj in order to interrogate him. (In Star Wars: Legacy 48: Extremes, Part 1 (comics).))

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(Sources:

• StarWars.com's Every Limb Lost in the Star Wars films used for Episodes I-VI lists

• Wookieepedia's Cho Mok used for non-Episodes I-VII examples)

Answer 2

TL;DR: It depends on what you include or not :)

Episode 1: 0 (or 2 if you count Maul's 2 legs, which is not really correct)

Episode 2: 2 (Zam Wesell, Anakin) + Acklay (monster's 2 legs chopped off).

Episode 3: 6 (Mace Windu, Dooku x2, stormtrooper, Grevious x2) or 7 (including Anakin's prosthesis arm) or 9 (including Anakin's legs x2).

Episode 4: 1 (Ponda Baba)

Episode 5: 2 (Wampa, Luke)

Episode 6: 0 or 1 (including Vader's prosthesis)

Episode 7: 1 (Plutt)

Arms lost prior to the films: 3 (Grievious x2 + C-3PO) + 2 legs (Grievious)

So, the lowest across all films is 12 real arms (14 including artificial), 18 real arms+legs (20 including artificial).

Of them, 1 arm was ripped off, not cut off, so that may need to be subtracted considering the exact title of the question (AND the fact that it was only in the novelization and presumably a deleted scene).

On the other hand, if we include ripped off limbs, we can up the counts by 3 or 4 arms and 2 legs if we include C-3PO's.

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In TFA, there were exactly 2 limb losses that were explicit (there may have been some due to blasterfire or other regular combat, we don't know)

• Chewie literally ripped someone's arm off.

  Grabbing the thrusting arm, a roaring Chewbacca twisted and ripped it off at the shoulder, throwing the dismembered limb clear across the room. Looking down at himself, Plutt let out a scream of agony as his underlings hurriedly fell back. (ADF novelization)

• C-3PO has a replacement red arm, but we aren't told what happened to the original previous to the film.

As for Episodes IV-VI (ok, fine, let's include the Prequels, for those with less refined tastes :), I have produced a nifty table of all lightsaber limb losses in them for this answer: Symbolic meanings of everyone losing their hands?

All Lightsaber limb losses EP1-6 classified by loosee type (excluding Darth Maul, as the cut wasn't on the limb)

    Duelist        | Limbs Lost (a+l) | Details       
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Mace Windu     | 1                | I'm sure EU has him cutting some himself :)
    Luke           | 1                |
    Dooku          | 2                |
    Anakin         | 3+1+1 and 2      | - Loses a real arm in Ep.II to Dooku
                                      | - Loses 2 prosthetic arms in Ep.III and Ep.VI
                                      | - Also, in "Dark Force Rising" Emperor cut
                                      |   off Vader's hand as punishment for Ep4 fail.
                                      | - In Splinter of Mind's Eye Vader loses a hand

    Grievous       | 4 + 2            | 2 arms to Obi-Wan in cyborg form;
                                      |    2a+2l in crash before becoming cyborg

    Ponda Baba     | 1                | Definitely not a Jedi - in a bar (cantina)
    Zam Wesell     | 1                | Definitely not a Jedi - in a bar 
    Stormtrooper   | 1                | Yoda chops off one hand in Ep.III

    Wampa          | 1                | Definitely not a Jedi
    Acklay         | 2                | 4-legged monsted on Geonosis vs. Obi-Wan

This needs to add non-lightsaber ones to the count, but the basically are all C-3PO. The dude just can't catch a break (well, he can. Pun intended).

Answer 3

A Rathtar loses a tentacle in Episode VII. Rey closes the door on it to save Finn. Even though it's a tentacle it still counts as a limb.