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The character BB-8 and its smartphone-enabled remote controlled counterpart manufactured by Sphero has obviously taken the world by storm. The Sphero product, while otherwise excellent, has one universally recognized flaw: The head comes off all too often, due to navigating under low-clearance furniture, hitting a wall with too much force, etc.

In the latest installment of the Star Wars saga, The Last Jedi:

An explosion causes Poe and BB-8 to be thrown backward out of the hangar bay, into a hallway of the cruiser, resulting in BB-8's head comically popping off and bouncing back into frame.

Is there any evidence that this was an intentional tongue-in-cheek jab at the aforementioned issue with the Sphero BB-8 product?

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    It could be an inside joke about the toy, but I seriously doubt it. Lots of frustrated owners would not appreciate it making light of their situation. Worse, the studio could be sued by the toy manufacturer for disparaging their product, and possibly causing a sales drop.
    – Machavity
    Dec 17, 2017 at 2:34
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    @Machavity I don't know where you're getting that from, but the idea of Sphero suing the company whose license put them on anybody's radar, because of a potential joke reference in a movie, is ludicrous.
    – user31178
    Dec 17, 2017 at 8:11
  • I was a little confused with the scene in the belly of Poe Dameron's X-wing where BB-8's head is shown projecting from the body by a piston, especially since the later scene confirms that the head doesn't need to be physically attached.
    – jeffronicus
    Dec 18, 2017 at 3:08
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    @Machavity - looking at it the other way around, it could be a retconned justification of the 'flaw' in the product: "See? The ACTUAL BB-8's head falls off all the time! This is a feature, not a bug!" And I'm not entirely sure that people are extremely frustrated by the issue. We have one and it's relatively amusing when it happens. I laughed at the scene in question because of the toy, thinking it was a direct reference.
    – vynsane
    Dec 18, 2017 at 13:43
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    @jeffronicus - I'm going to assume that the piston in question is not the main connective mechanism and is an optional extender used in just such an occasion as in the scene you're referring to. We know that BB-8 has multiple small hatches in the main body unit that reveal different tools. Perhaps the piston extender is just another one we haven't previously seen.
    – vynsane
    Dec 18, 2017 at 13:53

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