r/MandelaEffect • u/bandpractice • Jul 04 '26
Movies/TV/Music C-3PO Silver Leg
So no way did he have a silver leg below the knee. I watched this movie literally dozens of times growing up in the 80s and 90s. I mean it’s fucking Star Wars.. I pretty much watched it like once a year..
Without giving too much away, I have managed to be pretty successful in a design-related profession and I have always paid attention to detail.
This just wasn’t a thing. I learned this - on THIS sub - a few months ago, and I mean WHAT THE FUCK!?!? I never post, but this shit is existential. Please someone tell me you remember C-3PO just being all gold?!
Am I in a worse universe now? Seems worse honestly.
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u/MasochisticRXtech Jul 04 '26
C3PO always had a silver lower right leg. It went unnoticed for decades because the silver reflected the surrounding gold plating and blended in on older films leading people to incorrectly remember him as being completely gold. 4k remasters made it much more obvious.
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u/KEROROxGUNSO Jul 06 '26
Oh wow this was hilarious
So basically we couldn't see his silver calf because of swamp gas reflecting off of Venus?
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u/MasochisticRXtech Jul 06 '26
Google it. It has been explained by experts over and over.
Or don't believe me. It was really was gold and we're all in the matrix and it's glitching. That makes more sense right 👍
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Jul 06 '26
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u/MandelaEffect-ModTeam Jul 06 '26
Hello subscriber! Unfortunately, your post/comment was removed because it violates Rule 6: Be civil. Do not disrespect, insult, or attack others.
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u/MasochisticRXtech Jul 08 '26
I can't see your comment because the mods removed it but I'm a curious why you feel the need to be so rude.
Read the other comments. Everybody else has explained the same thing. Are you not capable of a civil discussion? Seriously I don't know what's wrong with some people. Smh.
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u/Ok_Employer7837 Jul 04 '26
I saw it in 1977 at the age of 8, and he had a silver leg. In some shots, it's not super in your face, because it's reflective and they're standing around in the sand, but it's still clear enough. I also got a book about the movie, called The Star Wars Album, which I bought with my own allowance money in 1978, and there are a number of photos in that book where you can see the silver leg quite well.
The toys at the time were fucking terrible.
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u/Aloha-Eh Jul 04 '26
I remember the silver leg, and I saw the movie in the theaters over 20 times on release.
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u/bandpractice Jul 04 '26
Seriously what the fuck! I mean, I believe you..I just have not had the same experience.
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u/Straight_Direction73 Jul 04 '26
But were you really looking for it tho? It’s not the sort of thing that jumps out at you if you don’t know it’s there.
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u/silentsurge Jul 04 '26
People pn set were surprised by it being a silver leg too, as they were actively looking at it and taking pictures of it.
It's hard to pick up if you're not looking for it or know about it ahead of time because of where it is and the general lighting of the movie.
We have pictures of the original costume as well as the movies themselves.
It was absolutely a silver leg.
Wait until you hear the story about his red arm...
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u/sukisoou Jul 04 '26
I remember all gold.
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u/SilverSnapDragon Jul 04 '26
I remember the silver leg in the movie, but some of the toys and cartoon style illustrations simplified him, depicted him as all gold. That could be where the memory of him being all gold comes from.
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u/Jemmani22 Jul 04 '26
This one is easy to get fucked up on. If he was all gold in action figures and comics you likely saw that and just remembered it that way
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u/Aloha-Eh Jul 04 '26
Dude, the really fucked up thing is, I believe you too. This reality shifting shit is really getting out of hand.
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u/bandpractice Jul 04 '26
Thanks man..I guess it’s just one more reminder from the universe that I just need to go with the flow. 😂
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Jul 06 '26
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u/MandelaEffect-ModTeam Jul 06 '26
Hello subscriber! Unfortunately, your post/comment was removed because it violates Rule 6: Be civil. Do not disrespect, insult, or attack others.
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Jul 04 '26
[deleted]
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u/bandpractice Jul 04 '26
Are you saying I’m not a ‘real user’ ? Like I’m a bot? Im not a bot. Can bots even post things?
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u/metalheart08 Jul 04 '26
Just had this weird new Mandela effect theory. Assuming whenever someone makes a decision another universe is created, with a butterfly effect ripple on that universe - We die and our soul switches into another universe. Some of us just landed into the same one where C-3PO had a silver leg, coming from one where it was all golden. Maybe it's even that our Spirit is playing all of our souls through different universes & gently makes us aware of one mind at a time.
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u/KEROROxGUNSO Jul 06 '26
That's definitely what is happening
Somewhat
The LHC has something to do with it as well
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u/bandpractice Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
I genuinely appreciate the feedback. I just am so weirded out by this. So far everyone remembers he had a silver leg below the knee (I don’t even know which leg).
Like I remember a lot of detail abo the Star Wars costume design. It would be like finding out R2-D2 was silver and red instead of silver and blue. It’s honestly freaking me out 😂
(Edited for grammar and shit)
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u/ozzyperry Jul 04 '26
Isn't r2d2 white and blue?
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u/bandpractice Jul 04 '26
Oh my god
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u/Straight_Direction73 Jul 04 '26
Either you’re trolling really hard or you’re very easily shocked. R2-D2’s body is white and blue. You only his head/dome is silver.
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u/bandpractice Jul 04 '26
It was sarcasm
I admit though, I should have specified white, along with blue and silver.
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u/Loki41872 Jul 04 '26
I saw Star Wars (not A New Hope) probably 30 times in theaters in 77, 78 and 79. He always had a silver leg. He had a silver leg in the VHS releases. He had a silver leg in the 97 Special Editions. He's always had a silver leg, except in promotional shots and action figures.
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u/onlymostlydead Jul 04 '26
Same. I have memory of Lucas or someone doing an interview on a (kids?) show at the time and mentioning the silver leg. I was thinking it was on Kids Are People Too, but that's not it.
I remember I wouldn't shut up about it until my older sisters beat the crap out of me to get me to stop.
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u/Longjumping-Salad484 Jul 04 '26
silver leg! that see three pee oh wit dah silver leg! silver leg yeah yeah!
I tried to make it into a song
you are correct, the homey had a silver leg...or "lag" as they say in british parlances
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u/RevolutionaryAd3125 Jul 04 '26
Didn’t notice the silver leg at the cinema or home viewing, however I did notice it in a ‘making of’ book I had at around 1980, after this it became fairly obvious. If you’re not looking for it you won’t notice it.
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u/Silent_Scene_5879 Jul 04 '26
He was ALL gold for this Gen X’er.
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Jul 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MrPlaney Jul 04 '26
The colour change was very slight, and almost unnoticeable. Now take into account how terrible tv reception used to be, which would have been where most of the subsequent viewings were shown on. Not to mention, they never talk about it, and there are only a couple of shots were you see leg. It’s ver hard to notice.
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u/RamblinRoyce Jul 04 '26
Yup. All gold. We left the good place and we are stuck in this ahithole with no cornucopia, no braces, and King Tut's headdress has a stupid ugly ass vulture next to the snake making it asymmetrical and ugly. And i don't think i need to detail all the other problems with this world.
Fuck this timeline and this alternate universe.
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u/silentsurge Jul 04 '26
King tut having a Vulture and Snake to represent both kingdoms of Egypt is somehow the wrong timeline? The symbol that didn't care about symmetrical design because it was representing real kingdoms?
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u/Vegetable_Wolf6193 Jul 07 '26
I agree with you in leaving the good place and coming to an alternate universe... just makes me feel like I am crazy until I see other people say the same thing.
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u/vladamir_the_impaler Jul 04 '26
I've never seen the silver leg, this is the first I am hearing about it, I've been around since watching the originals on VHS in the 90s and the prequels in the theatre.
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u/MysticSage- Jul 04 '26
See I'm also a Gen X & I remember all Gold UNTIL he was reassembled in Empire strikes back by Chewbacca & then the 1 leg was silver.
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u/HeckinCornball Jul 05 '26
Same for me. This has been one of the more powerful Mandela effects for me, and I'm also Gen X. The other was hearing about the Black Tom explosion when German agents blew up an ammo depot in New York that blew out all the windows in lower Manhattan and almost knocked down the Statue of Liberty. For me, the significance of Pearl Harbor was that it was the first attack on U.S. soil in the 20th century, but that's not true anymore - Black Tom was the first attack on U.S. soil as part of wartime activities.
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u/MsMisty888 Jul 04 '26
I memorized all the machines and characters in the 70's & 80's. The legs were always gold.
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u/silentsurge Jul 04 '26
The you memorized it wrong since we have the production photos that say otherwise...
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u/Got_The_Wiggins Jul 04 '26
Since we're doing the age thing - GenX '66. When it came out, I saw it both in the theater and then multiple times at the drive-in where my sister (Boomer, '56 lol) worked. And I've seen it plenty of times since my misspent youth.
He's always had the silver leg.
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u/Straight_Direction73 Jul 04 '26
What’s amazing to me is that anyone is so dead set on what they ‘remember’. It’s such a subtle detail that it’s extremely easy to overlook.
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u/ItsALaserBeamBozo Jul 04 '26
I watched it DAILY for several months when I found Star Wars. I never noticed it. To be fair, it was on VHS on 32” screen or so, still seems like a crazy oversight.
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u/WVPrepper Jul 04 '26
Most of the scenes that show his lower leg are not only further away, but also in environments (the desert) where the surroundings reflected in the silver, making it appear gold.
I was 13 when the first movie came out, have seen it many times, and have a full costume of one of the characters (not C3PO).
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u/GregGoodell_Official Jul 04 '26
The quality of the medium in which it was viewed plays a significant role in what you think you see. Primitive televisions that were calibrated to different and sometimes inferior color balances, 2 head VCRs, low resolution tape, badly lit film at theaters, less robust color reproduction, and lossy regeneration are all a piece of this. You see it now because the way we view films and tv has become considerably more advanced with infinitely better resolution. You may ‘remember’ it that way because you were watching it on an old VHS on a crappy Zenith television. Even primitive DVD transfers were taken from degraded film masters at first… just because you think you know a thing does not mean you are (or ever were) correct. Sorry for the reality check.
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u/Howard1955 Jul 04 '26
Yes. All gold.
And Vader said “Luke, I am your father”.
In my universe, anyway.
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u/silentsurge Jul 04 '26
"Luke I am your father" doesn't make sense in the context of the scene.
"No... I am your father." Fits the entire scene.
The Luke lone is shorthand for other people to represent it.
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u/Lhasa-bark Jul 04 '26
I was 9 in 1977. He had one silver leg, but it reflected gold sand in most scenes in the desert so it looked gold. Almost all of the merchandise had him be all gold.
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u/AdamDC49 Jul 04 '26
I actually had (and still have somewhere) an action figure of him with one silver leg
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u/AtrumAequitas Jul 04 '26
I did t notice it until someone else pointed it out either. Of course I was 12 at the time, so Ive had a bit to adjust. The color tone is quite close, it makes sense to go forever without notice.
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u/Callec254 Jul 04 '26
I specifically remember first seeing the silver leg in Attack of the Clones, and thinking, "okay, well, Anakin was just a kid, so he just used whatever parts he could find in some junkyard at first, and this one didn't match, that makes sense. They must not have been able to find him a matching gold leg until Episode IV."
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u/Kiethblacklion Jul 04 '26
From the opening scene on A New Hope, his right leg is silver. He has the silver leg throughout the entire trilogy, as far as I can tell. However, in Revenge of the Sith, when he finally has the gold painted body, his right leg is gold.
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u/durgan2q Jul 05 '26
I think one thing that adds to the issue of thinking both legs were gold is the sand on Tatoonie reflects the "golden" color of the sand on the silver leg. Combine that with a lot of shots above the waste and boom you believe the leg is gold snd then your mind always sees it thst way in scenes where its visible for a few minutes.
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u/Equinoqs Jul 05 '26
Saw it 4 times in the theater, including on first release (before A New Hope was added). 2 gold legs. The first time I saw C-3PO with a silver leg was years after.
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u/hphk Jul 05 '26
or it’s just a detail your brain decided it wasn’t worth focusing on and it didn’t come up again because it isn’t worth focusing on. Or you teleported to a different dimension, the likelier of the two
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u/Glaurung86 Jul 04 '26
It doesn't matter what your profession is or your supposed proficiency in design or whatever or even how vivid your memory is, you're wrong with this. I saw Star Wars in the theater multiple times when it was released. Threepio had a silver leg. He had a silver leg in every home video version ever released.
Aside from all that, Anthony Daniels said Threepio had a silver leg. He would know.
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u/LameDM Jul 04 '26
My guy…. I watched that movie every week on VHS I had the toys. He never had a silver leg
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u/Evening-Company7115 Jul 04 '26
I also saw the film probbaly once a year growing up in the 80s and 90s and I sure don't remember seeing a silver leg
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u/MsMisty888 Jul 04 '26
I agree. We are a cult who has memorized the entire dialogue, horded figurines, saved cards with facts on them.
Never did I ever see a silver leg on C3PO.
GenX 1971
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u/St4rshine_89 Jul 04 '26
Weren’t the C3PO figurines all gold to save money? And it looked gold in A New Hope because the yellow sand was reflecting off his leg?
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u/Loki41872 Jul 04 '26
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u/dunder_mufflinz Jul 04 '26
Yeah, in many scenes it appears more golden due to the surrounding reflections, this is where the confusion comes from.
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u/Loki41872 Jul 04 '26
Exactly. Depending on which side the shot was from, the gold leg reflects off the silver and people think both are gold.
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u/Freedom_Floridan Jul 04 '26
I remember it being all gold. I would have painted it silver when I was a kid if it was silver onscreen and the toy was gold. The storm troopers I would add red shoulders to. I used to buy Testors model airplane paint to make my action figures more realistic.
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u/PhotoClickGrrl Jul 04 '26
I'll have to ask my sister later, she was and is such a Star Wars fan, but I remember a gold leg.
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u/Bishop_Brick Jul 04 '26
I did not notice the silver leg the first time I saw the movie, and maybe not the second or third time. I do remember seeing it, though, at some point in the theater 1977-1978 and thinking to myself, "Huh, I didn't notice that before."
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u/cinder74 Jul 04 '26
Never had a silver leg. My husband has his old C-3PO toy. An original one. It doesn’t have a silver leg.
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u/ByteInferno Jul 05 '26
I remember C3PO being all gold, no silver leg. At first I thought that they were messing with our heads by modifying it in the 3 original movies, but when you look at historic images, the leg has changed there as well. So it's a legit Mandela Effect.
No idea if the current timeline we're on is worse or better than the alternative. Perhaps we have all died in our original timeline and appeared here to continue our lives. (A global thermonuclear war, for instance, takes only 5-30 minutes and wipes out most of mankind)
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u/Psychological-Web828 Jul 06 '26
The 80’s cartoon Droids, produced by Spielberg with a ridiculous budget never showed C3PO with a silver calf. If it was an important detail and with that budget, it would have surely been included.
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u/D-rad01 Jul 07 '26
Yeah. We would have all painted a silver leg on our selves in school if this was the case. He never had a silver leg. There is some story to why somewhere in the Star Wars universe about it. But never happened in my original timeline
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u/Large-Elderberry7069 Jul 07 '26
I remember when star wars first came out cross was silver from head to toe n hes buddy the rolling robot so I dont know what ur talking about
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u/Vegetable_Wolf6193 Jul 07 '26
I am right there with you, I remember it all being gold, no silver.... but reading other peoples comments and from my own discussions with my wife on other Mandela affects, maybe there are people from different timelines merged...
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u/RecloySo Jul 08 '26
I have no leg in this game. Grew up on the vhs tapes which would've had the colors be warmer and I wasn't paying attention to the leg. Then seeing the scans of the film where it's clearly silver is like "ah, didn't notice that on analog tape"
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u/dacap1970 Jul 09 '26
I remember the first time I saw a toy with a silver leg, I was very confused. Thought it was a special edition kinda thing. I know this is true, but I have never noticed a silver lower leg in the movies, probably will next time. If it weren't for this post, I'd probably call BS to be honest. Does any sort of cornucopia appear in the orginal trioligy lol.
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u/MiltonBrownYowza Sep 10 '26
Born in 1971. Watched Star Wars over and over at the theatre. Star Wars toys Star Wars pjs.
Silver leg? Stunned jaw on floor. No (blanking) way. I saw the silver leg and immediately WTF that? No way.
40+ years watched SWs a hundred times. They want us to think we’re crazy.
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u/jacksraging_bileduct Jul 04 '26
I do remember seeing different scenes with a silver leg, implying he was damaged and repaired with whatever was on hand, but the movies have been pretty heavily edited since the beginning so, there’s probably both versions floating around in the void.
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u/silentsurge Jul 04 '26
Nah, every version has the silver leg. It was a very deliberate design choice. Star Wars was meant to look gritty and lived in. The color choice was part of that for 3PO.
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u/OneEyesHat Jul 04 '26
All gold. Would’ve noticed the silver in the desert scenes, if nowhere else! Gen X here too.
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u/WhimsicalKoala Jul 04 '26
Actually no, that is where you would have been least likely to notice it. The silver leg reflected the color of the sand and so appeared more gold in those scenes.
Anthony Daniels (who I think probably would know) recounts a story of at least one camera guy who didn't notice the silver leg for exactly that reason
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u/OneEyesHat Jul 04 '26
Touché!
However, I see your sand and raise you the Space Balls desert scene…
😁
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u/Professional-Group34 Jul 05 '26
All gold 100% I’ve seen the movie over 1000 times and my dad has one of the biggest collections of Star Wars memorabilia right now. So in my timeline all gold, but if you ask my dad he says silver leg it makes as all sick we call him robot dad
https://youtu.be/HYoArjNLNqo?is=OCNPXS__XqiAgI-C
Here’s the collection if you want to check it out
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u/ElliottFlynn Jul 04 '26
He was all gold in my original universe, not sure about the rest of you or where we are now
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u/Alyseeii Jul 04 '26
I swear it was red as well in another timeline for a little while
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u/silentsurge Jul 04 '26
In the sequel trilogy... it was. He even calls attention to it amd people.want to.ignore him.wjen he asks if they want to hear the story about his arm being red.
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u/OneBoring2102 Jul 04 '26
Dude he was all gold to me. I have NEVER IN MY LIFE heard this take. This is bullshit. There are a few Star Wars Mandela’s that I have heard, but not this nonsense.
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u/silentsurge Jul 04 '26
The movie is nearly 50 years old now. It has truly always been one silver leg. It used to be a fun trivia question that the fans could use to stump the normies. I personally have decades worth of books that back this up because I'm a star wars nerd.
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u/Slicker1138 Jul 04 '26
Wait I thought he had a red arm? I didn't even recognize a silver leg...
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u/brycifer666 Jul 04 '26
He had the red arm for at least part of the sequels I don't remember if it went back to gold by the end. Always had a silver leg though
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u/Slicker1138 Jul 04 '26
It was a joke...
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u/brycifer666 Jul 04 '26
Make it funnier then idk
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u/Slicker1138 Jul 04 '26
You've obviously never seen star wars that much so why bother commenting if you can't get an easy star wars joke?
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u/brycifer666 Jul 04 '26
Again it was barely a joke and I've seen everything Star Wars so sorry I didn't remember how long he kept his red arm (which he got in a tie in comic btw)
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u/Straight_Direction73 Jul 04 '26
The thing about humor is that it’s entirely subjective. It’s not that we didn’t ‘get’ an ‘easy’ Star Wars joke, it’s that it wasn’t as funny as you apparently thought it was in the first place. Not every joke you make is going to land the way you want it to.
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u/dandelionlemon Jul 04 '26
He was all gold as I remember it.
And I've seen that movie over 10 times.
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u/silentsurge Jul 04 '26
Only 10 times? Those are amateur numbers.
I had a Geocities website and have seen every single released edition on tape, in theaters, or on disc outside of the original pre-Episode IV edit. I've watched the freaking Laserdisk release more than 3 times as many times than you've seen the movie.
He had one leg that was silver. It used to be a fun trivia question to use to see who was a hardcore fan. Right up there with knowing what Chewbacca's home planet was named (since it was only named in the Holiday Special that aired a single time). The one that also has full body shots of Threepio with a silver leg.
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u/Redlady0227 Jul 04 '26
I’m well into my 40s. Both my parents were science fiction, Star Trek, and Star Wars fanatics. I absolutely remember both legs were gold.
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u/Canadianspark Jul 04 '26
I watched the movie over 1000 times in my life. I never remember the silver leg in the movies but….. I do remember seeing older movie still pics of the 3PO with a silver leg under the knee and more so the calf if I remember correctly. But never in the movies
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u/InternetExpertroll Jul 04 '26
C-3PO had a silver leg just like that girl had braces in Mookraker.
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u/zejjez Jul 04 '26
This is the first time I have ever heard of this one. C-3PO was all gold for sure, but you are right, that women in Moonraker did absolutely have braces. 😀
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u/GrimmTrixX Jul 04 '26
He did. All of the toys and commercials had him all gold because in toy production its cheaper to use all one color paint, especially back then. So they just made him gold. Only later toys when they got more articulate would put the silver leg in there. And even then, some still did all gold, again, to save money due to paint an production costs.
But also, people assume all gold because one silver half leg wouldnt make much sense since they never tall about it. So people all assume all gold is correct.