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Austin Clark

Professor Gonzalez

ENC 1102

30 April 2024

“Can You Lend Me a Hand”

Introduction

In the world of medicine, when someone loses an appendage or limb, the best course of

action is to give them a prosthetic. Prosthetics have been around since the ancient Egyptians

shown with a prosthetic toe from about the year 3500 to 1800 B.C. This continued on into the

Roman empire, shown with a general with a prosthetic hand to hold his shield. This all went into

the 1500s. Here medical practices increased, with technology also making huge strides, this is

what has made the prosthetics of today. During the later parts of prosthetics being developed, the

genre of science fiction was starting its rise into popularity. Starting as more classic horror

themes like Frankenstein and the Invisible Man. The genre did not become what it is today

without its more irregular start. With the rise of comics and other forms of media like Star Trek

and Star wars. It all led into the formation of the genre today. With this all being said, I plan on

looking into how prosthetics are shown in the genre of science fiction, where and how have we

gotten our views? How have they changed? And what are the reasons for their being prosthetics

in science fiction movies?

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Looking at my six sources, we have two of them that will be used as background

information to help provide information, so the audience has an idea. One of these sources will

be going over the history of prosthetics showing how they have changed over history. This is

done to explain notable people in history who made large strides in the creation of what made

modern-day prosthetics or those who were known to have had and used them. The other will

look into the history of science fiction showing how it has developed and changed throughout the

years. This is done by looking at different works and authors throughout history that helped

make the genre what it is today. They discuss what makes the genre, and how it became its own

thing inside of fiction. The other four will be used in a way to help further the discussion on

prosthetics in the genre of science fiction.

With my sources that are not background information, the first will look at the trope of

good and evil characters' appearances with prosthetics purely in science fiction. This article looks

into a few different forms of media in science fiction and explains it. He explains how characters

who are good choose to make their prosthetics more discreet, trying to make them more

human-like. The opposite is shown with evil characters who embrace unnatural changes and use

it to let go of their humanity. The next article will look into how science fiction is affecting the

development of prosthetics and other forms of technology in the fields of biomedical and

biotech. This is shown by using science fiction to advocate for further development or to spread

awareness for them. This is shown when the actor of Ironman, Robert Downey Jr., gives a bionic

limb that is designed after Iron man to a child. The next looks into the ideas of Pinocchio

syndrome and prosthetic impulse. Pinocchio syndrome shows how those who are more robotic

want to be more humanlike. The opposite is shown with the discussion of prosthetic impulse
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where people choose to embrace technology and in doing so lose their humanity. The author

compares the two with each other using Star Trek as the main source for looking into these two

ideas. One being an artificial intelligence that tries to learn emotion and become more

human-like, while the other is the borg who tries and makes everything like them by making

them cyborgs that no longer have their humanity. The last article looks into posthumanism in

Star Wars, looking into the different trilogies and characters to analyze it. The sections I am

using go into depth of artificial intelligence in the Star Wars universe in the original trilogy. Here

artificial intelligence is more than just a tool. Robots have become companions to humans, and

with this it shows the relationship between technology in a science fiction setting. The next

setting looks into the character of Anakin and his transformation into Darth Vader. Here it shows

the relationship between technology and humanity with prosthetics, looking at the changes and

themes that are shown with Anakin turning into more of a machine than a man.

Methods

Using the movies, Star Wars Revenge of The Sith and Captain America The Winter

Soldier, I observed the prosthetics in them. I observed the characters with prosthetics. I identified

how they received them, how they use them, and how that has affected their characters. I

observed how the characters are viewed with them on, how they changed after they had gotten

the prosthetic, and what themes were around when they had got them. I watched each film, and

during them I took notes, starting with the appearance and how that had affected the character.

After this, I looked at how others viewed them in the film, and I thought about the character

appearance choices from the stance of the creators. I looked at the personalities, roles, and

appearances the creators chose when designing or using characters with prosthetics.
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Results

Starting off with Bucky Barnes, also known as the Winter Soldier, in Captain America

The Winter Soldier. Bucky was one of Steve Rogers’ or Captain America’s best friend during

World War II. In this war, Bucky was knocked off a train and was believed to be killed. In reality,

he survived and was taken in by the evil organization Hydra. They replaced his left arm with a

titanium prosthetic and enhanced his body with a form of the super soldier serum. Bucky was

then brainwashed and turned into the assassin the Winter Soldier. With the prosthetic here, he

was shown to have lost his humanity and to be turned into a weapon. The first scene we see of

him, the Winter Soldier, shoots a mine under Nick Fury’s car, and then easily rips off the door.

This shows his strength, how much of a threat, and how he brushes off dangers he does not

assess as a threat. The next scene he is in, he shoots Nick Fury, in Captain America’s apartment,

after this happens Captain America pursues him, noticing that he runs at a speed close to his.

Once in an opening, Cap throws his shield, and the Winter Soldier easily catches it with the

prosthetic and throws it back with strength equal to Cap’s. The next time the Winter Soldier

engages with the team. He starts by throwing a captured operative out of the car into a truck. He

then gets thrown off, and eventually jumps back onto the moving car. He then gets into an

unarmed fight with Black Widow, easily throwing her around, but when his prosthetic gets hit

with a disc that electrocutes it. The arm becomes unusable until he removes the disc, and once it

is removed, he moves it like someone would when they are stretching their shoulder so he could

use it effectively again. He then engages Captain America, in their fight the prosthetic helps him

match Captain America in strength, but the prosthetic gets damaged, and he has to escape. Once

he is back with his superiors, they are fixing the prosthetic when he attacks one of the scientists
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doing the repairs. When the leader of the organization gets there, he does not see the Winter

Soldier as a person, only as a weapon and tool. Once Bucky starts to question his past, the leader

tells them to wipe his memory. In the final fight between the Winter Soldier and Captain

America, the winter soldier is able to cause some serious damage to Captain America. One point

he uses the features of the prosthetic to add more motion when stabbing with a knife to

overpower Cap. With this during the fight, the prosthetic became a hindrance when Cap put him

in a headlock, and was able to stop the Winter Soldier’s movement of the prosthetic, by bending

it in a position a normal arm would not be able to get into. After the Helicarrier there in is about

to crash, they both are able to get off it, with Bucky saving Cap, and going off on his own, no

longer under the control of others, on his way to figure out his past. At the Captain America

Museum in the end credits, it shows Bucky reading about himself, while hiding his prosthetics.

In Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, I analyzed two characters, one being Anakin Skywalker,

the other being General Grievous. Anakin’s first appearance in the movie shows him being

arrogant yet he uses his skills in a way where it is fair for him to be like that. Once he and Obi

Wan get into the hangar of the ship to rescue the Chancellor. We see that he keeps his prosthetic

right hand covered in a black glove, and it turns out that this hand is his dominant hand that he

mainly holds his lightsaber in. Once he encounters Count Dooku, they duel, with Obi Wan

eventually getting knocked out, this turns into a fight with Anakin against the man who took his

right arm. In the end of the fight, Anakin cuts off Dooku’s hands, and the chancellor tells him to

kill him. Anakin says that he shouldn’t because it is not the Jedi way, but he does it and the

Chancellor consoles him by saying it was because Dooku took his arm and he wanted revenge.

This used the prosthetic as a way to ignore his own morals. While Anakin was sleeping after
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rescuing the Chancellor, Anakin woke up from a nightmare of his wife, Padme, dying. While

sleeping he leaves his prosthetic hand uncovered. Showing he is comfortable with it sleeping,

and it being shown around his wife. Anakin is then appointed to be on the council and given the

mission to become close to the Chancellor. When with him the Chancellor tells the story of a sith

lord, who could save those around him but could not save himself, playing into Anakin’s

nightmare. Anakin is told by the council to deliver the news that Obi Wan has engaged in combat

with Grievous. When he tells the Chancellor, Anakin finds out that Palpatine is the sith lord. He

initially threatens him, but he leaves after Palptine says that he can save his wife. Telling the

council, they go to arrest the Chancellor, while Anakin thinks about saving his wife, which leads

him to go to where the fight is. He ends up cutting off Mace Windu’s hand and joins Darth

Sidious, becoming Darth Vader. Anakin then goes and kills a majority of the jedi in the Jedi

Temple, while others are killed across the galaxy. After doing this he goes to Mustafar and kills

the Separatist leaders, where Obi Wan shows up and has to fight Anakin. The outcome of the

fight leaves Anakin losing his remaining limbs and to be burnt by the lava on the planet. He is

then taken back and given medical help. This leads to him having prosthetics for all his limbs,

and the requirement of wearing a helmet to breathe.

General Grievous' first appearance in the movie shows a tall cybernetic being walking

into the command center of the ship. Here he is towering over the droids in the room, and he

walks in with his organic yellow eyes and a cough. He is able to capture Obi Wan and Anakin,

where a fight breaks out and Grevious escapes by breaking the window, causing everything to

get sucked into the vacuum of space. Here Grievous uses a grappling hook in mechanical arm to

attach to the ship, and his strong cybernetic legs to walk along the outside of the ship still in
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space. After fleeing from Coruscant after the Chancellor was rescued, Grievous headed to

another planet to meet with the leaders of the Separatists. There he is met by Obi Wan, who

challenges him to a fight. This is where Grievous reveals what all his cybernetic enhancements

can do. He stands up straight, revealing that his two arms can split into four arms. Being able to

rotate his hands, he spins them while holding four lightsabers as he advances on Obi Wan. Obi

wan is able to take out the hands on two of Grievous' arms and in doing so forces Grievous to

retreat. Grievous is able to crawl on the six limbs, at an increased speed like that of a bug. The

fight continues, and when they both become unarmed, it is apparent the strength difference

between the two. Grievous is able to easily pick up and throw Obi Wan, punching a dent into his

spaceship, but was eventually killed when Obi Wan shot him in his vital organs.

Discussion

The discussion section is where you interpret and analyze the results presented in the

preceding sections.

Designs/Looks

Bucky’s prosthetic is one that is a lot more menacing than others. His arm is made of

titanium, with a metallic look. It has a big red star close towards the top of the shoulder, and lines

that go down the arm that will move to help add more power into melee attacks. A prosthetic that

is meant to be more intimidating. Only being shown to the public, with a mask on, and the arm

shown. With Anakin, his prosthetic is usually covered by a black glove that he wears. When he is

in bed, he has it uncovered, a metallic hand, with silver coloring with some gold colored parts.

He leaves the prosthetic uncovered around his wife and in a place of comfort, but when in public

and in fights, he has it covered. When Anakin turns into Darth Vader, the prosthetics are all
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metallic with dark gray or black shaded parts. All these prosthetics are very heavy, and are meant

to keep him in pain. After the procedure he stands at almost seven feet tall, and unless you knew

that he was Anakin, you would think he was a machine. Doomfist in the game Overwatch, his

prosthetic is a massive fist, with spikes on the end of it, red energy cells around it, showing that it

is a weapon. The fist is more than half the size that he is, and it is used to fight all those around

him. He does this all to be intimidating and to be seen as less human. General Grievous is an

almost completely mechanical being. He is around seven feet tall, with four arms, and claw-like

legs. Even with his slimmer build he is still intimidating. The only biological parts of him are his

lungs, eyes, brain and his heart, which became his weakness.On the other hand, characters like

Luke Skywalker, choose prosthetics that are more humanlike. When Luke loses his hand to

Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back, he uses a prosthetic that looks like his old hand. He

hides it, disguising it as the hand he once had. This plays into the idea that the visibility of the

prosthetic plays into them being a more evil, less human thing. This is talked about by Mccoy, in

his article, outlining how this is shown, and how he believes creators in the future change this.

Looking at a different side of it, with Limbitless Solutions. They create prosthetics for children

as a nonprofit organization, sometimes using designs from science fiction, like an Iron Man arm.

The idea that Smith brings up in her article, is that children with disabilities are being portrayed

as needing repaired by the science fiction genre. The genre shows when people lose a limb, they

usually get it replaced with something stronger. In our world, prosthetics are not at a level where

they are better than a human limb, but we still look at the loss or absence of a limb as a negative

thing.

Uses
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Most characters in science fiction and people in real life get prosthetics to replace a part

of themselves that was never there or is no longer there. For Bucky and Anakin this stays the

same. Bucky’s arm put him on the same level and sometimes gave him an edge in fighting

against very skilled fighters like Black Widow and Captain America. His arm is shown in

different points in the move, to be able to almost flex, to add more power into punches and when

he stabs Cap with a knife. Bucky is right handed, and his prosthetic is on his left arm. Even

though he is very skilled with it, it will not always be his first move to use it because his mind

hinders him by using his dominant hand. Anakin lost his dominant hand, his prosthetic replaces

that hand, but also gives him power with his strikes in lightsaber combat. The lightsaber fighting

style he uses is best for this, which is using more powerful strikes, being a more offensive

fighting style. In the Star Wars universe, when a force user loses a limb and it gets replaced they

do not have as powerful a connection to the force as they once did. Anakin is a prodigy, but once

he lost his other limbs and became more machine than man, his connection to the force was

nowhere near the threshold of his potential of being the chosen one. General Grievous uses his

prosthetics in a way to combat Jedi. All his upgrades put him on a level where he can take out

force users in lightsaber combat. He has enhancements in the brain and eyes that let him observe

their speed, his own speed and strength are upgraded to overpower and overwhelm them, and his

four limbs are a way of intimidation to take them down. Jedi become weakened when they are

afraid, so Grievous uses this to his advantage. He uses his multiple limbs to overwhelm the

opponent, using their moves against them. Obi Wan was able to defeat him because of how calm

and how defensive his fighting style is, giving Grievous little to no opening to combat him.

Origins/changes
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Bucky Barnes, was a sergeant in the same unit and childhood bestfriends with Steve

Rogers. After a mission stopping a train. Bucky was knocked out of the train, off the side of a

cliff. He was later found, with part of his left arm missing. There hydra removed more of his

arm, replaced it with a titanium arm, and erased his memory. When he got the arm, he lost his

humanity and his freedom. He became a weapon. During his time as the winter soldier, he lost

his sense of fear, and was there only to complete the mission. Once he met Steve again. He

started to question and break from his programming. When this happened, they erased his

memory again and made him back into the weapon they wanted him to be. After his final fight

with Captain America, he goes on his own, to try and find out about himself, when this happens,

he starts to hide his prosthetic. Anakin as a young Jedi knight, lost his right hand in a duel with a

skilled sith, named Count Dooku. As the movie continues on, he starts to go down a dark path,

due to the fear of losing his wife. In the end, this path led to the death of his wife, and the loss of

most of his limbs. When this happens, he becomes angry, depressed and in constant pain.

Completely falling into the dark side, He changed from a boy hoping to be a Jedi to save the

galaxy, to a broken man with no more to lose. General Grievous was a fighter on a planet, getting

attacked by another planet. The other planet ran to the Jedi when Grievous and his people tried to

fight back. The Jedi came and unknowingly aided the wrong side, causing Grievous to hate the

Jedi. Count Dooku set up an explosive that left Grievous close to death, with very little of what

he was left with. Dooku then recreated him, completely replacing the majority of his body.

Dooku told him that it was the Jedi doing, and used this to build and train him to become an

effective Jedi killer. He changed, after an encounter with Count Dooku, who crushed his vital

organs with the force, it did not kill him, but it left him coughing until his death, showing that the
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mechanical monster still had some form of life in him. He was always a coward when he started

to lose a fight, but after this incident he became more inclined to run and fight another day.

Showing his fear of loss and defeat that most beings have while alive.

Themes/ Symbolism

Conclusion

The conclusion section serves to summarize the main findings of the study and provide a

synthesis of the key points discussed throughout the paper.

Works Cited

Avsar, Hasan. “Perspectives On Post-Humanism: The Case of Star Wars”

17 May, 2023, Universidad de Minho, https://repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt/handle/1822/85010

Grech, Victor. “The Pinocchio Syndrome and the Prosthetic Impulse in Science Fiction.”

The New York Review of Science Fiction April 2012,

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https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/bitstream/123456789/25700/1/pinocchio%20syndrom

e%20%282%29.pdf

Mccoy, Joshua. “The Good Prosthetic, Evil Prosthetic Trope in Sci-Fi, Explained.”

gamerant.com, December 3, 2022,

https://gamerant.com/good-prosthetic-evil-prosthetic-sci-fi-explained/

Smith S‘Limbitless Solutions’: the Prosthetic Arm, Iron Man and the Science Fiction of

TechnoscienceMedical Humanities 2016;42:259-264.

https://mh.bmj.com/content/42/4/259

Sterling, Bruce.”Arts and Culture - Science Fiction.” britanica.com, 25 January,

2024,

https://www.britannica.com/art/science-fiction

Thurston, Alan. “PARÉ AND PROSTHETICS: THE EARLY HISTORY OF

ARTIFICIAL LIMBS.”

onlinelibrary.wiley.com, 28 October, 2007,

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https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1445-2197.2007.04330.x