Dhani Harrison tried to send his Luke Skywalker toy up into space.
The 39-year-old singer/songwriter – whose father was late Beatles legend George Harrison – had a large collection of ‘Star Wars’ toys when he was a child as he was obsessed with the sci-fi franchise.
One day, Dhani decided it was time the X-wing pilot went on an expedition into space, but when Luke came back to earth he found the figure’s right hand had been burned off, which is similar to what actually happens to the Jedi Knight in ‘Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back’.
Speaking to StarWars.com, Dhani said: "I’m a toy collector, definitely. I remember when I was young enough to be still playing with my X-wing pilot Luke toy, and I wanted him to go into space because I didn’t think he was authentic enough just being in my living room. So I managed to get hold of a bottle rocket or something. I was very, very young at the time, and I know that this is probably not allowed.
"And I taped him to this rocket and set him off with a parachute that I’d made for him. Believe it or not, he actually went really high and came down on a flaming parachute because, obviously, the paper had caught fire from the rocket. I managed to recover the said toy and I have it still to this day. The crazy thing was that when it came back down, Luke was missing his right hand. It was kind of charred at the stump from where it had been blown off by the rocket. So to this day people think I chopped off his hand, but actually, life imitated art."
In ‘Empire Strikes Back’, Luke loses his right hand in a lightsaber fight on Cloud City with Darth Vader, who reveals himself to be Luke’s father Anakin Skywalker during the duel.
Dhani – who is married to Solveig Karadottir – is close friends with Mark Hamill who plays Luke and was invited to have a tour around Pinewood Studios, where the latest movies are being filmed.
Mark, 66, is a self-confessed Beatles obsessive and has a huge collection of Fab Four related memorabilia which could match even the most ardent ‘Star Wars’ obsessive’s hoard of collectibles.
The actor said: "Basically I started collecting things that I wanted when I was a kid but couldn’t get them so I got all the Monster Model and Kits that I wanted. The Beatles, I never paid any attention to their merchandising except for their records. Of course the minute they broke up, I wanted all that stuff. So I have a pretty nice Beatles memorabilia collection. That was my ‘Star Wars’."
Dhani Harrison’s Star Wars experiment
