The curious case of C-3PO's arm

New official merchandise has been spotted that suggests C-3PO has had a slight costume change.

It's no surprise that some of the cast of The Force Awakens will have changed somewhat from their last Star Wars​ chronological appearance in Return of the Jedi. After all, thirty years have passed and our heroes have gone a little greyer, but intriguingly C-3PO seems to have undergone a color change of his own.

Recent pictures of merchandise spotted in Mexico - mainly a promotional Pepsi can design - have shown everybody's favorite protocol droid, C-3PO, sporting an arm painted an unfamiliar shade of red.

There was never any secret about Threepio being cobbled together from spare parts, The Phantom Menace showed us a young Anakin Skywalker building him in his mother's house, and more than one of the Star Wars movies have shown him in more than one piece. 

How C-3PO came to be in possession of this oddly colored arm is not clear, but it does raise further questions about what has been going in the galaxy while we have been away.

The same image of the three droids and C-3PO's red arm has also been spotted on other officially licensed products, so the shot appears to be legitimate. Time will tell us whether this is a mistake, a temporary costume change, or something more permanent.