I take Scott’s word on the small screws only being added sometime on or around Dagobah as 100% true purely in recognizing his wealth of knowledge.
I will add that it makes sense to me within the context of these scenes. The scenes in question where I think this saber really started to get messed up are when Luke jumps out of his X wing, into the water, climbs ashore, and then runs after the ejected R2. I’m also pretty sure these were some of the last to be filmed. It would seem logical to me then when Mark jumps into the water, the corresponding upward force of the water on the saber might start to loosen or displace the grips, which is why they were added in those spots at the very end. If you watch the scene in the movie, Mark also climbs up onto the land kind of banging the saber into the ground a bunch of times which would lead me to speculate that the lever may have become caught on something and subsequently damaged requiring a screw to hold it in place.
Again, I take Scott’s word on this matter as fundamentally true requiring no additional evidence or explanation; this is just my purely-for-fun best guess as to how this may have possibly played out.
I will add that it makes sense to me within the context of these scenes. The scenes in question where I think this saber really started to get messed up are when Luke jumps out of his X wing, into the water, climbs ashore, and then runs after the ejected R2. I’m also pretty sure these were some of the last to be filmed. It would seem logical to me then when Mark jumps into the water, the corresponding upward force of the water on the saber might start to loosen or displace the grips, which is why they were added in those spots at the very end. If you watch the scene in the movie, Mark also climbs up onto the land kind of banging the saber into the ground a bunch of times which would lead me to speculate that the lever may have become caught on something and subsequently damaged requiring a screw to hold it in place.
Again, I take Scott’s word on this matter as fundamentally true requiring no additional evidence or explanation; this is just my purely-for-fun best guess as to how this may have possibly played out.