Yeah, Lucas loves this sort of thing! The climactic duels in Return of the Jedi, The Phantom Menace (best fantasy swordfight ever, in my estimation) and Revenge of the Sith also make use of this dynamic... threat of falling, either from great height or into great heat. At the time "Spectacles" was written (mid-to-late '80s), lots of other examples had come and gone: T2, Cobra (both set in iron foundries), Highlander, all involving the same railed walkway setting... the image, in fact, was becoming overly familiar, but the idea of drawing all that high-angle danger was too tempting to resist!
Yes indeed, the disposition of the Gorgonhelm will be Priority One in the coming denouement, though it will have to share the space with curtain calls (I like to give the major characters a little bow towards the end, either visually or by verbal reference). At first, I'd planned to send the artifact tumbling into the reactor core, thus solving the sticky problem of having it around. But that seemed too easy (and a bit of a cliché)... I hope that what I finally came up with makes some sort of sense!
