PT R2 & 3PO in the prequels

Were you bothered by the fact that they were in the prequels, or not? I personally felt both didn't really serve any purpose to the story in the PT, they were just there to be R2-D2 and C-3PO.

 

you can make the same argument for them being in any film past ANH

 

You do make a fair point, but it still irks me how they wre just there in the PT. Why did Anakin of all people be the one to build 3PO? Why didn't Owen Lars recognize him?

 

Because George Lucas said so

C-3PO doesn't exactly look any different than any other protocol droid, we just recognize him because we connect with him as an audience. Also, he looked completely different in Attack of the Clones and A New Hope, and at no point in A New Hope did he tell Owen his number.

 

Sistros said: ↑

Why didn't Owen Lars recognize him?
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i didn't say that ​

 

Exactly. He was just a generic protocol droid model.

 

I was very bothered that they were/are in the prequels. Bothered/relieved.

It wouldn't really be Star Wars without them. And it's fun to see them -- Threepio, especially -- go on their own journey.

They may have less screen-time, but I wouldn't look on the screen-time they do have as less essential.

I think you'll also find they have a poignant allegorical dimension. Consider that Artoo is on his own at the end of TPM, Threepio is with him, accompanying Anakin and Padme, in the last shot of AOTC, and they're both absent from the last scene of ROTS.

Notice, too, that Anakin is not only Threepio's maker, but Threepio is Anakin's marker. He's the mechanized doppelganger of Anakin: missing an eye, unsteady on his feet, not aware of his own nakedness, etc.

And I found it brilliant how GL managed to rhyme up AOTC and TESB in so many ways, including having Threepio disassembled -- violently blown apart or getting his head knocked off -- in the middle installments to each of the "Anakin Skywalker" trilogies.

Threepio's casing is also cool: absent in TPM, a sort of boilerplate form in AOTC, and gleaming gold in ROTS (then scuffed and silver-legged in the OT movies). Each phase in Anakin's development -- in the reverse-diversifying of the story -- has its own embodiment in Threepio.

And Artoo's Silver Age rockets. Go, Artoo, go! How cool are they? Artoo takes flight in II and III and just glides around: using his rockets to rescue the remainder of the kid-quartet in AOTC's droid factory and turning them into a lethal weapon in that TF ship in ROTS. Then he's grounded for the remainder of the saga -- a tamed delinquent.

And, oh, yeah. Artoo is the silent recorder of all these events. The watchful protector. A Blue Knight. He eats Bruce Wayne for breakfast.

Also... gifts. The droids are essentially gifts from Anakin and Padme, one to the other, crossing places over the course of the PT. While Anakin builds Threepio, he bonds more easily with Artoo, while Padme thinks Threepio is "perfect" and he gets the best treatment of his life (originally, Padme was going to finish putting the coverings on Threepio in AOTC).

It's all so much fun. The droids are the soul of Star Wars.

 

I can tolerate R2, he's usually a useful little droid.

3PO has always been intolerable.

 

I see no contradictions in the PT with Threepio and Artoo. In fact, they were always considered to be in all nine films. GL said this back in the seventies.

 

I love the droids. They should be in all the Star Wars films. Kind of like how R2 shows up in the Legacy comics that take place 130 years after Return of the Jedi.

 

Personally, THAT appearance was pushing it a little too much for me. But I do agree that if there's any characters that should appear in the main movies, it's R2 and 3PO.

 

I think that pretty much hits the nail on the head. It didn't bother me, but it was exactly as you describe.

 

I find them important, enjoyable, restrained yet eager during the Classic Trilogy but have to be very honest they really wound me up in the Prequel Trilogy.

R2 not so much, but just because Lucas suddenly made him a Swiss army knife of a droid who could do all these things we never saw in the Classic Trilogy that basically had him save every single scene he was in with either the ability to defy gravity, fly, fire suction pods and god knows what else. Wherever he was, it was too predictable he would save the day a little too much which made him, to me, just a little pastiche of what he would become in the CT.

3PO again in the CT was crucial to scenes with his involvement and knowledge about events long gone, his translation skills, his observation and his interaction with characters. In the PT he sounds even more camp and OTT than normal and doesn't serve any purpose apart from just being there for fans to say "C-3PO is back!", and as for the droid factory in 'AOTC', well I try to laugh that sequence off but it hurts.

They don't do anything for me in the PT. R2 is pleasant to have around, but 3PO I could live without. Save them for their REAL use, in the CT.

 

a) The idea that the two droids would be in all the films of the Saga - OT, PT & ST - dates back to the OT era, when GL said they would. Originally, GL conceived of the notion that the entire Saga would be told through their eyes, just like the inspiration for the characters - the two farmers in Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress. This concept eventually didn't make it past the first act of SW/ANH, but it seems GL still wanted to keep them through the whole thing. Call it sentimentality;

b) Believe it or not, it emerged in JW Rinzler's The Making of Star Wars that GL's backstory for C-3PO as far back as 1977 had him being made by a small boy who worked in a junkyard. Not actually Anakin Skywalker, but it's a little tidbit from the early days that GL fleshed out & made an important part of the PT - it was probably this somewhat insignificant part of a supporting character's backstory which helped inspire Anakin's background;

c) C-3PO was a standard model protocol droid, and Owen never saw him in the gold covering in the PT days anyway. He might have remembered the name, but as far as he was concerned, Threepio's 'name' was a model number, and the droid himself was little more than a household appliance. Does anyone here recall the exact model number of their household TV or dishwasher from twenty years ago?

 

R2 not so much, but just because Lucas suddenly made him a Swiss army knife of a droid who could do all these things we never saw in the Classic Trilogy that basically had him save every single scene he was in with either the ability to defy gravity, fly, fire suction pods and god knows what else. Wherever he was, it was too predictable he would save the day a little too much which made him, to me, just a little pastiche of what he would become in the CT.
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THIS.

That is why I had more of a problem with R2 than I had with 3PO to be honest, at least 3PO wasn't some sort of indestructable droid superhero

while other droids are geting smashed to bits and heads blown off or ripped off Artoo is there to save the day, it got a bit too far fetched (even for star wars)

In fact I wouldn't have minded so much if either ofthe following happened

1) put a cape on him

2) someone jokingly or otherwise says "the force is strong with this one"

 

Didn't those things kinda happen in TPM: "It is to be commended, what is its number?" and, "Padme, clean this droid up as best you can"? Oh, wait. Everyone hates that part.

Artoo only really plays "hero" in an enlarged fashion in ROTS's opening sequence. Okay, he has some heroic stuff in TPM and AOTC, as well, but these moments are also offset, to a degree, by his failures (e.g., guarding Padme in her bedroom), or by the times he is watching from the sidelines (e.g., the podrace).

In fact, by starting AOTC and ROTS with Artoo, minus Threepio, the point is made that this is a different trilogy, where things are more bifurcated. And I like the passing of the baton: from aloof Jedi on a staid mission (no Artoo), to the almost-equally-restricting Padme coming to Coruscant in a time of uncertainty (Artoo descends to a landing platform in fog), to hotshot Anakin riding above the canopy and through the fray (Artoo, as much as Obi-Wan, is now his brother-in-arms), in TPM, AOTC, and ROTS, respectively.

The real duo-ship of Artoo and Threepio is yet to come, but it is given some neat callbacks/call-forwards in each of the movies, almost taking on a slapstick routine of absurd proportions (breaking the mould) in AOTC's long spell on Geonosis. Once again, I must emphasize, this is all perfectly indecent fun. For those who sorta "get" what Lucas was up to, or at least liked the brush strokes he was painting with in the prequels, anyway.

 

eh, I just thought it was too much at times.

It killed the suspense whenever Artoo was on screen (at least to me) as you know no one was going to get hurt,

you're free to like it though of course, I just didn't.

 

owned

 

I’m sorry, but, how is any of this fundamentally different from what we see in the OT? Through that trilogy R2-D2,

– Records and project holographic messages

– Shuts down the Death Star trash compactor

– Activates a mini-radar dish when scanning Hoth’s surface for life signs

– Activates a mini-periscope when traversing a Dagobah swamp

– Provides a smokescreen cover for our escaping heroes by shooting out some sort of fire extinguisher material

– Reengages the Falcon’s hyperdive at the last minute

– Ejects Luke’s lightsaber for a surprise attack

– Activates a mini-electric taser for breaking Leia’s chains and fending off one of Jabba’s minions

– Activates a mini-buzzsaw for cutting through the Ewok’s rope net

…And does most of this whenever convenient for our heroes and/or the plot, and without any prior establishing setup as to the full capabilities of his design. Therefore, how are any of his tricks or rescues in the PT NOT par for the course? R2-D2 was always a Swiss Army knife equivalent (or portable Q Branch incarnate). That’s kinda the whole point of what it means to be an astromech droid: a self-functioning, all-purpose tool for space travel, changing planetary environments, terminal access, data storage and virtually all things mechanical repair. The "R" and the "D" might as well stand for resourceful and dependable. Now, as for R2’s rocket boosters posing a potential contradiction between the two trilogies, I’m reminded of a classic episode of The Simpsons titled 'The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show'. In the episode, Homer and a network lady, June, attend a fan convention Q & A, whereupon a nerd stands up in the audience and asks the following:

"In episode 2F09, when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a [nerds chuckle] magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder."

: "Uh, well, uh..."

"I'll field that one. Let me ask you a question. Why would a man whose shirt says 'Genius at Work' spend all of his time watching a children's cartoon show?"

….."I withdraw my question." [sits down, starts eating candy bar]

Okay, so, maybe the complaint about R2’s boosters isn’t quite as anal as what was parodied above but, for me – and I gotta be honest here – it nonetheless drifts precariously close in said direction, along with countless other criticisms that have been leveled at these movies over the years. I can image Lucas attending a similar Q & A and rubbing his eyes together whenever some guy would stand up and ask him about stuff like this. A reasonable enough explanation could be made that R2’s rockets were either damaged or deactivated, or that they were intended as a last-option, emergency air transport, with limited fuel supply, that was never really deemed necessary concerning any of his predicaments throughout the OT; reasonable enough explanations I never bothered entertaining until fans started complaining about this after the fact. I reckon Lucase gave R2-D2 rocket boosters, innocently enough, because he thought it would be neat. I thought it was neat.

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I wasn't bothered at all. I love R2 and 3PO, so I had quite the opposite reaction when I saw them in the prequels.

 

I will only read it six more times.

Today.

 

Ingram: forgive us for having a different viewpoint



and for the record it WAS more obvious in the PT than the OT, to some of us

 

Odd choice of words. Why would I "forgive" someone for having a different viewpoint? To forgive implies that I must first have condemned. Who am I to condemn anyone for having a different viewpoint? That would be stupid. I fully accept that, for the record, you have an opposing opinion, but it’s not your freedom of opinion that I condemn; it’s your argument put forth that I disagree with. It’s the argument that I’m contending.

 

Ok. Back to the original question. It was clearly evident that Lucas was going to have the droids in the prequels because they were popular. There just as iconic as Luke, Vader and the rest. His thinking was that this is 'all new' so the droids will give fans something familiar to identify with. But, and this is just my own opinion, it was done wrong. Having 3PO be the 'project' the young Anakin had at home that was gonna help is mum out didnt work. I mean, he's a protocol droid. How's he gonna help out? As for R2's introduction. Well he Is an astromec droid but the whole 'introduction' to the queen was unnecessary.The Geonosis scenes involving the droids were catastrophically terrible. It was one of them moments (one of many) where you slid further into your seat, hand covering your eyes and thinking to yourself,'oh no'. Ill still always love the droids no matter what, especially R2.