"Clever" Droids- yay or nay?

This is something that's been annoying me for awhile, and it all sort of culminated with the Season 2 premiere -I'm referencing (and highlighting, for safety) just one event, and I'm trying not to get too specific, but beware for slight spoilers.

What's with all of the clever and witty droids we've been seeing? The battle droids frequently offer a sort of off-hand humour, and in the premiere we see Cad Bane's droid, who also has that sort of disobedience and sarcasm. In the movies I guess you could sort of classify Artoo like this, but it seemed necessary in his situation. We also had I-Five from several of Michael Reaves' books.

Chances are I'm reading way too much into this, but is anyone getting annoyed? Droids -or at least the battle droids that tend to do the majority of the attempted humour- are manufactured to serve a purpose, not to be entertaining. In fact, I would think that the producers (of the droid, not the show) would go through great lengths to not make them amusing, as in a battlefield situation that could be a huge disadvantage.

 

The first character to ever speak in a Star Wars movie was a sassy, prissy, selfish, manipulative, co-dependent, cowardly, deceitful, whiny, emotionally abused, gay British protocol droid.

 

What the hell? 3PO wasn?t selfish, manipulative, deceitful, co-dependent, or emotionally abused and has no sexual orientation. I don?t know where you?re getting all of this from?

No, I agree with you. I don?t mind a bit of humor from droids like Cad Bane?s but the battle droid humor is a bit too much. They?re supposed to be killing machines not delivering one-liners.

 

"Uh, sir? It's a Jedi, and he looks angry..." - Yeah, I

 

You know what I mean. Threepio was loaded with emotions that had nothing to do with the efficient performance of a protocol droid. Star Wars droids have always acted ridiculous, because Lucas loves to mock the nature of technology.

Threepio selfishly thought of himself and his safety while others were in danger. He manipulated Luke into picking Artoo because he was co-dependent to the droid. He deceived Luke about Artoo on several occasions, as well as lying to the Stormtroopers about why he and Artoo were on the Death Star. He was emotionally harassed by several of his owners, and whined about his sad lot in life. Why would a droid logically need any of these emotions? I say this with love: Threepio needs a therapist.

 

Come to think of it, has anyone ever seen C3PO act in any capacity as a protocol droid?
I've never seen him try to enforce a code of military or diplomatic etiquette of any kind.

 

When you think about it, the droids should be scary: mass produced, terror inducing metal soldiers that march into battle in droves, overwhelming the enemy, cold, efficient killers.

I want to actually see the enemy as a threat. Where's the war if the soldiers make jokes? It's okay for the clones to joke around(they're only human) but a collection of samish droids should not have a personality, period.

Yes, it is a Star Wars thing to make the droids have personality.

But when you think about it, other than any main villains, or bounty hunters, and the commando droids, the CIS army is a waste. Sure, you could say that as a B1 goes on through its lifespan, it'll get quirks and whatnot. That's fine. But every single droid doesn't need to make stupid jokes and crack wise every few minutes.

The B1's in the show should be like less competent droid commandos. SBD's should be like heavy duty B1's, and the droid commandos are second only to Magnaguards. Who shouldn't die after having a limb or head chopped off.

But I digress. It's a child's television show, I can stand a few Battle Droid jokes if I have to. As long as it's not too much.

 

Roger, roger.

 

Sometimes I think they cross the line.

E.g. with TODO in Cargo of Doom, when he's running into the Council members and starts going "heyyyyy.....guys." I just can't see a droid talking like that, it's too slangy for me.


I usually don't mind the battle droid humor if it's kept to a minimum. I like the fact that by this point in the war, the battle droids dread seeing any Jedi, particularly Anakin or Obi-Wan.

 

Star Wars droids have always had way more personality than it would be called for by their function. I mean, you have a mouse droid, which is little more than a fuse box on wheels, that whistles merrily along its way and squeaks in terror when frightened. R2-D2 himself, by all right should be the most bland machine of all, he's just supposed to help maintain starships and calculate hyper-jumps, he can't even speak! And yet he's throwing raspberries left and right, whistling to himself, and demonstrating all the emotional range of a small child.

As much as I don't like the overdone droid humor, there's nothing really in-universe wrong with it. They don't exactly crack jokes and make snappy comebacks, they are not trying to be funny. All they do is act really stupid and complain about their lot on life. That actually makes sense for a droid that is made as cheaply as possible, in order to be produced by the bucket load and destined to be cut in half by a lightsaber.

 

My take on B1s is that they are the equivalent of a tubby, underpaid security guard. He doesn't really need to be badass or efficient. He just needs to watch the mall and call for backup if there's trouble. I imagine that the Trade Federation mostly designed B1s for guard duty and basic infantry work.

In modern wars, aren't the grunts, the regular infantry, usually the least well trained among the army? They're just supposed to overwhelm with sheer numbers, like the battle droids.

 

Ohhhhhhhhh noooooooooo the horrrrrrrrrrrooooooorrrrrrrrrr. You got to be kidding? Clever? menacing? Those guys are a joke. I love the series, but when you come that to the massive nineteen book New Jedi order Series, its like wow. From were going to die! to He's the commander. Gets blasted. I guess now I'm the commander..pow pow. Nope they are not clever and menacing

 

If I hear that "I guess I'm the Commander now" line again.... How many times have they used that
so far? If you were the one ordering and paying for these useless so-called battle droids would
you put up with this nonsense? I understand the comic foil angle, but come on. And since
the Jedi have 'droid poppers', why do they bother fighting them at all? I'd be willing to take
everyone on this thread, hand them a sack of droid poppers and a bottle of brandy each, and then
challenge any and all Jedi to see who could wipe out a command ship full of droids first.
Can you picture it. The JCC team swigging brandy and tossing droid poppers while the Jedi waste
time waving lightsabers all over and dodging laser blasts. Game over, Jedi. The JCC team wins.

 

Droids with personality are fine, but they're overdoing it. That's probably just the creators way of making the war less serious/scary and to add humor on the side. I think Filoni or someone else said it, that the battle droids are kind of innocent. I'm feeling a bit sympathetic with these droids who get taken down by the Jedi or are left with lowly jobs they hate. It's a pitiful kind of comedy.

 

C-3PO cant have a sxual orientaion and by all means isn't gay at all.

.....you call yourself a Star Wars fan

 

Right, I'm the first one to joke that Threepio's gay. Sure.

 

In the end, I guess it goes with the whole symbolism of the Clone Wars versus the Galactic Civil War- as I recall, they intentionally designed the ships of the Separatists to remind one of the flowing, organic shapes used by the Rebellion, to offset the blocky, mass-produced equipment used by both the Republic and the Empire.

As I understand it, making the battle droids goofy like this is just another outlet of this symbolism- I seem to recall reading an interview where the creators basically said that they intended you to look at the stormtroopers, then back at the goofy battle droids, and wonder who really IS more terrifying.

 

As I'm one of those infantrymen, I can tell you we're among the best-trained. Hordes charging into machine-gun fire is very WW1.

Also "basic infantry work" is a job taking alot of very specialized skills to be successful at all, particularly today.


If you read Cloak Of Deception, it's clear that the B1s were never really designed for out and out warfare; they were originally bought for shipboard security against pirates and the like. The droidekas and B2s are the real war machines for the Trade Federation; about the only useful thing about B1s is that they go around in giant numbers.


And yeah, I like the jokey droids. God knows nobody else says anything funny on the show.

 

The droid humor is OK in season 2 so far because it's them having a self-defeatist attitude. They know that they are not a match for Jedi in a fair fight, and react accordingly. Then you have the B1's overseeing the controls during the interrogation and they are creepily cold and act like they don't care about what they are doing, and they don't.

Overall as long as they don't have the Droids acting idiotic when they should be serious I'll be fine with the battle droids.

 

Uhh, we don't do the overwhelming with sheer numbers thing anymore. Haven't done it for years. Warfare isn't conducted like that at all, and our infantry is very well-trained.

As for the "clever" droids, yes, I like them. I like them a lot. Their humor is often a breath of fresh air during some of the more intense episodes.

 

In fairness to TCW, it was Lucas who started this trend with the prequels though, in TPM and AotC at least, it was much more toned down than to the extreme lengths that TCW sometimes goes. In fact, I don't remember it at all in AotC and remember only one instance in TPM where one droid says, "Uh, that doesn't compute, uh, uh, YOU'RE UNDER ARREST!". RotS had droids that, for some stupid reason, groaned when they were hit and had silly B2s with dumb voices and droids that ran away from the Jedi... but the sarcastic droid that Grevious snatches lightsabers off wasn't remotely a problem for me, since he was just, well, sarcastic.

The main problem I have with TCW's take on it is that not only is it rarely funny, it makes the war seem trivial and "less real" and even on those few occasions when it *is* funny, it still immediately reminds me that this isn't a living, breathing universe but in fact a work of fiction.

Ironically, by the time a kid as it at the age that they'd actually get the non-slapstick B1 jokes, they're probably also at the age where they think it's stupid.

Cargo of Doom is a strange episode, mainly because within I find both examples of B1 behaviour that I hate, as well as one particular scene in which there's a B1 that's everything I've ever wanted them to be.