PT R2 & 3PO in the prequels

Why not?

 

it's your argument put forth that I disagree with. It’s the argument that I’m contending.
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Fair enough,

we'll just disagree

 

How was he gonna help out the Larses in ANH?

 

I was no were near as bothered by r2 and 3p0 being in the PT so much as I was by Jar Jar, everything he ever did, Vader building 3p0, seeing Darth Vader as a little annoying kid, and seeing Boba Fett as a little cloned kid.

So no, I'm not bothered by it. In fact, I wouldn't mind if a PT edit replaced every single scene in the PT trilogy with R2 and 3P0 scenes.

 

Owen needed a droid that understood the binary language of Moisture Vaporators. 3PO said that his previous job of programming binary Load Lifters was similar enough. That and Beru said that they needed a droid which spoke Bochi, whatever that is. So 3PO fit the bill in that regard.

My only guess is that what the couple at a younger age needed 3PO for as well. Owen probably had a sense of deja vu.

But as for 3PO's roles in the rest of the movies...

TPM-Easy enough to explain. Anakin and Shmi were dirt poor and couldn't afford a standard droid to help. So they made due with what they had.

AOTC-3PO was useless at Geonosis. Maybe Anakin and Padme had no choice but to just leave them on the ship. Would've worked had R2 not been a jerk.

ROTS-Lord knows why Padme insisted 3PO fly her to Mustafar.

TESB-What was 3PO up to on Hoth? And as we can remember, he was nothing but complaining dead weight during the trip on the Falcon and on Bespin

ROTJ-3PO and R2 were "bait" for Jabba. 3PO suffered at Luke's and R2's expense. As for Endor, sure he was helpful with the Ewoks, but the Rebels didn't know they were down there. So what possible reason could they have brought 3PO down there?

My guess is that Luke, Han, Leia and R2 are a bunch of sadists, and just forced 3PO to join them for the lolz.

 

In the TPM deleted scene "The Dawn Before the Race", we see vaporators nearby, so 3PO may be useful for the same reason he was needed in ANH.

 

I was cool with having R2 and C-3PO in the PT. Didn't mind that at all. C-3PO getting switched with a battle droid was pointless though. R2 in ROTS was great fun. Taking care of business and having a place in the plot was great. I laughed when he oiled the droids and set them on fire. I also enjoyed when he came into the hallway, hit the wall, shocked the droid and got kicked over. That was funny.

 

As much as I like the droid double act in the OT, their introductions in the prequels were dreadful! R2 being the only surviving astromech droid on the queens ship and the one that saves all the main characters from the Trade Federation blockade (which looks like only 1 ship, where did the rest go???) was a bit contrived and the scene where he's introduced to the queen as a well put together little droid was embarrassing (watch Hugh Quarshie's face in that scene, I'm sure he's about to laugh as he tells everyone R2's number). Those scenes just scream out ''LOOK IT'S R2D2 EVERYONE!!!'' but the most annoying addition to the overall PT is the fact that Anakin hand built C3PO, he wasn't a random protocol droid that got swept up with the action but he was specifically built by the future Darth Vader!!!! He then disappears until half way through AOTC when he turns up working in the very place he ''randomly'' returns to about 24 years later!! It would have made more sense if 3PO was introduced as either Padme's or Organa's personal protocol droid and R2 was still his counterpart. We really didn't need to know how they met or were created. Leave a bit of mystique behind some characters.

 

Of course, you speak as if everyone shares your opinion.

News flash. We don't. Some of us don't care about how the mystique is ruined.

 

I think there's some unexplained importance behind their appearances in every movie (like with the early Star Wars scripts). But aside from that, they're iconic. Though that doesn't always translate into "usefulness." R2 is a very versatile droid, but 3PO... not so much. Though that might explain why he didn't really have much of a role in TPM and AOTC.

I liked R2's introduction; we had to believe that there was something special that set this R2 unit apart from the countless others.

 

I love the droids! Sure they may not be exactly important and pivotal but they're great characters and defiantly some of the most iconic. I didn't mind them at all being in the PT, I honestly feel like they should always be around.

 

Well that's your opinion but there's no need to come across as a condescending git about it, I put my point across and I really couldn't care less who agrees or disagrees with me.

 

I think some of the resistance to Artoo flying around is that it's a violation of the sacred contract between filmmaker and viewer in terms of a minimal level of guaranteed physical realism. In other words, Artoo used to be a totem for the humble, beat-up, gum-and-string, scrappily-resourceful, ritzy side of Star Wars: where everyone -- within SW and without -- was winging it, or using the cheapest effects possible, and repeatedly triumphed in the face of adversity with the simplest of solutions or convictions. But when Artoo fires up his rockets, Lucas breaks the little droid's former mold, introducing a CG, weightless Artoo that literally takes flight above that basal reality. Height in Star Wars is strongly correlated with power: the higher you are, the more powerful you are, and also, paradoxically, the more haughty and vulnerable you are. Artoo was a previous assurance that the little guy would stay little and ultimately triumph, even with the occasional screw-up along the way (e.g., Artoo mistaking an electrical terminal for a computer terminal in TESB). When he takes to the air, Artoo leaves the element of the earth behind, ascending up the power ladder, in a way that some might find disconcerting and inherently wrong.

There is also something sacred about the power of flight itself. It was only really mastered by human beings -- and even then, not altogether elegantly, or without danger and loss -- in the last century, being confined to the realm of magic, mythology, and science-fiction before that time. In the fifth "Star Trek" movie, it is played for a joke, with Spock improbably donning rocket boots at several points in the film, as if personal levitation is still something of a clumsy childish fantasy: an ability that in some sense makes a mockery of the difficulty of flight, perhaps, or merely exposes the at-times inelegant form of the human body when it is placed or thrust into the air.

Artoo's rockets might even be felt to invalidate the struggle of Artoo being a wheeled robot, awkwardly ambling over an open Tatooine desert, or struggling to mount his body across those steps in a courtyard on Naboo. There's a charm to seeing Artoo tenuously making his way from point A to point B. Rockets might be seen to kill that sense of poignant, tragicomic struggle.

On the other hand, as you rightly (more or less) say... get over it, basically. Artoo is a jack-of-all-trades with an astromech legacy. Not expecting rockets in-universe is almost as absurd as ranting about their use in the first place. And that Artoo deploys them only twice -- once in AOTC and ROTS each, when no human overlord is around to witness this violation of the filmic tabernacle -- could be said to convey its own significance.

Given Anakin's brilliance with machines, one might also imagine that he saw fit to either equip Artoo with rockets or ensure that they would work in an emergency, securing something close to apotheosis for his little blue friend while he would ultimately go on to destroy himself.

Ah, yes. Back to Threepio: the other half of this robo-equation.

In a deleted scene on the TPM DVD (dawn before the race), Threepio can actually be seen polishing up Anakin's pod, aware of the importance of his task given what Anakin is about to do. While Anakin has nodded off in the shade, Threepio requires no rest (or not as much) and can complete his task without interruption. One might be tempted to generalize this to Threepio being good at menial tasks, even in his inchoate form, and therefore, in some small way, able to lift the burden from Shmi, freeing her up to take it easier, or pursue other lines of work/income.

The "Star Wars: Episode I - Insider's Guide" also states that one of Shmi's tasks, to earn herself extra money, is cleaning computer memory chips, which she does from the comfort of home. When Anakin returns with his share of the Boonta Classic race winnings, Shmi is sat at a workstation, surrounded by trinkets, holding a device which she puts down when Anakin walks up to the edge of the workstation and lays down his winnings. Suspended above her, and slowly rotating, is another device which the "Star Wars: Episode I Visual Dictionary" identifies as an "aeromagnifier", which Watto apparently gave Shmi in recognition of her trusty nature. Clearly, Threepio might have been intended to one day assist with this task, or perform other tasks while Shmi worked at this one.

Helper robots are becoming more and more common in our own societies. Over New Year, a friend of mine was telling me he recently drove some place to pick up a robot for cutting the grass. There are robots in development to do other household tasks like the laundry, washing, ironing, cooking, cleaning, etc. Ray Kurzweil predicts a revolution in which humans and intelligent machines will live side-by-side, until they essentially merge into a machine consciousness. This is predicted to happen within the next fifty years. With continual exponential growth in computing power -- memory and processing -- and major new developments in nanotechnology, as well as what has already taken place with miniaturization of computers in domestic appliances, including mobile phones, and the explosion of the Internet, where people are already using Google as a second brain and assuming digital identities of one form and another, his prediction does not sound particularly fanciful.

But I guess we're just meant to play dumb and go on pretending that Anakin building a protocol droid to do anything but protocol -- as if all we should do, being a primate species evolutionarily designed for survival and reproduction is eat, drink, join tribes, and have sex -- is stupid. Has it even occurred to anyone that Anakin fitted a protocol droid with a protocol droid's brain to make Threepio feel contented with his lot in life and secure his loyalty so he'd never think of leaving?

Another thing to add -- I'm saddened that this is never brought up (to me, it shows how little thinking the average SW fan does) -- is that Anakin built Threepio, subliminally, as some kind of apology for not being around his mother as much as he might have wished or felt obligated to be. As some crude human(oid) substitute, Threepio is designed to ease Anakin's guilt and function as proxy in his absence. To me, this one has always felt pretty obvious, especially since Anakin uses the rationalization, "to help", which has many meanings and implications in the Star Wars saga, but is more about metaphorically giving someone a boost or inadvertently pushing them to destruction. People often take the themes, sounds, visuals, words, and happenings of the SW saga too literally. And in the prequel trilogy, which trades heavily in ambiguity, irony, and double-speak, the last thing you should do is reach for the mundane interpretation, even when the quotidian aspects of Star Wars hold their own appeal.

Threepio may even have been someone that Anakin himself could bond with. Kitster aside, we see that Anakin's friends aren't exactly supportive of his mechanical ambitions, so it's not clear who Anakin could really talk to outside of Watto and his mother, who were both older authority figures, anyway. I will make the gentle assumption that Anakin preferred taking his mind off the grind of his slave existence on a hot, arid planet by setting himself a challenge out of which arose a non-judgemental companion whom Anakin could talk to and be around without the fear of being reprimanded or negatively regarded in some way. This obviously shades his frustation with the Jedi Order, and his closeness with Palpatine, later on. Yet in a stroke of genius, the whole Anakin-Threepio relationship, as it plays out on a dramatic level, feels tangential, even frivolous. No-one really grasps this: inside of the film or outside of it. But it is key to the Vader myth. If Qui-Gon could have seen what was already afoot, and certainly if Obi-Wan had have, they might have found a way to accommodate this obfuscated need, instead of allowing Anakin to stew and actualize apocalyptic destruction.

Then again, to each, their own.

 

Huh …I never noticed that before. They’re almost like a meta moments, or some fourth-wall breaker. From that notion, personally, I always loved the scene where he first lifts off from the ledge in the droid factor and whistles cheerfully as he flies right out of the frame:

"Look at meeeeee!!"

I also like the idea of R2 solely coming to the rescue of a damsel in distress – his very own Errol Flynn moment. If doing so causes blasphemy amidst fanboy scripture, so be it.

 

Given that Artoo is a bit of a mischievous droid, these meta moments make sense. Y'know, he has a few secrets of his own, a few aces to play. Aces -- or, indeed, rockets -- up his sleeve.

And I'd like people to take seriously the proposal that Artoo can deploy his rockets because of Anakin and his handiwork. They clearly developed a rapport from the get-go, with Artoo satisfying a more tinker-ish, resourceful side to Anakin, while Threepio is more of a cautious, wobbly man-child.

Yup.

He also comes to the rescue of another damsel -- the damsel's daughter -- in the OT, literally projecting her spectral image to tantalize Luke, the son, making him, in a sense, both a rescuer of the mother and the keeper of her flame.

In a world of jetpacks and podracer engines, and in a film in which the camera first pans up, it was time for Artoo to exude, or extrude, his own explosive defiance of gravity, manifested as a gentle gliding through the air while everyone else has taken a fall.

Artoo also had to make amends, of a sort, for his previous lapse at defending Padme in her own bedroom. He was even made the butt of a joke about that by Anakin to Padme later on. In this way, he redeems himself, even though no-one sees or thanks him: except the "gods" of Star Wars... the (likewise) uplifted or dejected viewer.

And with digital doppelgangers -- clones -- attacking everywhere in II and III, it's fitting to see Artoo taking leave of the ground, just, as in some sense, the characters in the films take leave of their senses, with the Clone Wars depicted as some machine slapstick farce scenario, and the films which contain the final build-up and ultimate release of this war event being more stylistically extreme, allowing the subconscious -- the poetic -- to very nearly veer out of control.

Even Threepio remarks that he's never flown before when he leaves the dessicated sphere of Tatooine behind (only to wind up at a close cousin of Tatooine's and undergo violent deconstruction in one of its droid hothouses). Our robot guides both have a new destiny to experience in this diaphanous digital delectation. And then they appropriately crash back to Earth (a barren Earth) in the OT, their dream-time ended.

 

Ah he was going to be able to programme the moisture vaporators....very handy thing to have on a moisture farm I would have thought??....I understand that 3PO worked on a dairy farm on Endor for one or two seasons so helping Aunt Beru to milk the blue cows for the blue milk would also been a bonus.

 

If R2 and 3PO weren't in the PT I'm sure this thread would be titled 'how dare they leave them out'...the reason they were in the PT is because Mr. Lucas was smart enough to know that 99.9% of the fans wanted them to be there, how could you have a SW film without R2 and 3PO?!

I was real happy to see both of them in Episode One and didn't really care how they got there....sure people can say that it's a little far fetched that Vader made 3PO as a small boy but not me I'm glad he did and R2 being introduced to the Queen after he saved the ship is totally understandable, I would have been annoyed if she didn't want to meet him!

 

they didn't even seem to have the chemistry they had in the CT

 

That's because Threepio still needed to have his mind wiped.

 

yeah , me too

 

hahaha nice one man...

 

[Darth Xalfea said=TESB-What was 3PO up to on Hoth? And as we can remember, he was nothing but complaining dead weight during the trip on the Falcon and on Bespin[/quote]






C-3PO was a known Imperial spy! He would have crushed them all, at the Emperor's bidding, in the trash compactor, had R2 not "reminded" him about the comlink.

 

IMO, it makes very little sense. It's too incestuous of the writer to clump these two characters so closely together. This is a huge galaxy and Darth Vader is the Maker? Come on. C-3PO has a British, butler-like accent. Almost like he came from the Royal House of Alderaan. Serving Royals and galactic dignitaries. You know, 'Remains of the Day' type stuff. He looks and sounds like he comes from comfort. His dialogue hints at the inability to adjust to situations that cause the mildest discomfort. He lacks confidence in the world. He's proper and wants nothing to do with adventure. He wants to live a quiet life of service.

He's a protocol droid. His primary function is language and translation and probably he's versed in the cultural customs of most of the Galaxy. He's a bureaucrat, not a 3rd graders pet project.

What do I know? I'm not the billionaire, it just doesn't jive in my mind. If I were GL, I would have always kept them together. Never would I hint at a time when they were not acquainted. There is no origin story for those two.


To address the post: R2-D2 is arguably my favorite character. SW is not SW without them. Sorry. They have to be there. At least in the Skywalker series.