What if R5-D4 was fine?

Remember the little red droid that Owen bought instead of R2? What if its motivator was perfectly fine? We probably would have had a completely different trilogy. Who knows how long R2 would've stayed on that sandcrawler?

Any guesses to what might have happened?

 

Yeah what if!!

 

Yeah well, as with all machines, some parts DO fail over time.

I'm sure motivators have a very short MTBF* compared to other internal AstroDroid parts.




* Mean Time Between Failures ~ an engineering estimate of time to failure of a part or system based on statistical analysis of data gathered from the operational life of identical parts or systems over time. Usually repair swapouts are done on intervals based on this data. Read the manual. Rights vary from planetary system to planetary system so you may have rights not covered by warrantee but provided for by Imperial Law.

 

Well, there's actually a deleted scene where we see Artoo shock Arfive until he goes into shock mode, suprisingly.

 

^ First I've heard of that.

Source?

 

I think he's making that up...

Get this...the old Decipher card game said R5 "deliberately blew his motivator to avoid seperating 3P0 and R2". I'm paraphrasing, but it's something like that.

 

I've always thought it was a fortunate coincedence and nothing more.

Considering the state of disrepair most salvage is in, and the conditions on Tatooine...normal part failure is the easiest and most obvious solution.

I love Occam's Razor.

 

"Remember the little red droid that Owen bought instead of R2? What if its motivator was perfectly fine? We probably would have had a completely different trilogy. Who knows how long R2 would've stayed on that sandcrawler? "

Or even before that, when the droids escaped on the escape pod, one general told them, "hold your fire, no lifeforce detected". Had he simply not told him to stop firing, we wouldn't have a starwars saga.

 

No scene of R2 shocking R5, but I beleive in one of the early scripts or the Comic version, R2 actually modified R5 to malfunction.

 

R2-D2 is pretty smart..... He would find a way to get away.

 

sigh.
thread designated waste of board memory.

 

I just thought it was interesting that one little event determined the outcome of the entire Star Wars saga.

Lots of little events could be altered slightly to change the history of Star Wars. Maybe I should've made the thread about that instead of focusing on this one event.

 

I've given thought to this very thing and have re-written the script of Episode IV Accordingly. Hope you Enjoy it...


The Star Wars
Episode IV ? Fading Hope

It is a dark time for this movie?everything seems to be going wrrong. Rebel spies, attempting to strike from a hidden outpost, have exposed themselves to the Evil Empire and have doomed the rebellion, which they had planned so well, or so they thought.

Princess Leah, races home aboard her starship, unknowing that the secrets she carries will soon be lost forever.

Meanwhile, on the tiny planet below, a young farm boy contemplates his future on a barren chunk of rock hurtling through the galaxy.

Space above Tatooine ? Star Cruiser being pursued by Evil Empire Big ship. Laser blasts pummel the cruiser.

C3P0 ? ?Did you hear that?! They?ve taken the solar crystals ?we?ll be destroyed for sure!?
R2D2 ? ?bleep, bleep, click worrywart..whir!?
C3P0 ? ?Where do you think you?re going??I?m not going in there, its dark and scary.
R2D2 ? ? Click, click, move it! Bleep?

Space outside Star Cruiser, just underneath Big honkin? Evil Ship. A tiny escape pod exits the Cruiser.

Evil Commander #1 ? ?There goes another one??
Evil Commander #2 ? ?Hold your fire, there are no life forms aboard?
Zap!
Evil Commander #1 ? ?Oops! Heh, heh?itchy trigger finger?

The escape pod explodes into a million tiny bits.

Tatooine ? Day - A young moisture farm boy looks up from his tedious work of collecting drops of dirty water from tall metal canisters that dot the barren landscape. Why? I?m not sure.

Luke ? ?Hey Biggs, take a look at that, I?ll bet it must be a Star Cruiser and some big honkin? Evil ship fighting out there in space!

Biggs ? ?Aw forget it Luke, it?s probably just a freighter refueling.

Luke ? ?Yeah, you?re probably right? whatever?Hey, I gonna go pick up some power converters. I, uh, got some power I need to convert back home. Wanna come??

Biggs ? ?No Way, I gotta get back to the Academy. I?m getting off this rock. I?m gonna jump ship and join the rebellion. I hear they really got their act together? cool spaceships and everything.

Luke ? (shrugs) ?Oh, Ok Biggs, whatever. See ya!? (to himself) ?power converters?wow?

Tatooine, the Jutland Wastes ? Evening ? An old bearded man uses some kind of illuminated light stick to heat up a can of beans.

Ben Kenobe ? ??Ehhh?about all these ?ol light saber things are good for anymore?dum de dum?jeesh! what a way to spend my retirement. What was that old kook Yoda talking about, ?Adventure, Excitement, a Jedi craves not these things??. Oh, what a fool I was!?

Space ? Big Honkin? Evil Ship ? Day?Night??I don?t know, its space?it?s dark out here - The Evil Dark Helmut Guy Questions the Lovely Princess.

Dark Lord Vader? ?Tell me where those secrets are!?

Leah ? ?You blew them up you idiot!?

Dark Lord Vader ? ?Oh?yeah, Well I didn?t need them anyway. I know where your Rebel friends are?they?re on?uh, Dantooine!

Leah ? ?Tantoine??

Vader ? ?Dodoooine!??

Leah ? ? Bespooine?!?

Vader ? ?Aaarrrg! Me thinks you are trying to confuse me. I?ll find them!... Guards take her away and terminate her!?

Guards ? ?uh, OK?terminate her?? (to selves) ?geeesh, what an evil dictator??

Tantooine - Mos Eisley ? Cantina ? Night ?Han Solo and Chewy, two space pirates are sipping jawa juice and discussing their current predicament.

Han ? ?Ya know Chewy, we could really use a good charter to get us some money so?s we can re-pay Jabba Du? Hutt for that load of spice we dumped!

Chewy ? ?Growwell?grumph?gurgle??

Han ? Yeah, you?re right...probably won?t happen?oh, hey Greedo?wha?!?hey!?.

Zap!?

Space ? The Big Death Star Thingy ?Supreme Grand Pooba Moff Tarkin considers the fate of the pitiful band of rebels on Dantoo?Tantoo?.., uh Bespi?? well wherever.

Tarkin ? ?We shall crush the rebellion with one swift stroke.?

Commander ? ?Cool?ready the big laser gun!?

ZAP!?(note the capital letters for emphasis)

Tattoine - The Jutland Wastes - Night

 

In the radio play, Threepio castigates Artoo for "modifying" R5-D4 without human supervision.

 

In the visual dictionary, it says that the R5 blew the motivator himself.

Well, if R5 had gone instead, this would happen -

C3PO and R5 work on the farm for the entire life, which is theoretically eternity until they are sold for scrap metal when they are made obselete. Luke Skywalker stays on another two years, then goes to the academy, and gets blown up by a rebel pilot on his very first mission. Obi-Wan says "oh well, theres one gone..." R2 ends up getting sold to another group of moisture farmers, who aren't stupid enough to take off the restraining bolt, so the plans never reach Obi-Wan anyway.

In the meantime, Alderaan got blown up, and the empire catches a rebel agent, with a slightly smaller resolve then Leia. This agent gives away the base at Yavin, and the newly completed Death Star promptly destroys it.

Han Solo and Chewbacca can't use the charter, but end up finding another group of people who want passage to another planet, called Corellia. While going there, on the way back, they find all the Glittersim (was that what it was?) that the Empire relocated after he dumped it. They pay back Jabba the Hutt, then go on several smuggling missions and become rich. Well it was a happy ending for the both of them.

Except of course, the Empire now has nothing to worry about and decides to knock off all the gangsters in the galaxy and disposes of Jabba the Hutt. Han Solo and Chewbacca are now out of work and are forced to join the empire as TIE fighter pilots. Well Han Solo does anyway and I haven't decided what Chewbacca does yet...

Not suprisingly, twelve years later Vader feels strong. He decides that he can overthrow the emperor himself, and arranges a bomb to be placed on his shuttle. Being as ignorant as he is, the emperor doesn't feel it in the force until half a second before it happens and by then its too late. This blows up the figher escort which happens to include Han Solo (who of course graduated to the highest levels... by this time of course Admiral Ozzel has got throttled and therefore can't say that he was already expelled). Darth Vader then declares himself the emperor, and a civil war begins between him and Grand Moff Tarkin who believes that he should be emperor instead.

Strangely enough, the entire rebellion restarts, instead it is being lead by Grand Moff Tarkin , who still managed to have the Death Star. With this, he has complete power by blowing up Coroscant. But this doesn't achieve much as it puts all the planets into the Stone age again, having very little contact with each other at all. The galaxy loses its unity and with the constitution destroyed - literally - many planets get overtaken by gangsters. The end.

Oh yes... and at this stage .. 100 years after Leia's execution, that entire generation dies. Except for the droids! Well C3PO gets sold to a group of business agents on Naboo, and lives in the high life for the rest of his life. And R2 gets recaptured by the Jawas and sold for scrap metal when he becomes obselete.

As you can see... its the little things that make the difference!

 

Heh knowing Artoo he went around modifying a good portion of the droids in the sandcrawler to increase his chances of getting out of there. Or I suppose he could've just asked R5 to malfunction and explained his situation to him.

If Skywalker had purchased R5 well Artoo probably would've managed an escape somehow.

 

R2 had a restraining bolt on, so the owner could have just recalled him whenever he wanted. So in order to fix that... R2 would have to have stolen the droid caller, or killed his new owners.

 

R2 Killing his new owners. HAHA