Let's try to make sense of a few disparate parts of Star Wars society/economics/technology. Droids, despite being both thinking and feeling beings, only in Sequel Trilogy times seem to finally be treated with a little more respect ... and still not as true equals. There is widespread automation and FTL travel that has opened up most of the galaxy, and even the most advanced droids are treated as property... but even with all that, there's still widespread poverty, when there should be enough resources to give everyone a comfortable standard of living (as well as death-defying medical care). Even with droids as property and what should be an abundance of resources, even organic sentients are still used as slaves on many worlds, like Tatooine. But if it was about control, not economics, why not just implant everyone with the biochips the Kaminoans use on the clone army, so everyone is basically under mind control? In fact, why haven't any of the wannabe-despots tried this? Hoe can we make sense of these pieces of Star Wars society/economics/technology?
I feel like Star Wars should just sidestep the issue of droid rights by making droids non-sentient. There's that quote from HK-47 that goes: "Observation: I am a droid, master, with programming. Even if I did not enjoy killing, I would have no choice. Thankfully, I enjoy it very much." So if droids can't disobey their programming, then they don't have free will, and so droid slavery wouldn't be an issue. I know there's other sci-fi settings that do deal with the issue of sentient AI's (Mass Effect comes to mind) but I'd just rather it not be in Star Wars. As for droid labor not eradicating poverty, well we've had a lot of technological innovations in real life that we thought would improve people's lives...but ended up not doing so. As for biochips...I guess that's just a technology unique to the Kaminoans that isn't known to most of the galaxy? And I'm assuming the only way to implant them is when you're growing the people in vats, which wouldn't work with naturally born organic beings? Tbh I always hated the Order 66 montage and the idea that Sidious could just flip a switch to turn the clones evil...and I also hate the biochips as the explanation of it.
I don't think the issue is as much with the amount of resources - this is a galaxy where they regularly build planet-destroying starships the size of small moons and have entire planets dedicated solely to agriculture and food production - as it is distribution. Under the Empire, poverty was probably status quo for a lot of planets as resources went where the Empire wanted them, not necessarily where they were needed. As a general rule, where there's poverty in the galaxy I imagine you'll probably find evil, corrupt or inefficient leadership somewhere upstream. On the subject of droids and sentience, different writers approach this differently but I think the general idea is supposed to be that most droids aren't sentient, but a handful become such (or take on the appearance of it) if their programming is sufficiently advanced and they go for long enough without a memory wipe. The storytelling focuses more on those droids as they make more interesting characters, but I think we're supposed to understand that the vast majority of droids either receive regular memory wipes and do not develop "sentience," or are Class Four/Five droids and just aren't sophisticated enough. Regarding those rare "sentient" droids, my guess is that the Star Wars galaxy has had literally millennia to debate the subject and has possibly come down on "it might look like it but they're not" as the generally accepted consensus opinion - whether or not that's true is, of course, a different story. (Also bear in mind that many of the droids we see in Star Wars are protocol droids, which are specifically programmed to interact with organics and thus might seem closer to "sentient" than they might actually be.) The "most droids aren't sentient" thing also plays into why organic slaves are sometimes used instead of droids - organics can handle unexpected or escalated situations better than droids, who are limited by their programming. That could be why the Empire uses human stormtroopers instead of battle droids, for example.
Yeah, as far as droids go, I'm still inclined to think this goes back to droids being "proven" as nonsapient/p-zombies at some point in galactic history, and that conclusion essentially going without serious challenge for millennia. The debate has happened, concluded, and the majority have moved on. Even if it was a mistake, the longer time goes on, the less galactic society is going to be interested in being proven incorrect on the issue, for obvious reasons. I think that's one OOU reason it'll never be explored to the extent some people might want, too. Are the PTB really willing to take the mythos in a direction where even our most heroic characters were engaged in slavery, however unknowingly? I'm up for it in principle, but it would take something pretty special to pull it off, and I don't think we're really meant to take Obi-Wan at anything less than face value when he states that droids can't think. (At least in general.)
Well, it's just wildly inconsistent. What's weird is that it's really signposted all over the first 45 minutes or so of ANH -- the movie starts off with droids as our audience identification characters, definitely endows them with emotions, makes us feel their suffering, delivers them into the hands of one of the only sentients who seems to respect them, and takes us up to the "we don't serve their kind in here" which is a clear reference to IRL racist institutions, and then... drops it. From there on, it surfaces from time to time, but characters who are presented as heroic are totally indifferent to any issues with how droids are treated, and some (specifically Han and PT Obi-Wan) even articulate some stuff that is straight-up "racist" if you follow the ANH Jim Crow/Segregation parallel. And then there are the battle droids... they're cannon fodder, and "comic relief", but there are lots of instances of them clearly suffering and even having fatalistic knowledge of what their role in the narrative is. Personally I think it's been there to be explored since the very beginning, but some dubious "comedy" choices along the lines have muddied it up but good. I would really like to see it explored, and I even think it's one of the last big issues that can become a SW narrative thread -- maybe even involving the way droids might be present in the Force. But I think, in accordance with Ulicus's citations of the awkwardness of how it paints our heroes... it would have to be something that happens in the fairly distant future, well after the ST.
I don't have much to say on the Droid or Slavery part. As for Mind Control....Gonna put a pin in that one and see what Bad Batch does. I think the Bio Chip situation works for what the Clones are in TCW when we see them as mostly honorable warriors who strive for individualism and are creating strong bonds with their Jedi Generals (Minus Krell)
Avoiding the logical conclusion of that parallel is why it's probably best to hold to the idea that genuinely thinking / feeling / emotional / sentient droids are a rarity in the GFFA, no matter how often we may run into them in the actual storytelling (and further, that such "sentience" is generally believed in-universe to be an illusion caused by programming quirks and such). The alternative - a galaxy where even some of the noblest heroes don't just ignore a serious injustice, but actually engage in casual racism and even slavery themselves on a regular basis - is almost certainly not what Lucas and other creators intended.
In the SW fictional universe, we are constantly faced with a dual situation for the droids. There are moments where droids are presented as having feelings and emotions. There are other times when their feelings, emotions, and personality are treated as merely a function of their programming and hardware. The Mandalorian (Season 1, Final Episode) and Episode 9 did offer fairly recent definitive scenes which presented the droids as having emotions as a function of their programming and hardware. Then we have tie-in one-off media, usually involving C-3PO and R2, where dialogue suggests the droids have emotions. After over 40 years, we should probably accept there will always be a "push and pull" between the two extremes of "having emotion" versus "emotion as a function of programming and hardware." The main lesson, in my opinion, that should be drawn is that a) all biological entities are unique individuals, even if they are clones b) mass-produced machines are not biological entities, therefore X, and c) uniquely-manufactured machines may simulate the imitated species' biology, organs, aging and development, c) all biological entities need to be treated with dignity so they can realize their potential. Finally, it is life-affirming to me that all biological entities are unique individuals with nature and nurture. That message is more important than the treatment of droids.
My kids and I just rewatched Solo, which of course has the most direct (if not -- and by that I mean, not -- eloquent) commentary on the whole situation, at least onscreen. It really only eases the can of worms open slightly more than ANH and lots of other stuff that's happened over the years, but... yeah. Absolutely, but the seeds for the issue are planted early on and are even arguably iconic. And I don't think it can addressed within our current timeframe -- I would say that the only way it can get handled is if we fast forward to well past the ST and hit a point where AI really becomes inarguably sentient (and again, maybe present in the Force)... at that point you could argue that the more sentient-emotional droids we have seen are sort of a nascent life form on the way to manifesting itself on a wide scale... later. Two other thoughts crop up here for me: 1) The other thing that's low-key in play already is the Droid Gotra.... which, although it's a criminal organization, is an example of droid self-governance, as I understand it. 2) There's another awkward thing about the whole issue and it's sort of visualized in the SOLO uprising scene, which is that it seems like droids' capacity for sentience is limited by the sophistication of their programming, but their capacity for "emotion" or free will isn't. Assuming that, say, a protocol droid or astromech can come close to sentience pretty easily and maybe a GNK or Treadwell less so (which I'm not saying is the case, but it can be inferred)... some of the liberated droids in SOLO act a bit like unchained pets, and of course throwing it back to ANH again, there's that mouse droid that gets spooked by Chewie. Where do these kind of animal-intelligence-level droids fit in? Bottom line, I don't feel like SW is "suited" for this kind of hard-SF debate, but it's also kind of did bring it up early on. And it's got more humanized robots than most other franchises. So it's a tough call.
