Saga R2...Stay with the ship.

Why does the little guy always have to stay behind?

 

I'm glad I'm not the only to have noticed this and feel sorry for the guy. I mean would it hurt for our heroes to once say "Come along R2.......Stay with the ship 3 PO"

 

The only time I'm particularly glad he stayed behind is in ROTS.

I can just imagine it in ANH.

Ben Kenobi: He was the best star pilot in the galaxy and a cunning warrior. And he was a good friend.

R2-D2: Blip Blip! Beep Beep Beep!!!!

C3-P0: Anakin was Darth Vader?!

Luke: What???! *faints*

Ben Kenobi: See what you did R2? You ruin everything!

 

To R2's credit he always takes it like a champ.

 

Yeah Luke and Anakin could learn a lot from R2. Whereas they whine about many things, R2 incurs a direct blast that almost destroys him in ANH, but you don't see him whining about it. R2 is awesome

 

Well, Artoo did see the Temple raid and saw the start of the duel. So he wasn't completely oblivious to what happened.

 

Did we know if he actually saw the Temple raid? It took some time for Anakin to lead the clone army march into the Temple, and we know that R2 wasn't near them at least on-screen.

As for the start of the duel, wasn't Padme's ship on a different platform or am I remembering incorrectly?

 

Artoo was the one rescuing Padme, in the novel - though 3PO joins in:


C-3PO cautiously poked his head around the rim of the skiff's hatch.
Though his threat-avoidance subroutines were in full screaming overload, and all he really wanted to be doing was finding some nice dark closet in which to fold himself and power down until this was all over—preferably an armored closet, with a door that locked from the inside, or could be welded shut (he wasn't particular on that point)—he found himself nonetheless creeping down the skiff's landing ramp into what appeared to be a perfectly appalling rain of molten lava and burning cinders...
Which was an entirely ridiculous thing for any sensible droid to be doing, but he kept going because he hadn't liked the sound of those conversations at all.
Not one little bit.
She's hurt, Anakin... she needs medical attention... He shuffled out into the swirling smoke. Burning rocks clattered around him. The Senator was nowhere to be seen, and even if he could find her, he had no idea how he could get her back to her ship—he certainly had not been designed for transporting anything heavier than a tray of cocktails; after all, weight-bearing capability was what cargo droids were for—but through the volcano's roar and the gusts of wind, his sonoreceptors picked up a familiar ferooo-wheep peroo, which his autotranslation protocol converted to DON'T WORRY, YOU'LL BE ALL RIGHT.
He couldn't be entirely certain what the disagreement among the humans was concerned with, but one element had been entirely clear.
"Artoo?" C-3PO called. "Artoo, are you out here?"
A few steps more and C-3PO could see the little astromech: he'd tangled his manipulator arm in the Senator's clothing and was dragging her across the landing deck. "Artoo! Stop that this instant! You'll damage her!"
R2-D2's dome swiveled to bring his photoreceptor to bear on the nervous protocol droid. WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU SUGGEST? it whistled.
"Well... oh, all right. We'll do it together."


However, the idea that R2 downloaded a few images from the attack on the Temple, Operation Knightfall, is EU (Dark Nest Trilogy to be precise).

 

I actually made a thread similar to this years ago, still a bit of a conundrum, that Anakin's last order is "Artoo, stay with the ship" then we next see Artoo rolling up to Amidalla's ship behind Obi-Wan.

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...ustafar-why-didnt-he-go-find-anakin.50006634/

Like, Artoo should have just stayed with the ship. Because Anakin told him too. But when/how did Artoo decide to leave Anakin behind?

 

Who can forget as a kid watching R2 in TESB standing on his little droid tiptoes in the rain looking through the window of Yoda's hut making an electronic sighing sound at being excluded?

 

R2 stays with the ship cause he's the best droid for the job.

Also, can't have the actual story teller of the Saga endangered recklessly.

....But if he's not there....and he's at the ship... how does he continue telling the story? Explain yourself, Lucas.

 

Yeah, this has indeed been mentioned on other threads before.
Personally I felt like Artoo senses Anakin isn't himself anymore and abandons him. Hence the (perhaps slightly supersticious) moment where Artoo follows Obi-Wan onto Padme's ship after the duel. It seems significant and is easy to miss.

 

But we see that R2, right from ANH, is capable of deciding what orders he really needs to follow. He gets his restraining bolt removed and does a runner on his new 'owners' in order to find Obi-Wan. That is, after all, what makes R2 a character rather than simply a prop. And that restraining bolts even exist in the GFFA implies that the droids are conscious and self-willed.

 

The idea there is that he was still following his programming from Leia.