What happened to C3P0's plating? It was gold in the original trilogy!

Does anyone know how C3P0's plating went from gold to silver???!!?

 

It was gold in episode 3.

 

Incase you didn't know, the Original Trilogy takes place 20 years after the Prequels. 3PO's plating is silver in Attack of the Clones because that is before the Original Star Wars or A New Hope. It is a prior story and 3PO isn't finished yet.

 

Sorry, let me restate. How did it go from silver to gold?

 

Paint? Different plating?

Does it matter?

 

Padme probably paid to have it done, as she didn't want to be seen toting around some junky looking droid.

 

I thought it was kinda stupid how he "evolved" each movie. they should of maid him gold in ATOC . not silver. or what ever that crap metal was

 

But in the original trilogy, his left leg from the knee down IS silver, while the rest of him is gold. It's even on the action figures.
I was really hoping we'd see what happened in RotS but I guess not.

 

Can't spend film time explaining every little detail. I think 3PO being gold in AOTC would have been stupid. A poor family on a desert world would not have the money to plate 3PO in a nice golden color. The tarnished dull metal color makes sense to me.

 

I believe they mentioned this in the Clone Wars cartoons. Anakin noticed 3P0 had gold plating all of a sudden and 3PO said something about having to look good when you're serving a senator or something along those lines.

 

In ROTS book it tells about Ani giving Padme something for a wedding gift so he gave her 3PO and she had it gold plated. Later on Padme gave Ani R2 for his ship.

Good Stuff

 

Threepio's plating in AOTC is whatever Shmi or the Lars family could find. Originally the installation of plating was going to be shown in AOTC but in the final film he got it sometime during the ten years Anakin is away. There were several junky protocol droids shown in TPM so the parts are common.

Between AOTC and ROTS Anakin and Padme trade droids. Anakin upgrades Artoo with more gadgets and Padme replaces Threepio's plating (I doubt polishing his AOTC plating would have helped).

Sometime between ROTS and ANH Threepio's leg below the knee gets a silver replacement, at least the plating. Perhaps his leg was damaged or lost, perhaps he donated it to another droid in crisis in some untold story. Threepio apparently keeps all his parts through the rest of the saga, and his plating gets polished up before the closing scene of each movie in the OT.

 

rsmalec posted on 6/3/05 2:30pm

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But in the original trilogy, his left leg from the knee down IS silver, while the rest of him is gold. It's even on the action figures.
I was really hoping we'd see what happened in RotS but I guess not.
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yeah i wondered about that. in ROTS 3P0 was all gold, including his left leg below the knee. in ANH he ends up with that silver leg.

i remembered Anthony Daniels saying in a commentary that it explains why 3P0's left leg was made of silver-- beacuse he's made of junk. which is true, but how does his left leg go from all gold to half silver?

gold plating 3P0 mean that its for the entire body (which is what we saw in ROTS). but if in reality all they do is clean/polish him up so that the real color of the metal underneath all that grime would come out, then that makes the most sense and keeps with the continuity of the OTs: that most of 3P0's metal was gold, except that lower part of his left leg which was silver.

of course, pessimistically speaking, since Lucas will be re-tweaking the OTs again he can very easily request ILM to paint over 3P0' silver leg into gold so that it stays consistent with the PTs. yikes.

 

Hopefully the TV shows will once and for all show us, step by step, the process by which 3PO's new, gold plating was found, purchased, and installed. Burning questions such as this cannot be left unanswered, lest we all die unhappy!

 

In the Clone Wars cartoons 3PO gets his gold platings because he cannot serve a senator looking like junk. Its really funny when 3PO reveals his new plating to Anakin.

 

3PO is now the property of a prominent senator. He can't be looking like a walking scrap-heap, now can he? Padme must have him refitted somewhere between episodes II and III.

 

We need an explanation for a paint job? Umm,,, that's scary. How are you people able to tie your shoes?

 

Hey now, play nice. Since you say Aayla is your girlfriend... which is scarier? You took the time to log on, read through the topic, then you've got nerve to take a pot shot. Your shoes must be velcro.

 

Hey now, play nice. Since you say Aayla is your girlfriend... which is scarier? You took the time to log on, read through the topic, then you've got nerve to take a pot shot. Your shoes must be velcro.

I graduated from velcro shoes to laces when I was 25 thank you very much.

I actually think it's scarier that this question is asked and scarier that it's discussed. How hard is it to assume he was painted in between the movies? He starts naked in TPM, gets plating in AOTC, and is gold in ROTS and the rest. Did we have an explanation for his plating to begin with? No. (yes I know there was one in the novel but I'm sticking to the movie) It was easy to assume Shmi had it done because a droid w/exposed parts in a sandy environment is not very smart, well not if you want the droid to keep working anyway. If that's so easy to logically assume, why is a paint job such a hard concept?