Why Did R2-D2 Refuse To Show Luke Padme?

why did r2 refuse to show luke padme what was he protecting him from?. ghent was right he's a very stubborn droid.

 

I think he was programmed not to. But really, R-2 has a mind of his own. He's nearly sentient.

Why they don't put a vocoder on him I don't get. Probably afraid of him.

 

Because it didn't really work along with the continuity that was established. They didn't know who the mom would be until Episode 1, and by then the NJO book series was in full swing and they couldn't come up with a way to introduce Padme to the EU until Dark Nest. They also didn't know that Artoo knew of all his past adventures and just who Anakin and Padme were until the end of ROTS where Bail wiped Threepio but not Artoo.

 

One of the casualties of having the Original Trilogy coming before the prequels. Luke didn't know because WE didn't know.

More than R2, logic would dictate that Force Ghost Anakin would have been quick to tell Luke about the love of his life, the reason he fell to the dark side (you know what I mean), and the mother of his children.

The R2/Padme plot in Dark Nest is just one of the many logical "oopsies" I feel the EU has made in regards to PT material. I would rather have seen a Tatooine Ghosts - style book set sometime between Endor and TTT (or at least before the NJO - maybe a Luke and Mara adventure?)

And who knows? If we ever get a post-RotJ cartoon (The Clone Wars have to end sometime, right?), maybe this will get worked out in the inevitable continuity re-tweaks.

 

I've always felt that since ROTS, he knew that Obi-Wan and Yoda were still alive. He felt that if anyone should tell Luke and Leia about their parents, it would be either of them. Well, they learned about their father, but not their mother. He probably wanted to tell them about Padmé, but he saw that they had made their peace with their father. If he told them about their mother, he knew he would have to tell them about what happened between their parents on Mustafar, and showing that would probably have opened up old, bitter wounds. Moreso for Leia than Luke because she had the harder time accepting Anakin as her father than Luke ever did.

I just saw that clip about a post-ROTJ cartoon. A good idea, but it's highly unlikely it'll come out especially since a lot of it has already been covered in books and comics.

 

Who made that video? It has to be one of the most awesome things I've seen recently. I assume it's fan made? It's amazingly well done. I love the parts with Thrawn, the TIE Defenders, so on and so on and so on...

As far as R2 goes: wasn't the story in Dark Nest about how some tech geek (I forget who it was) found some buried chip inside him and reactivated it, or something like that? I don't really remember the specifics very well. It was contrived, but I seem to recall the idea was that R2 couldn't actually activate the circuit anymore or something weird. Or am I talking complete poodoo right now?

If I'm not, then I don't recall whether said buried memory bank was hidden by some technician (in which case, I guess the logical conclusion is that it was the same people of Bail's who wiped 3PO), or if it was that R2 himself had secreted the file away in some restricted storage folder? If the latter, then I suppose it may have been the case that R2 hid the file to protect its contents, but that it was hidden in such a complete way that even his own main processing unit could no longer access to avoid it ever showing up in scans. Why would he have done that? I suppose the same reason Bail's people might have done it: to protect Anakin's children's identities. Why would he ever have kept it at all? No clue. Maybe the idea was had Bail not got blown up by the Death Star that one day he'd unlock the memory cell again? But obviously when Bail got blown up, that'd have been the end of that.

I can't remember though whether Luke already knew about Padme in Dark Nest or not? I'm sure I've got a faint memory of Luke not actually being surprised by the name, as I'm sure I recall some mention of the Naberries on Naboo. If I recall right, wasn't the big deal about the memory file not his mother's identity but the video clip of Anakin butchering the Jedi Temple and choking his own wife? If that was what was on the video, then I can understand why nobody thought it really mattered to tell his kids: "Oh, by the way, so, we know he's redeemed now, but, yeah, so, when he was still Darth Vader? He, er, choked your mother to death. You're lucky you didn't both miscarry. Just, um, thought you'd like to know that. Get the full story about your dad even though he's made up for it now, k? If you don't believe me, we've got video too. R2, wheel your tin can behind over here and show the boy the clip!"

 

Mostly it was plot contrivance, I think, as until RotS came out, we had no idea if R2 remembered the events of the prequels. We know Threepio definitely had a memory wipe, or otherwise he would've recognized Obi-wan or other stuff like that, but Artoo was a bigger question. Honestly, I still wish Artoo had gotten a memory wipe, just seems sad that he gets to remember everything while Threepio doesn't. Its not like Artoo's knowledge ever helped him, even post-prequels. Its not like they explained either why Artoo let Luke go off on that wild goose chase with Akanah for his "mother", since Artoo had kept all his memories.

As for an in-universe reason why... well, I guess Artoo doesn't want to bring up bad memories. Luke has forgiven his father and Leia mostly has, but actually seeing their father at the start of his career as Darth Vader is still pretty traumatizing. Finding out about it just when Luke was up against a darksider who could literally hide herself using a person's doubts was extremely... inconvenient, but oh well, guess the novels couldn't resist bringing in that backstory somehow.

And probably quite a few of us would love a post-RotJ cartoon, but its also very unlikely. And while post-RotJ is full of stuff, its not like the Clone Wars period was wide-open either when the animated series started. If they need a time frame, they'll just rearrange the entire timeline and make a new canonical timeline. But these days, everything seems to be about the Clone Wars, and a lot of the post-RotJ stuff we get is pretty horrible too (mostly the novels), so not sure I'd enjoy more, unless it was based on the Legacy comics or something.

 

Eh, just stick to Bantam (i.e. X-Wing, Thrawn, and maybe JAT) and the NJO, and it'll be alright. Though I would rather see the NJO as a series of Live-action films...

As for R2, yeah, those definitely are traumatic memories, and not just for Luke and Leia. They just got to see recordings of their father's fall. R2 actually had to see it in person. For any sentient individual (assuming R2 counts as sentient), seeing such a trusted friend slip into the embrace of the dark side would be a fairly disturbing set of memories.

This makes me wonder: did Vader ever wonder what happened to R2 after Revenge of the Sith? As far as he would know, he left the poor droid on a landing pad on Mustafar...

 

Definitely fan-produced.

As for how likely we are to see a series like this... not anytime soon, certainly. But, they will eventually run out of room in the Clone Wars setting, and the those of us that grew up on the OT and EU must still form a majority of the fan base. A animated series set after the OT could be the best way to please old fans and bring new ones into the post-RotJ market, where LFL has 30+ years of stories (and, more importantly, merchandise) waiting for them.

 

Since I saw ROTS, I've always wondered, why did Bail wipe Theepio's memory but not R2's? Was it harder to flush a Astromech droid's memory then? Because Owen told Luke to have both droids' memories flushed in Anchorhead a few decades later. Or did Bail not think R2's memory could last that long?

I agree that the timing of Dark Nest to the prequels almost required a bridge between the two at some point in the EU. That's the hazard of writing the last three chapters 35 years before the first three chapters. But the lack of a memory wipe is an explanation in ANH about R2's devotion to finding Obi Wan. He already knew Obi Wan so he knew how important it was to get the message sent by the daughter of Padme (Leia) to him.

As far as the vid chip in Dark Nest, I didn't like that the scene directly involved Anakin and Padme. I also prefer the way they established Shmi's diary in Tatooine Ghost by not giving so much detail. There was more sense of a mystery to it then.

 

As for Owen's request that Luke wipe the droids' memories, it wasn't because Artoo knew about Padmé. I think it's because he knew that he knew there was something going on involving Obi-Wan, and he wanted Luke to stay on the farm and away from Obi-Wan, lest he ended up like his father did.

 

Oh, I knew that Owen couldn't have known R2's knowledge of Padme. What I wanted to know was why didn't Bail order the memory wipe for both droids instead of just Threepio. If R2 had been wiped then we wouldn't have had the bridge from the PT to the EU in Dark Nest. Unless R2's memory save was deliberate by the writers for such purpose in the future.

 

Ah. I think Bail was unaware of how much Artoo knew. And even if he did, he didn't need to worry that much about Artoo. Most people would see Artoo as another astromech and ignore them like they would ignore mouse droids. As for Threepio, in the book, upon learning about Luke and Leia, Threepio started going about saying how he couldn't wait until he started to tell them about their parents, which would have gone against the plan Bail, Obi-Wan, and Yoda set up. I bet when Threepio did that, Artoo thought, "You kriffing idiot! You're going to ruin everything."

 

And of course, there's the obvious: most beings can understand the six million languages Threepio speaks. The same can't be said of Droidspeak. So, Artoo is AUTOMATICALLY less of a security risk, simply because not many non-machines understand his beeps and whistles.]

That's the way I always rationalized it.

 

I inferred the opposite. I assumed Bail knew how much Artoo really had in his memory banks but unlike Threepio, he could keep a secret. Threepio, try as he might, would have spilled the beans. Artoo became as trusted as any individual could be by ROTS.

And there is that thing about Artoo conveying his story to the Whills so he'd have to have his memory intact for that.

 

He refused because he felt stupid for "forgetting" he had it in his memory for so long.

Droids can get embarrassed too.

 

Linky no workie anymore. Anyone got a good one so I can see this vid? Please? Thanks!

 

It works just fine for me.

 

Does for me too.
I actually would like them to do this. But for the topic, I think he was programmed not to show him Padmé. Think if Darth Vader ever asked him to show Padmé for old times sakes.

 

While it's not sound logic to use the EU to justify that which happened in the films, according to the recent books R2 had incredibly advanced security to protect that information. Bail could have known that.

I see it as a combination of things. R2 has shown himself incredibly capable of understanding the way the world operates, and would never surrender the information he contains willingly. R2 has proven himself useful to have around, and him having the information he does could be useful. C-3PO was built by Anakin, and any information he holds would be easily accessed by him. Astomechs are built for data processing and handling, and likely have security measures to protect such data. (This isn't the first time we've seen R2 entrusted with sensitive information.) Perhaps Bail was considering there might be a time he needs to tell Leia the truth, and R2's data would aid him in doing that.

 

I got to admit - I never thought of that possibility.

 

I always assumed Bail had 3-PO wiped simply because he had a big mouth. R2 knew how to keep a secret.

 

I haven't read Dark Nest, but having Luke see that scene on Mustafar just felt so contrived and artificially convenient. Having the recording stored in R2-D2 for all that freaking time was even more contrived, better if Luke had made a trip to the lava moon himself and dug up a recording in one of the facilities.

 

Well, I've read all your theories, but I think I know the real reason Artoo never revealed Padmé to Luke: he had already seen how attracted Luke was to his sister, and he couldn't bear the idea of watching Luke obsess about his mom...