The General Star Wars Thread

That is the question.

If a Droid is "alive" then can it be surrounded by the Force which surrounds all living things?

I was rewatching Revenge of the Sith a few days ago and a passing detail that stuck out to me was Obi-Wan and Anakin cutting down droids on the Invisible Hand that were trying to flee. No weapons, hands up in surrender, running for the escape pods, got killed anyway.

“We seem to be made to suffer” indeed.

(The novelization changes this to Grievous killing the bridge crew himself in You Have Failed Me mode until he realizes too late he killed every pilot.)

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Feb 22nd 2021 at 1:43:29 AM

One of the comics had 0-0-0, a protocol droid with a unique ancient personality matrix that made him a sadistic assassin and torturer, frighten a bunch of soldiers by pondering if he could use their blood as fuel to give himself Force abilities.

I think in Legends it was speculated that Grievous could be capable of the Force with an infusion of Sifo-Dyas’s blood, but I don’t recall if it just didn’t work or if the Sith withheld the amount so he couldn’t grow too powerful.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Feb 22nd 2021 at 1:46:40 AM

I wonder if the Fantastic Racism to droids was influenced by the Force

Yeah I could see how the "The Force exists in all living things" could work out in supporting droid abuse. They're not alive.

I do hope that some time in the setting's future the Millennium Falcon gets perched on the shoulders of a big mecha and L3-37 gets to interact with the world again.

When I was reading the original Marvel Star Wars comics a while, the thing that struck me about them was how seriously it took the concept of droid rights. It made no bones about it—droids were people and anyone who said otherwise was a scummy asshole. The best example is in a flashback with Obi-wan where he's traveling on a starship and is asked by a droid to pretend be it's owner because seeing it walk around alone is making the other passengers uncomfortable. Obi-Wan flat out says "I've never owned a living creature in my life and I don't intend to start now" and instead offers to let the droid travel with him as a companion.

It stands in stark contrast to how Solo portrayed L3 and her droid rights movement as a total joke.

If a Droid is "alive" then can it be surrounded by the Force which surrounds all living things?

There was a Droid in the old EU that eventually developed a presence in the Force, iirc due to his memory not being wiped for a very long time and the various restraint programming on him bring removed.

Kreia also hated droids because they were dead to the force, even was confused about why Revan liked them so much.

Which is really hypocritical coming from her, because you know, her part of her motivations was to find proof one could live without the force.

That's even in contrast to Prequel/TCW Obi-Wan.

Fan desire for a droid liberation storyline has existed for decades.

It would be curious to see, because deoids only gain elaboration and individuality over operating time but are able to work from day one, which certainly creates an interesting situation. Especially considering computing seems to be a really opaque field of study in Star Wars, only droids and cyborgs seem able to interface with computers, making them invaluable in society.

I always get the impression that no one really understands how computing intelligence works at this point.

Was the invention of droids ever covered in either canon? Could make for an interesting story given

In the current canon there have been droid revolts throughout history. In the present time there's an understanding keeping this from happening again.

The present day relationship with droids is one born from thousands of years of hard lessons.

As for the actual origin of droids, that has been lost to history.

Edited by M84 on Feb 22nd 2021 at 10:24:38 PM

Speaking off, L-3 is still the most annoying droid and comic relief even if droid rights are important.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Feb 22nd 2021 at 10:06:15 AM

I enjoyed Solo for the most part, but I could not for the life of me tell if we were supposed to agree with L3 or laugh at her. The framing of her cause changes from scene to scene at times. Her role in liberating the slaves - droid and organic - from Kessel is portrayed as a triumph, but then a few minutes later she gets shot because she’s too busy making an inspiring speech to get away from the people trying to kill her.

Could have done without the Planet of Destitute Space Muslims too.

L3 was to me what Jar-Jar was for most of the fanbase (I always liked him :P).

Edited by Forenperser on Feb 22nd 2021 at 4:53:51 PM

I was rewatching Revenge of the Sith a few days ago and a passing detail that stuck out to me was Obi-Wan and Anakin cutting down droids on the Invisible Hand that were trying to flee. No weapons, hands up in surrender, running for the escape pods, got killed anyway.

In fairness, that's more of a "hero" thing than a "droid rights" thing. Throughout all the trilogies the heroes tend to shoot first, ask questions never whereas the villains almost always demand surrender first, giving the heroes time to kill them.

... which is weird when the baddies are actively fleeing for their lives in a crashing ship. Or, of course, when the hero is an escaped child conscript who's fully aware of the fact that these stormtroopers are also child conscripts.

Real talk, has a heroic character ever used "stun" in one of the movies?

Keep in mind though, every protagonist treats L3 as an equal and she's only treated as just a dumb droid by people who don't know her. She likes Lando and everybody else, too, but that doesn't mean she gets treated properly. And we've seen plenty of stuff about droids not being trusted since the very first movie.

Leia used stun on Poe when she crashed his mutiny in TLJ, and as far as I recall that’s the only time the stun function was used in the movies since A New Hope.

Speaking of which, look at the scene where stun is used on Leia. She could definitely hear that the stormtroopers didn’t intend to kill her but went for the kill anyway. Granted she had very good reason to not want to be captured given the Empire’s predeliction for torture (and maybe stun doesn't work on armor) but it’s still such a sudden irony that the trooper who announced they’d use stun is immediately killed.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Feb 22nd 2021 at 9:51:31 AM

One of the darkest pieces of passing exposition in TROS's visual guide is a part where it says the vast majority of droids are hardwired and suppressed to be compliant and society has accepted this for the sake of preserving itself. D:

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Feb 22nd 2021 at 9:57:37 AM

L3-37 is my favourite part of Solo, but she definatly suffers from the narrative not giving the respect her character set up demands. She's funny when she's being richeously obtuse and when she's oversharing, so she could still be a comedic character without the screen trying to make us point and laugh at her for the very reason we're meant to care about her death.

Also I kind of love her design.

Having not seen Solo, my question is less "do the protagonists treat her as a dumb droid" and more "does the narrative treat her as a dumb droid?"

Because yes. I would expect our actual heroes treat her with the baseline level of respect that they would for another sapient being (after all, the Millennium Falcon gets more reverence than most named characters). My question is whether the narrative frames her as a windmill chaser or someone who makes sense which I can't speak to.

Well she’s kind of an asshole, she’s very loud and crude and obnoxious so you can laugh at her.

I remember this one scene where’s like cutting a fence or something and the way she was posed was weirdly uncomfortable.

Edited by slimcoder on Feb 22nd 2021 at 10:09:57 AM

That was such a weird joke because the framing looks like L3 is peeing and she even complains she can't do it with people watching. And it doesn't matter at all to the rest of the story.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Feb 22nd 2021 at 10:15:00 AM