What is the DEAL with "droids" in star wars?
January 20, 2020 6:26 PM Subscribe
I'm watching ALL of star wars and have questions about the robots. Are they slaves? Are they people? The droids in star wars are confounding me! In A New Hope, the droids were treated very differently, with much less personality or respect, than by Return of the Jedi. And by Rebels, robots are treated as wholly people (or sentient) with rights.... but stilled owned by people. Is this what's actually going on? Also, are there any thoughts about why some droids can speak basic and others can't (or don't) but understand it?
The answer that's least satisfactory but probably closest to the truth is, their status is muddy because various writers have had differing levels of interest in the question, and they've not really been consistent about it.
In the original trilogy, George Lucas explicitly modeled C-3P0 and R2-D2 on characters from Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress -- specifically, on two low-status point of view characters who provide a sort of ground-level view of the action (including their reactions and how it affects them) but are generally powerless to do much about it. So, in that sense, right from the start, Lucas intended at least those two droids to be more than just non-thinking machines. If they didn't have feelings, get scared, care about the mission, etc, their role would be meaningless.
However: so much stuff is all over the place even in the original trilogy that it's hard to put forth a consistent theory even within just those three movies. Are they sentient slaves? If yes, are all droids that way, or are only some able to think? And by the time of RotJ, why can droids be tortured (who built them that way? why?).
Solo definitely made it worse, by both acknowledging how messed up it is but also then treating it very casually.
Which is a longer way of saying: it's a mess, and it's possible you've already spent more time thinking about it than George Lucas ever did.
posted by tocts at 6:38 PM on January 20, 2020 [22 favorites]
In the original trilogy, George Lucas explicitly modeled C-3P0 and R2-D2 on characters from Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress -- specifically, on two low-status point of view characters who provide a sort of ground-level view of the action (including their reactions and how it affects them) but are generally powerless to do much about it. So, in that sense, right from the start, Lucas intended at least those two droids to be more than just non-thinking machines. If they didn't have feelings, get scared, care about the mission, etc, their role would be meaningless.
However: so much stuff is all over the place even in the original trilogy that it's hard to put forth a consistent theory even within just those three movies. Are they sentient slaves? If yes, are all droids that way, or are only some able to think? And by the time of RotJ, why can droids be tortured (who built them that way? why?).
Solo definitely made it worse, by both acknowledging how messed up it is but also then treating it very casually.
Which is a longer way of saying: it's a mess, and it's possible you've already spent more time thinking about it than George Lucas ever did.
posted by tocts at 6:38 PM on January 20, 2020 [22 favorites]
To answer your questions: all of the above. Like Nelson said, there's no consistency. Some are pretty much just servants, some start that way but eventually get some freedom (R2D2 and C3PO), and some seem to be completely free to do what they want (like IG-11, the bounty hunter droid in the Mandalorian).
posted by jonathanhughes at 6:40 PM on January 20, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by jonathanhughes at 6:40 PM on January 20, 2020 [2 favorites]
George Lucas came up with the concept of "droid rights" and associated activism in the 2000s, so it makes sense that the earlier films didn't treat droids evenly.
Some light reading from Wookiepedia (note: Legends links tend to have more information/backtstory but some of it is from books or other materials that may no longer be considered canon, so it may not exactly apply in the current films/shows/novels/etc):
Droid Rights Movement (Legends)
Droid Rights Movement (current canon)
Restraining Bolt (Legends)
Restraining Bolt (current canon)
Droids (Legends) - the Droids links will answer your questions about things like why some droids speak basic and some don't
Droids (current canon)
posted by erst at 7:55 PM on January 20, 2020 [2 favorites]
Some light reading from Wookiepedia (note: Legends links tend to have more information/backtstory but some of it is from books or other materials that may no longer be considered canon, so it may not exactly apply in the current films/shows/novels/etc):
Droid Rights Movement (Legends)
Droid Rights Movement (current canon)
Restraining Bolt (Legends)
Restraining Bolt (current canon)
Droids (Legends) - the Droids links will answer your questions about things like why some droids speak basic and some don't
Droids (current canon)
posted by erst at 7:55 PM on January 20, 2020 [2 favorites]
Mod note: A few deleted. Sorry, but Ask Metafilter isn't for generally chatting about a topic. Please answer the question if you think you have pertinent info related to the origination, storytelling, or canon of the Star Wars fictional universe, and if you don't, go ahead pass this one up. Thanks.
posted by taz (staff) at 3:10 AM on January 21, 2020
posted by taz (staff) at 3:10 AM on January 21, 2020
In Star Wars, many droids are frequently subjected to memory wipes. This seems to reset their personality to a fairly basic level. Droids like artoo-detoo who don't get memory wipes develop more complex personalities. Whether they pass the space Turing test or not is a really good question.
At what point does really good programming and life experience equate to actual sentience? And of course not all droids are created for complex tasks. The walking battery probably isn't nearly as close to sentience as some of the most pampered and cared for droids.
But yeah, various characters treat droids as either tools and machines, just part of life, or members of their family and friends. That seems to make a difference as well.
posted by Jacen at 4:54 AM on January 21, 2020
At what point does really good programming and life experience equate to actual sentience? And of course not all droids are created for complex tasks. The walking battery probably isn't nearly as close to sentience as some of the most pampered and cared for droids.
But yeah, various characters treat droids as either tools and machines, just part of life, or members of their family and friends. That seems to make a difference as well.
posted by Jacen at 4:54 AM on January 21, 2020
In Star Wars, many droids are frequently subjected to memory wipes. This seems to reset their personality to a fairly basic level. Droids like artoo-detoo who don't get memory wipes develop more complex personalities. Whether they pass the space Turing test or not is a really good question.
This is a plotpoint in the newest movie, and is also treated very casually by the human characters. The fears of the droid whose mind is wiped are treated dismissively, even though he arguably would more easily pass the Turing test of a character like R2-D2, who generally acts like a loving dog.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 5:48 AM on January 21, 2020 [3 favorites]
This is a plotpoint in the newest movie, and is also treated very casually by the human characters. The fears of the droid whose mind is wiped are treated dismissively, even though he arguably would more easily pass the Turing test of a character like R2-D2, who generally acts like a loving dog.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 5:48 AM on January 21, 2020 [3 favorites]
I don't feel like the Star Wars films themselves explore this subject in any kind of depth. But, believe it or not, the Marvel comic series from the 1970s/80s did occasionally delve into this, and I found it fascinating. There was a cyborg character -- half man, half machine -- who hated droids, which made him horribly conflicted about being part machine. He only appeared in three issues (#16, #27, and #29). Issue #27, especially, explores this theme with C-3PO ultimately offering to sacrifice himself on Luke's behalf, which has a profound impact on the cyborg's world view.
Although I love Star Wars (and loved the comics as a kid), I don't know anything about recent stories in the universe. There may be some similar things there, but I doubt it. Those Marvel comics were, to me, the pinnacle of interesting Star Wars stories willing to tackle philosophical topics.
posted by jdroth at 11:18 AM on January 21, 2020 [1 favorite]
Although I love Star Wars (and loved the comics as a kid), I don't know anything about recent stories in the universe. There may be some similar things there, but I doubt it. Those Marvel comics were, to me, the pinnacle of interesting Star Wars stories willing to tackle philosophical topics.
posted by jdroth at 11:18 AM on January 21, 2020 [1 favorite]
One pinpoint in the spectrum of modern canon: The Mandalorian, a droid says of its own volition that 1) it has no qualms about being destroyed once it has served its purpose, because 2) it was never alive.
You could say that the capacity for a droid to have rights is based on how it is built or coded. In this instance, it was programmed with a driving purpose, though it was clearly a problem-solving android, who exerted its own drive and desires or goals over those stated by humans (in this instance), meaning it doesn't simply follow directions from other sentient beings.
Also, are there any thoughts about why some droids can speak basic and others can't (or don't) but understand it?
I think this is related to a question in response to your first question: why was a droid created in the first place?
As Jacen noted: various characters treat droids as either tools and machines, just part of life, or members of their family and friends. That seems to make a difference as well.
If a droid was created with enough drive to make its own decisions and interact with other sentient beings in a dynamic fashion, they appear more sentient themselves. And to facilitate such dynamic interactions, more advanced droids are designed speak in more than bleeps and blips. Still, there seems to be a basic "robot language," which other sentient beings can learn.
But at the more basic levels, droids may be designed to simply be advanced tools. At this point, it's something like the range of animals that people keep as pets, and how people interact with them. The more intelligent the animal, the more likely people are to talk to with it and interact like a member of the family. Fish are not family members, but dogs and cats often are. Rats, pigs, chickens may be. So similarly, the more intelligent (appearing) the droid, the more likely it is to be treated with consideration (though there are plenty who see all droids as things, and not warranting additional care or concern).
posted by filthy light thief at 11:46 AM on January 21, 2020 [1 favorite]
You could say that the capacity for a droid to have rights is based on how it is built or coded. In this instance, it was programmed with a driving purpose, though it was clearly a problem-solving android, who exerted its own drive and desires or goals over those stated by humans (in this instance), meaning it doesn't simply follow directions from other sentient beings.
Also, are there any thoughts about why some droids can speak basic and others can't (or don't) but understand it?
I think this is related to a question in response to your first question: why was a droid created in the first place?
As Jacen noted: various characters treat droids as either tools and machines, just part of life, or members of their family and friends. That seems to make a difference as well.
If a droid was created with enough drive to make its own decisions and interact with other sentient beings in a dynamic fashion, they appear more sentient themselves. And to facilitate such dynamic interactions, more advanced droids are designed speak in more than bleeps and blips. Still, there seems to be a basic "robot language," which other sentient beings can learn.
But at the more basic levels, droids may be designed to simply be advanced tools. At this point, it's something like the range of animals that people keep as pets, and how people interact with them. The more intelligent the animal, the more likely people are to talk to with it and interact like a member of the family. Fish are not family members, but dogs and cats often are. Rats, pigs, chickens may be. So similarly, the more intelligent (appearing) the droid, the more likely it is to be treated with consideration (though there are plenty who see all droids as things, and not warranting additional care or concern).
posted by filthy light thief at 11:46 AM on January 21, 2020 [1 favorite]
If it's not too far afield of the question, I'd like to share my experience playing and running Star Wars role-playing games. What feels unique to me about the SW RPGs is that most of the players have grown up with the franchise and have had their own rich exploration of that universe through various media, day-dreaming, and more or less formal imaginative play. So everyone has their own private Star Wars Universe that they bring to the table, and we are playing in the overlap, which is a combination of canon, SW Legends (formerly the Expanded Universe), and our own personal ideas. For me, SW feels less like a creation of an enumerated group of people and more a living ecosystem.
Droids have definitely been a fruitful area for exploration.
The players usually come in with a pretty simplistic opinion that droids are people, especially when one of the player characters is a droid. Often the PC wants to pursue a Droid Liberation agenda.
When I'm running the game, I try to complicate this is much as possible. I show a variety of droids, from the basically-human to very task-limited. I also try to show people, even otherwise "nice" people, treating droids, including PC droids, as non-human, because that's clearly part of the universe as well. "Are you going to control your droid?" "That's a real mouthy droid you got there. You ought to get its memory wiped or, believe you me, you're going to regret it." "I've been looking for an R2 unit. Will you take 2000 for it?" When droid PCs talk to people, the people may ignore them or respond to the other party members instead. Droids who behave in an un-droid-like way meet a lot of resistance. On the other hand, I also allow droids who play nice to exploit a certain degree of social invisibility. (It helps that they're all basically naked, so you don't have to stun someone and take their uniform.)
Droid-liberation agendas are responded to as you'd expect if you are threatening people's property or trying to engender a violent revolution. I also include droids who are perfectly happy serving their masters and disapprove of anyone trying to upset that status quo. If the PCs pop off a droid's restraining bolt, they may find that the droid is basically insane due to the conditions it has survived, and is now quite out of control. In my experience, PCs who think they can wade in and launch a one-person idealistic crusade to change the universe discover that isn't that simple. I have yet to have a player really dig in to abolition of droid-slavery or person-slavery in the SW universe as a serious project, but that would be super interesting.
posted by BrashTech at 12:14 PM on January 21, 2020 [3 favorites]
Droids have definitely been a fruitful area for exploration.
The players usually come in with a pretty simplistic opinion that droids are people, especially when one of the player characters is a droid. Often the PC wants to pursue a Droid Liberation agenda.
When I'm running the game, I try to complicate this is much as possible. I show a variety of droids, from the basically-human to very task-limited. I also try to show people, even otherwise "nice" people, treating droids, including PC droids, as non-human, because that's clearly part of the universe as well. "Are you going to control your droid?" "That's a real mouthy droid you got there. You ought to get its memory wiped or, believe you me, you're going to regret it." "I've been looking for an R2 unit. Will you take 2000 for it?" When droid PCs talk to people, the people may ignore them or respond to the other party members instead. Droids who behave in an un-droid-like way meet a lot of resistance. On the other hand, I also allow droids who play nice to exploit a certain degree of social invisibility. (It helps that they're all basically naked, so you don't have to stun someone and take their uniform.)
Droid-liberation agendas are responded to as you'd expect if you are threatening people's property or trying to engender a violent revolution. I also include droids who are perfectly happy serving their masters and disapprove of anyone trying to upset that status quo. If the PCs pop off a droid's restraining bolt, they may find that the droid is basically insane due to the conditions it has survived, and is now quite out of control. In my experience, PCs who think they can wade in and launch a one-person idealistic crusade to change the universe discover that isn't that simple. I have yet to have a player really dig in to abolition of droid-slavery or person-slavery in the SW universe as a serious project, but that would be super interesting.
posted by BrashTech at 12:14 PM on January 21, 2020 [3 favorites]
Also, are there any thoughts about why some droids can speak basic and others can't (or don't) but understand it?
As far as R2, it's an "astromech" droid, essentially a mobile ship's computer - they're not usually communicating with humans, they're doing ship-related work; this is also subtly the reason why C3P0 gets his memory wiped after EIII -- he can talk, he must know things! -- while nobody notices a astromech hanging out because R2s are like the computer my mechanic hooks up to my car to see why my check engine light is on so what could they possibly know?
Add in those little mouse-robots, and Gonk droids, and moisture evaporators: when they tend to be more single-purpose droids, their intelligence seems to be more for unattended operation and not interaction. Humans likely have less concern for them regarding their safety. Like R5D4 blew up right away after Owen picked it -- if that was a horse that suddenly and catastrophically died, most Earth humans would at least feel compassion for a living thing (and maybe be a little traumatised), unlike the unbridled annoyance Luke and Owen had at an apparently sentient thing just exploding in front of them.
There's also droids that don't seem to speak Basic either (I think there's been a couple that speak hutteese in the movies).
Also there appears to be a lot of relatively intelligent computers inside non-robotic bodies, like the Death Star's computer and Cloud City's computer, and the Millenium Falcon's nav computer (as mentioned above); they may not be 'droids' but they may still fit the bill from a "what agency do they deserve?" standpoint.
Let us not forget that relationships with autonomous robots already exist here on Earth and are more complicated than we think. This may actually be more in line with what you're describing; a Roomba isn't exactly sentient, but it's also not a tool that a human operates, but does important work for humans, so what does it mean whether you feel affection for it, or don't feel anything at all?
posted by AzraelBrown at 2:52 PM on January 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
As far as R2, it's an "astromech" droid, essentially a mobile ship's computer - they're not usually communicating with humans, they're doing ship-related work; this is also subtly the reason why C3P0 gets his memory wiped after EIII -- he can talk, he must know things! -- while nobody notices a astromech hanging out because R2s are like the computer my mechanic hooks up to my car to see why my check engine light is on so what could they possibly know?
Add in those little mouse-robots, and Gonk droids, and moisture evaporators: when they tend to be more single-purpose droids, their intelligence seems to be more for unattended operation and not interaction. Humans likely have less concern for them regarding their safety. Like R5D4 blew up right away after Owen picked it -- if that was a horse that suddenly and catastrophically died, most Earth humans would at least feel compassion for a living thing (and maybe be a little traumatised), unlike the unbridled annoyance Luke and Owen had at an apparently sentient thing just exploding in front of them.
There's also droids that don't seem to speak Basic either (I think there's been a couple that speak hutteese in the movies).
Also there appears to be a lot of relatively intelligent computers inside non-robotic bodies, like the Death Star's computer and Cloud City's computer, and the Millenium Falcon's nav computer (as mentioned above); they may not be 'droids' but they may still fit the bill from a "what agency do they deserve?" standpoint.
Let us not forget that relationships with autonomous robots already exist here on Earth and are more complicated than we think. This may actually be more in line with what you're describing; a Roomba isn't exactly sentient, but it's also not a tool that a human operates, but does important work for humans, so what does it mean whether you feel affection for it, or don't feel anything at all?
posted by AzraelBrown at 2:52 PM on January 21, 2020 [2 favorites]
Oh man this is a whole thing. The Star Wars novels (RIP) talked about this stuff a lot. I asked a semi-related question a few years ago, when I was trying to find a conversation between C-3PO and R2-D2 about death. (Like, they FEAR DEATH. They are definitely sentient!) My search turned up this quote from C-3PO, which gets at some of what you're asking, I think:
"I know it was a war, you... you mechanic! And I also realize that it was a war that threatened our existence far more than any other war has. But that's precisely the point, because for a moment we became as valuable as they were. As often as they fought with us, they fought for us. [...] Perhaps I am deluding myself. With all the advances that have been made in droid technology, I suppose we are in danger of being considered obsolete. But what are we to do, Artoo? Retirement isn't an option for us. We will continue as relics, of a sort, passed along to new masters until our parts can no longer be replaced, or until we suffer some irreparable system failure."
posted by goodbyewaffles at 3:55 PM on January 21, 2020
"I know it was a war, you... you mechanic! And I also realize that it was a war that threatened our existence far more than any other war has. But that's precisely the point, because for a moment we became as valuable as they were. As often as they fought with us, they fought for us. [...] Perhaps I am deluding myself. With all the advances that have been made in droid technology, I suppose we are in danger of being considered obsolete. But what are we to do, Artoo? Retirement isn't an option for us. We will continue as relics, of a sort, passed along to new masters until our parts can no longer be replaced, or until we suffer some irreparable system failure."
posted by goodbyewaffles at 3:55 PM on January 21, 2020
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posted by Nelson at 6:32 PM on January 20, 2020 [9 favorites]