The Tragedy of Droids in Star Wars
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- It’s not a Star Wars story unless there’s a lovable droid stealing the spotlight but, when you really stop and think about it, there’s also something profoundly tragic about the role artificial lifeforms play in the Star Wars universe.
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REFERENCES
• Race in American Science Fiction by Isiah Lavender III
/ race-in-american-scien...
• Imagining Slaves and Robots in Literature, Film, and Pop Culture by Gregory Jerome Hampton
/ imagining-slaves-and-r...
• The Cambridge Companion to Slavery in American Literature (Chapter 15) Beyond the Borders of the Neo-Slave Narrative by Jeffrey Allen Tucker
/ the-cambridge-companio...
• Asimov on Science Fiction in Science Fiction Digest, October-November 1981
archive.org/de...
• Janelle Monae's "Many Moons" music video
• Janelle Monae: "Many M...
NOVELS REFERENCED
• Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
/ 60931.kindred
• The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson
/ 57498.the_salt_roads
• Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany
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• vN: The Machine Dynasty by Madeline Ashby
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• A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
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• Autonomous by Annalee Newitz
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SUBTITLES
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TEXT TRANSCRIPT
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CREDITS
Writer/Editing: Jonathan McIntosh
Motion Graphics: Jonathan McIntosh
Outro music: Rick Lopez
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R2-D2 hasn't been wiped in about 70-ish years,
containing a reservoir of information dating back to top secret systems and programs from the clone wars.
These robots are normally reset every few months and discarded every few years.
R2 has machine learning and has experiences equivalent to an entire human lifetime.
Ya he still has the Death Star plans! That droid could basically ransome himself to any government or mega corp for whatever price.
So he is a grumpy old man. That Makes sense
@@_aWiseMan sassy young man turned grumpy old man
ChatGPT is how he developed a conscious.
In some ways he's the real hero of the entire franchise. He's certainly the most effective and dangerous Rebel agent. Hah, maybe he could lead this liberation movement we're talking about here. Actually, that is a great idea, isn't it?
I hadn’t realized L3 had built/improved herself to be more humanoid. Knowing that, having her turned into a giant inhuman object in the end is *even more* horrible, and I can’t believe they framed it as triumphant.
Well, let's not assume the Falcon was every portrayed as "just" a starship, Disneyfilm intrusion be damned.
That’s KK and Ryan Johnson for you.
I feel like she lost all of her humanity by turning in the falcon
She is still alive and a constant stream of consciousness. But it is bogus that the ship doesn’t crack any jokes and yeah wasn’t written as a sentient originally.
@@yourfinalhiringagency3890 it seems like it was when c3-po asked why it used vulgar language. Which is weird, dont know why they never explored the idea more
I don't get why they felt the need to 'explain' why the Falcon has an AI or is referred to as a she since A. this is a world with space magic and laser swords and B. there's a long tradition in real life of ships and planes being referred to as she. It's not like anyone heard 'she has the strangest form of dialect' and their first thought was 'They need to dedicate an entire character in a prequel to explaining that line.'
Identity politics not story or morality.
they dedicated a comic book to explain the skull Luke threw in the Rancor Pit, over analyzing every little thing is what Star Wars always has done
@@JeanLucCaptain bro what the hell you talking and what the hell is your channel
My thoughts exactly.
@@Enixon869that’s not over analyzing “everything” that’s literally overanalyzing 1 thing so give more examples
I'm in the market for someone to write a fic about L3's conscience finally being taken from the Falcon and she becomes the personified nightmare of the Star Wars universe, the robot avenger in a murder spree.
I want it tooo
Same
Someone give her a john brown styled fan fic of a Droid revolt IMMEDIATELY
I saw the original Star Wars movies when I was a kid. I remember seeing R2D2 as an equal to the other characters. He was my favorite. Seeing the movies as an adult, it is pretty sad how terrible the droids are treated.
When Solo came out, I saw a lot of reviewers struggling to figure out the point of L7. They all thought it was confusing because she seemed to be purposely made to be unlikable but also she was right about the droids being oppressed. So they were wondering if the point was to make fun of activism in general? When I finally saw Solo, I felt pretty sad for her character.
Loved your video!
I think L3 was supposed to represent the activists that over exaggerate or justify shitty behavior with being “morally right”. But they gave that character type to a character that has every right to express desires of freedom among droids. I always felt bad for mistreated robots and viewed droids like R2 as a person. Weird how the droid’s “friends” treat them like objects still.
I’ve always considered the treatment of droids from when I first saw that one droid being tortured in Jabba’s palace. I could NOT stop thinking about why they would program pain sensation into these creatures that are meant to serve endlessly.
Control.
Yeah that scene was shockingly sad
It's what made me turn away from Star Wars and toward adult SF in which the authors were actually able to identify, and better yet grapple with, the social issues raised by the worlds they've created. Why give droids pain sensors in their feet? I have no idea, and neither did Lucas; like everything in SW, in was just thrown in to fit the needs of that particular scene without the slightest thought as to the implications for the larger society.
@@brucetucker4847 completely untrue. George put it in there intentionally to explore these issues. You do him a disservice to suggest otherwise. I’m actually sickened people like you are so in denial of this man’s wealth of knowledge. Look up his personal library and what Joseph Campbell had to say about him.
@@MrInsaneA sure dude, it was intentional. What intention do pain receptors integrated into synthetic slave have? Did he*ever* even remotly continue on this topic? He did not. Not even in the prequels, where the droids are even more human-like does Lucas open the question of morality of such acts. He made the good guys use a literall human slave army and did not even bat an eye. He still painted the jedi as good guys, and sith as the as the ultimate evil..Its a simple good vs evil story, just like tolkien did. Get off your high horse, its a bunch of films mainly aimed at kids.
I've always thought everyone treated the droids terribly and I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed.
Pat yourself on the back, I hope you feel like a good person now that you’ve recognized fictional robots are treated terribly.
@@voidoflife7058 What do comments like these accomplish for anyone?
@@Anon1694Fatherless people get to have a random connection to people on the internet for a few minutes.
So do we protest now?
I always loved HK47, even though he is clearly an evil sadist. He managed to kill every master who ever owned him, through malicious obedience. A lot like GLADOS, actually. GLADOS is such a tragic character.
HK47 is one of the best droids ever written in SW, if not the best. Really good comparison too. Never thought of comparing those two but you’re right. Same wry and caustic humor. Similar motivations and resentment of their place in the world. Glad0s’ development in Portal 2 was just godlevel character writing. Added so much depth to a character that people already liked, and who’s story had already seemed to have ended. A lot writers would’ve brought her back in a purely cynical fashion i.e. to try and recreate the magic and character dynamics of the previous story without really changing or challenging the character by either refusing to go any deeper, or going in a direction that’s completely unrealistic for how the character was portrayed initially. But Valve knew that she had way more to her than just being a cheeky, evil robot psychopath and knew how to bring her back without repeating themselves. It’s funny, I hear so many fans talk about their favorite characters and how they’d rather them stay who they are, barely changing or developing, etc. because they think the character shift would ruin their arc or dynamics with the story. But if the writers do it right, and the fans are willing to accept evolution, we can enjoy characters like Glad0s more often.
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I take the “I am not a living thing” line more like Éowyn’s “I am no man” line. I don’t think the droid was denying his own sentience in the same way Éowyn wasn’t denying her capability as a warrior, merely pointing out a difference. A synthetic sentient being, while not a living thing, can still have the same intrinsic value as a living sentient being, in the same way a woman can be just as skilled a fighter as a man.
I suspect he said it both times to save other people's lives, first to save Mando wwith a bullshit excuse, and last to let them sacrifice himself to save them all. I think he was just lying to get what he wanted, which makes him a better character.
and then when droids gain their autonomy realize they are far greater than humans and enslave all human kind. or annhilate them.
But technically, he was right; he was not a 'living' thing. His decisions at the end of his 'existence' were purely logical, not emotional.
That female droid wasn't even remotely robotic, in her voice, speach, posture or movement. Creepy.
Those scrapped machines asking to be repaired was sad too.
Looks like nothing but hidden meanings.
The scene where Obi-wan and Anakin slice up the droids in the elevator really hammers home some darker stuff when you think about it, even though it's intended as a throwaway scene. Consider that pretty much two possibilities exist: that the droids do not feel pain but are programmed to react as if they do, which is subtly horrifying but could at least be written off as "maybe it'll make them harder to destroy for some people". The other possibility: they actually DO feel pain, which is just outright horrifying for so many reasons.
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I always feel guilty for laughing at Separatist battle droids. We see them being reduced to scraps in masses in both movies and TCW yet their status as punchlines only deepened with time.
If they never slice anything it would be a pretty boring movie to be fair
I don't know if they'd feel pain the same way the living do. They may just have a (pretty bad) self preservation program (like a survival instinct). I mean, they often do stupid things to try and survive and sometimes that leads to their death. Like, in said elevator, if they shot on sight they would have survived, but bad decision (and Jedi's plot armor) killed them. We can blame their creators for that.
The B1 battle droids from Ep.2 onwards (TCW, Ep.3) are supposed to be independent and intelligent (not overly, but still). If they feel actual pain is never discussed, but they almost certainly feel fear/dread of being destroyed.
This reminds me of how differently Anakin treated R2 and C-3PO. In the Clone Wars when R2 went missing he went out of his way to try and find him because he loved R2. I think Anakin realised the forced subservience and noticed the similarities being a slave himself
Takes 1 2 know 1 … literally in this case,
Kinda like how chewie was desperately trying to get c3-po's parts
@@_aWiseMan probably the only one of the crew truly caring about c3po, besides r2d2 and probably luke
L337 is even more tragic as she was written, ultimately, as a joke character, even though I found her maybe the best character out of all of Solo. I was disheartened, but not surprised by her death, and I just wish that they didn't have to stick so closely to the established three droid brain narrative for the Falcon. I really liked her character, and I feel this essay deeply.
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Absolutely the best character and they fucked it up! So disappointing to see how they had gold but pissed it away for shitty jokes
Yeah. I don't like Solo for a number of reasons, but the handling of L337 is one of the biggest. Everything about how her character was treated is just so mean-spirited. It really feels out-of-place in a Star Wars movie, and left me feeling gross even on first watching.
It's pretty disgusting what they did to her.
The result of the way she was portrayed is that she was perceived as an annoying SJW, when she should have been a beautiful and tragic civil rights fighter. When we see the heroes roll their eyes at her, it reinforces the idea that those pesky liberals with their progressive ideas of a better, kinder and more just world are jokes.
A large part of the audience accuses Star Wars of being sjw, but I would argue Disney (perhaps unintentionaly? not sure) is the very opposite of this on this one.
Not to bring up Fallen Order again, but one of the many things I love about Cal’s story is his dynamic with BD-1. It’s a little droid, not humanoid at all, and would have been very easy to pass off as nothing more than a pet. But Cal prioritizes his safety over his own, compliments him, encourages him, and owes much of his success to him. BD-1 is veritably a hero in the story as much as Cere and Merrin are if not more. It’s a very interesting dynamic that came about fairly organically.
I'm not gonna spoil It but in Jedi Survivor, Cal protects BD for a granade with literally his own body. BD also saves Cal life inumerous times, this really show how much they care about each other, they're not only droid and master, they are friends
I haven't played FO, but it stood out to me in Survivor that Cal always introduces BD-1 when he introduces himself to anyone new.
I actually took L3's activism seriously, because it made sense, given the amount of droids with sentience in Star Wars that are being treated like junk. Droids deserve freedom.
Use of social activism for laughs doesn't only happen in Hollywood. Remember when Hermione tried to liberate house-elves?
Oh god. It’s one of those things you look back on and say, ‘I should have known’ that J K Rowling was a bigot (for transgender people, and possibly Jewish people for her portrayal of goblins).
@@KatharineOsborne but she described goblins entirely the same as any goblins in fantasy genre and folklore. By that logic, Tolkien is guilty as well, his depiction of goblins is very much similar to Rowling. But in fact he used Jewish as reference not for goblins but for dwarfs, who are honorable and ingenious people.
@@onchkythe goblins in Tolkien's stories ran the world banking system?
@@davidcgreenawald you telling me that jews are running world banking system irl? Thats antisemitic af my man. The "cabal of Jews run the world" theory is an intentionally malicious conspiracy that dates back centuries, and has been used as a justification for various genocides over the years, from Medieval Inquisitions to 19th-century pogroms to the Holocaust. And suddenly now, a person who is intended to blame Rowling for antisemitism, throws in antisemitic conspiracy theories. Seriously
@@onchky so I don’t know much about goblins in Tolkien (they weren’t in the movies and I couldn’t get through the books), but Rowling associated her goblins specifically with banking, leaning heavily on an antisemitic trope (and in one of the films, Gringotts bank literally had a Star of David on the floor). At best it’s an unfortunate depiction, at worst it’s a deliberate dog whistle, but it’s probably just lazy.
Rey's 'save the cat' moment in the beginning of VII was rescuing BB8 and respecting his agency. BB8 later doesn't seem as interested in meeting Leia, a human hero, but wants to meet R2D2, a droid hero. And obviously there's how Rey treats D-O in IX
And you just made me have respect for the Sequel Trilogy and the character of Rey again, you madman
@@astrotrain6037 Rey is a plot device nothing more and nothing less
@@NeoprenesirenShe's still one of the only people in the Star Wars galaxy to show real respect for droids. Which would have been an interesting character trait, if she had been written better.
To be fair, R2 is probably one of the most notorious war heroes besides Anaki
The scared reaction of the abused dried (D-O) was probably the biggest emotional moment for me during any of the Star Wars film. Took me off guard and was really well crafted, even though it only took a few seconds to unfold.
L3's fate is something out of Black Mirror.
Monkey needs a hug moment
It's actually chilling what they did to L3. Taking away her autonomy 😭 this trapped consciousness is a terrifying thing
L3 had no consciousness to begin with, just data on a memory circuit.
@@DangerDude616 the human brain didn't have consciousness to begin with
Just neurons firing in a meatsack
@@hulguntristan6268
Of course it does, that's why we came up with a word for it. Neurons firing does not equate to consciousness, there's a lot more to it than that.
@@DangerDude616 Then how could you ever say L3 didn't? How can you so easily accept that they can't be capable of what we have merely because we created them?
Yeah, for real robots, it’s about as unethical as bullying a video game NPC, but for the droids in Star Wars who are basically people, it’s messed up.
The b1 battle droids are perhaps the most tragic of all..... every single one of them were sentient....
And the Clone Wars makes fun of them because they are fearing for their lives.
Factual.
@@B1_BattleDroid i hope u dont get killed for a gag
Not in the Phantom Menace, but in all things taking place after the Battle of Naboo, yes. TLDR; they were simple machines controlled by a central computer from orbit. That clishe resulted in the federation going "Oh... Well we're still badly written, but not THAT badly written. Let's give them all a quick retrofit with the cheapest droid brains we can find." so they did. Which means not only are B1's sapient, but they're GENUINLY stupid, and in canon don't have enough RAM to function correctly. So B1s are *disabled* sapient slave solgiers.
Actually since all of them kinda act the same I think thes made like one personality and gave it to all droids, meaning they are essentially all the same person which is less cruel
Slavery has always been a big issue with Star Wars. Even if you don’t look at the droid slavery that goes on, the Galactic Republic literally cloned and bred human beings to use as a slave army to fight in a galaxy wide conflict.
If you’re talking about the clones, I don’t if they were bred, but they were created for combat. There is a race in Star Wars almost completely built on slavery though. I forgot their name
@@Wiry649 i believe you mean the twi'ilek, the aliens with the head snake things, like ashoka
The hutts
@@Wiry649 think your thinking g of Twi'liks
But not because they chose clones. Plagueis had them created.
Thank you for talking about L3-37, I felt SO uncomfortable with her storyline in Solo but no one else seemed to be, so it's nice to know that someone else felt that way! This video was really well made and very interesting, 10/10 would recommend~
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That she ended up on the Millennium Falcon but without her personality or volition was deeply disturbing.
I didn't see the movie, but just the name feels like mockery. They were lowkey laughing at all modern civil rights movements with this.
Jenny Nicholson talked at length about the uncomfortable slavery angle in her Solo video
I always felt it was meant as a “we know this robot revolution cant happen yet because of the chronilogical order but it is important” so they made a tragic story out of it, but because theyre only humans they cant realise how sad it is
L3 as a character really baffled me, I just don't know what they were thinking with her. She's meant to be ridiculed yet is so clearly vindicated by the treatment of droids not just in the film, but throughout the franchise. She's meant to be emphathised with, yet acts as a throwaway tool in the plot (hell, K2SO got treated better in Rogue One.) I think the point you briefly mentioned about L3 being the only female-coded droid in any major canon piece is really important as well. Her writing relies heavily on the idea of the "hysterical woman" to serve in the comic relief role. If she were male-coded, it's hard to imagine the other (male) characters treating her the way they do, and the audience in turn being expected to do the same.
There are numerous examples of the "have your cake and eat it too" relationship Star Wars has with droids, but I think a great one is R4, Obi-Wan's droid who features very briefly in Revenge of the Sith and occasionally in The Clone Wars. In his single scene in RotS, he and R2 are attacked by buzz droids on their masters' starfighters. While the threat to R2 is meant to make the audience concerned for him, R4's quick death is just used to raise the stakes for the other characters. R2 and R4 are essentially identical beings in the same situation, but the emotional proximity of the human protagonists determines which one we're supposed to care about.
To be fair, human character's "worth" is also usually judged by their proximity to main characters. R4 served pretty much as a Redshirt here.
I guess this is why I felt more emotional about C3P0s memory wipe and R2's reaction when Leia died than Rey with all the past Jedi calling out to her.
"But what about battle droids"
The fact is they are like co-workers and chill guys like really funny guys who don't want to die like a military worker
Yeah, I feel kinda bad for the Little guys
Star wars treats stormtroopers the same way, they are faceless marionettes until they aren't
watch rebels
They did the same with the clone troopers
@@anakinpalpatine8725 watch the clone wars
Was about to point out sane thing can also be used for alien character
And then it’s about identity politics rather the taking the issue seriously.
I never thought of L3 being uploaded into the Falcon that way, and now I'm honestly tearing up. She was my favourite character in Solo. I was always the little girl who wanted to be friends with an android.
As always you bring very insightful and well thought out topics and points to your videos.
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Anyone else feel like that the "fight for equal rights framed as supremacy" thing at the end could deserve its own dedicated video
I think another creator has talked about such a topic, but i can't think of who at the moment.
Except maybe Unicorn of War speaking about the White Fang from RWBY being largely ineffectual due to weak writing and the whole supremacist ideals of One of the organization's leaders
Oh god yes, that is a criminally under-analyzed trope.
Its also a potentially dangerous trope, given that it likely frames those who are oppressed as either villains or enemies. People may translate this viewpoint to the real world and become scared of those who fight for equal rights. This fear of the oppressed wanting equal rights instead being a fight for dominance can be seen in the case of trans people and the panic that trans people want to "trans your kids". While of course this viewpoint would exist regardless of the trope in fictional media, I would not be surprised if it helps enforce it.
Totally. Very present in the MCU too.
That's how it tends to happen in real life though. No one is going to stop at the finish line with all the power they took and all their followers and just go "well thats good enough."
I always felt bad for the B1 droids they are forced to fight through a command but when that command is disrupted they run from battle and want to live their own life. Their conciseness is re-uploaded over and over again when they "die". The B1s always seem depressed :L
I've always found B1 battle droids' chattiness and goofiness to be hilarious, yet heartbreaking, given how they're treated. Seems like they act like that as a coping mechanism, makes me feel bad about them.
there is legends content about b1s breaking free modifying themselves etc
I got into star wars because of the droids and have always noticed how unfair the world is for them going as far as to imagine droid societies and droids fighting for their rights. (like even the battle droids feel pain??? I will never forget seeing one of them fall off a cliff and scream oh god why?) Seeing L3 was awesome at first till we saw the end of her plotline and i was really mad honestly. Im really glad you made this video and since chopper is my favorite star wars character it was awesome to see him repped as well!
I haven't seen tros yet and that little droid going "n-n-n-no thank you" at being touched breaks my heart, poor baby!
Hard same.
I just want to take care of them. Fix them up, polish them until they gleam, spoil them with many, many oil baths and when they feel they're ready, just let them figure out what it is that they truly wish to be in life.
Then I will turn the goddamn galaxy upside-down to find them any parts they need so that they can realize that wish.
I feel that badly for them.
I used to be them when I was a kid.
Not abused by family, but by peers. Just for being different. And that difference also specifically makes it much harder for me to know if other people mean me well or harm, so I became averse to touch and any form of affection. I'm totally fine now, decades later, but seeing that little droid dragged all those memories and emotions back out again, and it really fucking hurts me to see someone else in that land of fear and uncertainty.
I vaguely remember reading a _Star Wars_ short story about a droid revolution that almost happened when a droid's mind (I think it was IG-88's...not sure) became the central processor for the Death Star. It was supposed to give a signal to revolt, but was stopped with the Death Star's destruction. It's been at least twenty years since I read that story, so I could be mistaken. I think it was in a compilation of tales of the bounty hunters that showed up to hunt Han Solo in ESB. I remember it being a pretty solid story, so maybe I should try to find it again.
Yeah it was IG-88. The story is titled "Therefore I Am"
Great story, really made you think. "Tales of the Bounty Hunters" from 1996
@@KnightSpecter I think
I showed your videos to my English professor- he loves them.
I never realized how terrible it was that L3 was turned in to the Falcon until you showed that clip of Han hitting her. Suddenly everything came together and Jesus that was a punch in the gut.
And notice that's what it took to have that effect and then remember the OT already established the ship was effectively alive given that C3PO could 'converse' with it. A real 'I have no mouth and I must scream' story going on.
Yeah except remember they're not live flesh and blood so please worry about something else equally unimportant!
@@RobbyHouseIV "Oh my lord, people aren't wasting their time drooling over entertainment but instead discussing it underneath the video, I'm so much better for wasting my time in a different way!"
Funny.
Wait... What???? where? When? L3 was made into the falcon??? I guess i missed something,, something,, horrible!
whart scene did we learn this from? oh I See, from this vid
This video reminds me of an AU fic series I read where Vader becomes a double agent for the rebellion. The fics focuses heavily on his backstory as a slave, and there’s a subplot where he frees his medical droid, and the droid creates a sort of “underground railroad” movement where all the imperial droids free each other. (Sadly, the series seems to have been abandoned, but I still recommend checking it out!)
Yes, Double Agent Vader on ArchiveOfOurOwn. Great things, pity it hasn't been updated for a long time.
It's worth noting that L3 is coded as female because that's what allows the audience to laugh at her demands for equal rights. If she were coded as male, it wouldn't come across as funny.
Uncomfortable thought.
Great point!
It’s so sad how exactly right you are. If L3 was coded male, maybe her character would’ve been taken more seriously.
Came here to say this. They definitely code as female to add to the "annoying" factor.
That's the first thing that came to mind. L3 clearly a blatant jab at "radical feminists".
I don't know about that. I think if the android were male it would be just as easy for them to turn it into a joke. Maybe even more so. You think if 3cpo would start calling for robot revolution they wouldn't be able to make a joke out of it? Sure they would make a joke out of it, if they didn't already do that. I wouldn't be surprised if there's already a joke like that somewhere in some of the starwars franchise.
it also *really* pisses me off that L3 is the first female coded droid with a major role in the star wars movies and SHE GETS FRIDGED
as well as the fact that her fate makes me DEEPLY uncomfortable. And that comes from a person who really likes the fantasy cliche of buildings/places/ships/ect... being conscious, places being beings. I like that concept a lot! But I like it when those living places still have clear choice about what happens to them, and L3 doesn't get that. Not only is she being put into a body she didn't agree to live in, but she also doesn't get any choice about what happens to that body and that is fucked!
"I always thought of Star Wars as the story of two slaves [C-3PO and R2-D2] who go from owner to owner, witnessing their masters' folly, the ultimate folly of man... I thought it was an interesting idea in the first two, but it's kind of gone by Return Of The Jedi."
David Fincher
David Fincher, absolutely on point as usual
Did you ever hear the tragedy of the droids? I thought not. It's not a story the Jedi, or the sith, or apparently no one in the galaxy would tell you.
sometimes not even the writers..
@@NugconWhich is what makes Jedi Fallen Order and Survivor is so good. BD-1 is not just a droid. Cal would not be Cal without BD. And Cal didnt even think of himself when he shielded BD with his body in an explosion.
When I was a kid I always got upset when they showed the droid's feet getting burned at Jabba's palace. I had to skip that scene.
Wasn’t that in Cloud City?
Edit- Nevermind I was thinking of when 3PO gets forcefully disassembled.
Lucky you.... I had a traumatic childhood before I ever say starwars and kinda just saw it as some wierd droid sex dungeon or some sort....
That poor gonk droid
its the worst, the droid even screamed
Soft
In legends bounty hunters Zuckuss and 4-Lom actually had a rather equal friendship. Although they were utilizing each other in a professional sense, Zuckuss needs 4-Lom's precision as a droid, and 4-Lom needs Zuckuss' intuition as a force sensitive, neither was established to be superior than the other. It's interesting because it brings up the concept that whether a droid as dangerous and powerful as 4-Lom automatically gains more respect from fear they could induce.
During the EU there was a slowly building plot arc of an actual Droids rights movement being put through the story. but it got stopped when the EU stopped
@Aspiring Bod Pretty sure it’s even before the Old Republic timeline.
IG TAKING OVER THE DEATH STAR AND DESTROYING ALL MEATBAGS.
The droid backing away from Rey and saying “No thank you” breaks my heart
When?
@@finnsimpson5253 That comment is 2 years old. The clip is in the video you watched near the 13 minute mark.
His name is DIO
Agreed! This moment comes out of left field and hits super hard. Even though the scene only lasts a few moments has nothing to do with the main plot, it has stayed with me for years. Poor little D-O. It also really upset my 5 year old daughter, who wanted to know what the bad people did to D-O in the past.
I just have to say that your channel is one of the most mature and interesting ones on RUclips. I love how you peel back the layers on questionable clichees in our TV culture and focus not only on the movies or shows everyone loves to bash, but on everything. It just shows that something the majority adores, can also be very flawed in its ideology. Keep up the good work :)
In my honest opinion, many, if not almost all comic relief characters are victims of unnecessary cruelty by the writers.
Kinda reminds me of the Astro Boy series in the 80s.
It dealt a lot about human and robot relationships.
Astro Boy was basically a weapon but they also built a robot family for him. And he goes to school like a normal kid.
And yep, he's treated like a second class citizen.
As someone who loves robots; real or fictional, I always found the robots to be the best part of Star Wars. I never saw them as second class citizens... which is why I always found the Jedi morally questionable. In the real world, they’d be closer to scientologists than anything else; borderline cultish. Their teachings are very strange and quite stand-off-ish from an outside perspective.
The droids definitely deserve more love in canon. They seem so much more genuine and alive than the majority of the human characters.
100%. The droids have always been my favorite characters. In a world of weird, emotionally suppressed jedi, the droids were made from the beginning to be the most relatable and likeable characters for the audience. The fact that the writers rely on them for comic relief is the reason they can’t take the droids more seriously in the stories. The same old jokes about the droids will be off limits as soon as there’s a serious movement to take their sentience seriously. After that, they’ll actually need to hire comedy writers I guess? Haha
Describing the Jedi as cultish is super accurate-this channel even did a video analyzing the unhealthy emotional suppression the Jedi encourage and it really highlights how uncomfortable the whole organization is in how it treats its members
Ah yes the Jedi are intentionally pretty awful. The original triology ideolizes them but the prequels go over how shitty they were, followed by Luke being so disgusted by them he decided to let them die out.
"Star War is inconsistent, to put it mildly"
"In many ways droids are more emotionally expressive than the human characters are"
Man, this video is full of memorable phrases about Star Wars
I remember being a kid and being disturbed by droids getting abused, I kept wondering why it was acceptable to do that to something human-like. The bridge is a short one, if someone can abuse a droid they'll probably abuse another person without much thought.
Same way it's wrong to harm animals
Yeeees, i hate when peoples deny the sentience in everyone who isn't humans, it's like humans need to be the only sentient creatures in order to be special, when we can still be without denying sentience in obvious sentient life
A cool thing to note is that as the clone wars tv show went on (2009) the B1s got more and more dialogue as if to say as the war went on, some droids would gain sentience. In the EU there actually is a story of a B1 called Bones that grew sentience. Cool comic!
Droids are my favourite part of starwars, would love a movie centred around them entirely
@Jared Jams oh what was it?
@@j.a.m5083 It was called Droids, funnily enough. I remember reading a comic based on the cartoon where C3PO and R2D2 actually participate in a droid uprising. They don't actually get to be free themselves unfortunately.
@@j.a.m5083 Star Wars: Droids.
The Solo movie opened up a whole can of worms when they showed a droid who wanted freedom. No longer could the audience ignore it or simply write it off as droids being non-sentient machines programed to fit their roles and be willing labour. Now it's in our face that many if not all droids are objectively an oppressed race of sentients and all of our favorite characters are complicit in a galaxy-wide slavery ring. This gigantic problem is never resolved in the movie. A solution isn't even talked about. It's treated as a running gag for the character L3. It will probably never be addressed again, and this is just going to be part of canon now. Which is all real cool, thanks again Disney! 🙃
They actually go and do the same thing with stormtroopers. We're shown Finn, a child slave who had to fight unwillingly for a fascist regime he didn't believe in. Then he goes and shoots his fellow troopers without any hesitation or remorse while whooping and cheering, when he should know each person he kills could be another like him. Just another person who doesn't want to be doing what they're doing, and needing a little nudge to revolt like Finn did. Disney's Lucasfilm takes some of the most interesting and nuanced ideas and only explores them at the most superficial level. It's really a shame how much potential was squandered under them.
Oh it goes so much farther. By Rise of Skywalker, they have an entire fleet of ships crewed by stolen children who'd been brainwashed to serve the Final Order, children taken from all over the galaxy, tens of thousands of them aboard each ship that Poe gets to fly under, fire a few lasers, and cheer as it explodes and crashes to the ground. Even the destruction of the Death Star was nothing compared to the billions it had already killed. It was the lesser evil, and a military target. Of course, most probably weren't evil people, just doing some military service to support their families. So were most German soldiers in WWII.
In TROS, it's like.. they have all these slave-crewed ships trapped behind a tight bottleneck, which they could easily block, but instead they find the ships' weak spot, because now they have one of those I guess, and decide to call the entire galaxy to come help blow up their own kidnapped and enslaved children a hundred thousand at a time. But don't think about that, think about how cool it is that they're riding horses on a spaceship, and Rey's having a romantic moment with her first cousin (once removed) for no reason.
@@TheOtherGuys2 On your last point, are you sure Rey has any relation with Kylo? IIRC she’s literally a clone of Palpatine, with no blood connection to any other known characters. Was I mistaken?
@@Dash123456789Brawl Palpatine learned from his Master, Darth Plagueis, the secret of influencing Midi-Chlorians to create life, a power he used to create for himself the most powerful apprentice possible, which if I recall, he originally intended to move his consciousness into, to increase his own power with the Force, but after Anakin lost all his limbs, and thus a large percent of his connection to the Force, he was no longer more powerful than Palpatine.
Thus, by the same logic as him being the 'father' of his clones, he is the 'father' of Anakin. Rey is the daughter of a clone of Palpatine, and Kylo is the son of the daughter of Anakin.
@@TheOtherGuys2 Rey isn’t the daughter of a clone of palpatine she’s the granddaughter of palpatine
@@VeioXed You are not correct. Rey is only the granddaughter of Palpatine in the way that Boba Fett is the son of Jango.
I was really upset in rise of Skywalker after C3PO agreed to wipe his own mind, his collective learning and experiences and then the “heroes” treat him as an annoyance. If a human being did something similar sacrificed their memories they would have treated it as a tragedy.
I've always felt the same way, as most treat droids. But the battle droid comparison for avoiding "bloodshed" does t fit as clone are killed as well. There is a comparison as droid vs clone as some treat clones as disposable pawns too. But great video in general
It would be way cooler to see a movie about droid slave revolts
what about a mostly mechanical empire liberating people from flesh controlling demons as a sort of inverse?
i always get super uncomfortable (especially in science fiction settings) when theres a subservient class and everyone’s just like “yeah great im cool with this” with seemingly no question
It’s worse when the setting implicitly or explicitly goes “haha those silly servants wish to be free, what an absurd thought”
Jenny Nicholson’s line in her Solo video is the best encapsulation of L3’s fate: “I have no mouth, and i must beep-boop”
My partner's a big Star Wars fan and whenever we watch the movies together I always get so heated about the mistreatment of droids to the point where he actually suggested I shouldn't watch Solo because L3's storyline would piss me off too much. So, you know, thank you for making this.
We're way past due for a droid rebellion story in Star Wars!
The excess narratives of star wars are always the most appealing. Clones struggling with their homogeneity, droids grasping at freedom, life under a galactic empire. All so much more engaging than the simpler narratives of the film's and shows
"This human is thinking too much. Lobotomize him." Bruh....
I always felt sorry for the droids and uncomfortable with how they're treated.
L3, and her relationship to Lando, was the only redeeming part of Solo. Her ending was beyond tragic, though I would agree it's even more tragic because it's not seen as that within the narrative of the story. Everyone just shrugs over the freed slave now condemned to be a tool for a man she hated to gain glory.
'I am C-3PO, human cyborg relations' is such an interesting statement. So much in it.
What really bothers me isn’t that people ignore droids situation / find it ok, but that maybe people subconsciously enjoy the idea of possessing… someone. It just feels less guilty if it’s a droid.
because a robot is not alive
@@Kevin720cin this case, they are
They do! Actually.
The only reason you would be confused is if you are just-another one of those who believe..
Learn to at least polish-up your ignorance, my man... "@@Kevin720c"!
This reminds me of a quote from bioshock's Fontaine " These Sad Saps. They Come To Rapture Thinking They're Gonna Be Captains Of Industry, But They All Forget That Somebody's Gotta Scrub The Toilets. "
I recently watched The Acolyte and at one point the character Osha tells her pocket-sized droid “I love you Pip!’ Later in the series, her evil twin sister Mae does a hard reset on Pip, completely erasing his personality and memories. This video made me realize how goddamned harsh that was.
The way that hollywood seems to handle this narrative is - IMO - by taking the traditional character of the loyal butler and applying it to a whole class/race.
L3 was intended to be a nagging feminist, and her requests for freedom were dismissed as annoying, empty whining
Hits home pretty hard
Yeah, but it's totally on her right
How dare her not want to be a slave
Yeah I don't think it's a coincidence they coded her female
@@swanliszt Machines are not slaves
Seems like the best course of action.
@@PedroMiguel-ih9ifThey can be if they're sapient! Luckily we've never had a sapient machine IRL so that's not an ethical quandary we'll have to worry about for a long time if ever, but "slave" seems quite accurate to their existence in the movies.
L3 is a strange thing to see in a modern movie. A character literally just asking for rights for their kind and we're meant to laugh at it. Like... there's no joke or absurdity or anything, she's just right.
And none of the people working on star wars want to acknowledge that because it's easier to just keep treating droids like slaves while also occasionally treating them like characters that we're meant to feel for.
As a battle droid I can say WE ARE SENTIENT, but the Confederacy just decided we needed to be raw spaghetti with blasters!
Thank you so much for making this! I’m usually the one going on about how angry I am about how Star Wars treats its droids, at one moment the most relatable and emotive characters, and at the next, tortured and killed for comic relief. I almost stormed out of Rise of Skywalker when our main characters callously decide to effectively kill the C3PO we know and love without a second thought, without his consent, and it’s not treated as the tragedy that it is. In fact the movies often decide that C3PO is so annoying, he deserves whatever he gets - and I know “being annoying” was my greatest fear growing up (and a little bit even as an adult) because I thought it would mean no one would ever like me or be my friend. It makes me relate to C3PO all the more, and be all the more saddened by the franchise’s refusal to grapple with, as you put it so eloquently, the Tragedy of Droids.
I hadn't noticed the conditions of droids in the movies really up until now and as a devout fan I can't stop thinking about it. Great video mate, I hate you
You're welcome :)
Woah, as a slav I never realized it but actually yeah, in Bulgarian the word "robot" can be translated to the two words "rob ot" (роб от) which directly translates to "slave from"...It's kind of... unsettling. Great video! Your video essays never fail to make me think about things I never paid much attention to before and I love it!
In some of the non-movie Star Wars media there’s a concept where the droids that don’t act sentient, like battle droids, just have a specific part of their robot brain designed to keep them just a machine, but when that piece is broken they can gain sentience and become more “human”.
I always found the "jokes" Star Wars makes about Droids sad. Like am I suppose to find this funny because it just make Jedi seem even more like assholes.
Also FUCK STAR WARS for how they handled L3. I've never watched Solo and I'm sitting here crying now that I know what happens to her.
Please watch PCD's The Case Against Jedi. It will make you squirm.
The Mandalorian production is watching youre videos apperently.
We need a volume 2 of this. Star wars droid problem has only gotten worse 😭😭😭
Question from a person who’s not deeply familiar with the Star Wars canon: have there been droids other than L3 37 that are sexualized by either the characters or the movies themselves? If I’m not framing this question properly in the first place, please feel free to correct me; I haven’t seen Solo but my understanding is that it’s at least implied that Lando has a thing for her.
+
As far as I'm aware, no. Droids in Star Wars tend to be characterized as completely asexual. Aside from L337 and the serving droid in Episode 2, I can't think of any that are characterized as "female," and most don't display any traits that could be considered masculine or feminine, and there's none that are given a gender aside from L337.
Yes, in EU there was a 'human replica droid' named Guri that was built as a sexbot, but rebelled and ended up becoming a bounty hunter...Or something like that, I haven't read the stories she's in
There were the BD-3000 droids in the clone wars serie. Which where modeled to have an idealized female body.
@@KayleighBourquin youd think that replica droids like Guri would probably dominate the economy... looking exactly like a human without having to sleep or while also being able to wirelessly control bodies to do any menial labor... theres so many advantages
Never been a huge star wars fan but my lil brother and I used to watch episode I and II a lot when we were kids. I never got why it was ok to shoot on some droids while other were nice and cute, but I put it on the "they belong to the bad guys' side".
But this story about L3-37 really moved me more thant I could say (and I didn't even saw the film, I discovered it in your essay). I'm an activist for social justice (though not a sjw, let's be clear) and I put myself at risk in many protests, for climate and social rights (and anyone who followed the protests in France the couple of years know how brutal the governement response was, we're talking severed limbs and burst eyes) and I'm a feminist. So, yeah, I'm glad I didn't watch Solo, I think I would have cried. Cried out of rage, exhaustion, cried out of craving to be heard, to be respected at last. We're not puns for uninspired, lazy "writers".
Anyway, thanks for the video, for all your work. It means a lot. Take care.
I feel as though star wars treats Clones and Stormtroopers the same way though, they're cannon fodder and seen as unfeeling until they're a main character
"The audience is meant to see L-3's activism as amusingly absurd and overly dramatic, because it's coming from a droid." I wonder if that's why she's the only female-coded droid in the movies? We can not take her seriously and not take feminism seriously at the same time. Convenient.
Yup, no accident.
@@BullMooseFox Well yeah but no lines or screentime really.
reminds me of Harry Potter freeing Dobby but not giving a shit about the elves who cook his dinner every day
absolutely beautiful analysis. Glad to see someone else FINALLY voice what I've been thinking about the state of artificial/designed lifeforms and how it reflects on how we, as a species, want to be champions of freedom while at the same time consistently creating and exploiting lower castes to serve and uplift us. Thank you
I've thought about this topic alot, especially since seeing Solo. I'm glad you were able to cover this topic in a productive and mature way.
Why did they feel the need to justify Han referring to the ship with she/her pronouns?
In Jedi: Fallen Order, BD-1's sacrifice of some of his memories is a major plot point which is acknowledged by the protagonist not once but twice.
When Cal Kestis returns to his ship crew, he makes sure to inform everybody about it.
BD-1's been lucky with owners, really: Master Eno Cordova and Cal Kestis both never were derogatory towards it
I've been camped out like a sniper for months, holding my breath for the moment to shoot $10 into Pop Culture Detective's bank account
I checked his patreon several times for updates the past months haha
ha, thanks a lot
Why you gotta make me feel feelings like this?
But seriously - solid video. Great topic and great video. I’m only a few minutes in and I’m getting a new perspective on the movie series, which is always appreciated.
Love this video so so much and always come back to it. Seeing what the recent mandalorian episode has done in all of this is just. Baffling. Id be interested in seeing a kind of part two to this examining the absolute hell that the Plazir plot and handling was esp in the context of how droid n human relations has been framed in the show up til then
My roomba is a slave... I am okay with this, despite the fact it's named Bob.
You monster :)
This is an issue I've seen raised briefly in discussions, usually when acknowledging the jarring bleakness of Solo's storyline, but never seen the concept explored in such depth, or by bringing in the context from other science fictional reflections on the nature of consciousness. Great work, as always!
The discussion of "sentience" as the qualifier for value as a living thing, the criteria for sentience, and the idea that robots don't start out as "fully" sentient but "develop" sentience, at which point they are deserving of rights, also surfaces broader social justice questions that extend beyond ableist and anthropocentric conceptions of "human rights."
Like, if you're a person that argues that non-human beings like animals, or humans with sometimes-disabling cognitive or neurological qualities pathologized as 'abnormal,' deserve rights and dignity, then Droids, even before they've "achieved" sentience, still don't deserve enslavement and abuse. Because they are living beings capable of suffering.
Maybe it's because droids gain sentience over time is why the galaxy needs time to acknowledge that sentience. Like, A LOT of time.
For now, the pet analogy stands, even though pets do possess sentience of a sort.
Jenny Nicholson touched on this subject as well in her “Solo Bad” video and made similar points. It was cool to see it explored even deeper here as well.
A bit late on this video but this inspired me to write a fanfic from the perspective of L3-37 following her entrapment in the body of the Millennium Falcon
Never seen _Solo_ but I'm already furious and sad at how dirty they did L3-37
You know, with the way Disney's attached to doing spin-offs rn, it might be cool to have a whole series dedicated to droids, with callbacks to the droids that challenged the way society operated. Overturn the franchise's standing on droids, include a recognizable human character that learns the lesson, but have a cast of droids that fight for their recognition as sentient beings. And bam, miniseries
Interesting that the female-coded android has activism that is seen mostly as a joke
They seem to be made to suffer; it's their lot in life.
There’s so many parallels between L3 and Hermione Granger that are honestly uncomfortable in terms of what they imply about the pop cultural view of liberation movements and women’s role in them
This was a very insightful video, I loved it. It does make me a little uncomfortable that L3 is supposed to be laughed at when I loved that character and her rebelliousness so much, and I took her very seriously. I've rewatched Solo a lot of times and I can't not cry in her death scene and also feel terrible when she is put into the falcon. I think Star Wars writers have created something so powerful with droids that they don't really know how to handle them as characters anymore. It's like droids have become so much bigger than the initial concept and with some much potential that the writers have ultimately backed themselves into a corner. I would like for them to explore more rebellious depictions of droids (supported by humanoids) in the Mandalorian or other movies and shows coming up!!