Bingowings said:

The problem with the droids isn't that they are there.

It's that Lucas goes out of his way to give them dumb things to do to justify their presence.

I agree that they could work in a background role as opposed to the in-your-face humour that Lucas gave us or being removed completely........might have been interesting to have seen 3P0 walking with Qui-Gonn and the Queen on Tatooine, look down, see R2 rolling by, suddenly engage him in conversation, and just kinda dragging him along because R2 would be too polite to interrupt him...have him just get swept up by the series of events.....showing his entry into the series, but not exactly explaining it.