RRS-1980 said:
THREEPIO: Oh, no! I've been shot!
This is a very dramatic moment. We laugh because it's 3CPO, he's a robot. Yet think of a human in a similar situation: imagine a soldier resurrected from the dead, recalling that moment. "So we were assaulting that position, I threw a grenade towards that MG nest and... wait, that's when I took the bullet!?!?"
Creepy. That's why ESB is so grand.
Yes the whole Droid/humanity thing is quite vague in SW (OT and PT). The Droids appear to have human emotions, feelings and frailties. But all the "good" characters are perfectly fine with...
- Kidnapping, keeping and trading them as slaves. Especially in ANH with things like "restraing bolts".
- Wiping their memories and personalities.
- Sometimes not giving a sh*t when they die. Like Ben's "Friend" of 3 or 4 years, R4.
- Abusing and torturing them, verbally and physically. They feel pain, but who cares.
- Massacring them in huge numbers in the PT.
- *
- Generally treating them as beneath second-class beings. But still quite happy to have them as bounty-hunters or generals if they have need of it.
- Using them for situations too dangerous for precious humans. Like repairing Naboo royal starship engines, scouting Jabba's palace or serving drinks to irritable Jedi.
A lot of other classic Sci-Fi Film and TV has central themes of Robotic-Humanity e.g. BSG, Blade Runner, A.I., Aliens, TNG etc etc but Star Wars has ignored it.
Thoughts?
* Forgetting they even owned Droids... but I'll put that down to GL's bad writing in the PT, rather than old Ben being a douche ;-)