Alexrd said:
timdiggerm said:
One of the failures of the PT is that Artoo & Threepio are not the main characters the way they are in the OT.
I don't see it as a failure. I don't think it would work the same way. They are telling a different story with the PT.
I agree. There is waaaayyy to much going on for these two to have, or even deserve the spotlight.
How the minds of droids work is not fully explained in the films.
Obi-wan in the PT assumes they don't think and is and expresses relief that they don't (presumably fearing some Cylon style uprising).
In terms of writing, story and audience response the Artoo and Threepio are meant to be every inch real and worthy of our empathy as Han or Leia, only the majority of the humans and aliens in that universe see them as utility objects.
Artoo certain has character, demonstrates initiative, courage, empathy, fear, sadness, humour, surprise etc.
He may be mimicking those responses but the audience is clearly meant to buy into that behaviour.
So a memory wipe is the equivalent (in terms of audience response as defined by the OT) as death of personality or 'soul'.
It parallels the Vader persona overwriting the Anakin persona.
It might be interest to create a pre-wipe persona for Threepio which is more like the droid's less fussy, less self centered identity which we see in unguarded moments.
Like his offering of his components to repair Artoo and his concern for the other heroes on Bespin before he gets shot (even though they do keep treating him like an annoying ring tone).
The Gungans should be replaced by racist black stereotypes.
Oh, wait ...
Bingowings said:
How the minds of droids work is not fully explained in the films.
Obi-wan in the PT assumes they don't think and is and expresses relief that they don't (presumably fearing some Cylon style uprising).
In terms of writing, story and audience response the Artoo and Threepio are meant to be every inch real and worthy of our empathy as Han or Leia, only the majority of the humans and aliens in that universe see them as utility objects.
Artoo certain has character, demonstrates initiative, courage, empathy, fear, sadness, humour, surprise etc.
He may be mimicking those responses but the audience is clearly meant to buy into that behaviour.
So a memory wipe is the equivalent (in terms of audience response as defined by the OT) as death of personality or 'soul'.
It parallels the Vader persona overwriting the Anakin persona.
It might be interest to create a pre-wipe persona for Threepio which is more like the droid's less fussy, less self centered identity which we see in unguarded moments.
Like his offering of his components to repair Artoo and his concern for the other heroes on Bespin before he gets shot (even though they do keep treating him like an annoying ring tone).
Ehhhhhh....this is a little bit to heavy for me. Honestly, C-3P0 really doesn't deserve that kind of attention. I love him, but this isn't a story about the tragic loss of a droid's soul.
Bingowings said:
So a memory wipe is the equivalent (in terms of audience response as defined by the OT) as death of personality or 'soul'.
This is where the idea falls apart. There's no reason that a droid's personality can't be part of their programming or in some other way be untied from memory.
What makes a character a character, how he says things or the sum total of his experiences?
As a machine presumably his voice, his general demeanor etc could be adjustable (iPhone's Siri can has different regional voice styles and that's a dumb mobile phone personal assistant).
As a character (one we are clearly meant to care about like Yoda or Han) Threepio is the sum total of his memories.
That's what his life is.
Wipe that and what he was is dead and he becomes something else.
If you just twiddled his voice setting he would still be the same droid with the same memories.
If you keep the voice but remove the memories he becomes a blank slate with the same voice.
If Leia had all her memories removed you'd care right?
So why not Threepio?
One is a droid, the other is a human but the OT as framed told us that we should care about him as much as her even if she doesn't.
It's a fictional universe. There is absolutely nothing that says that you can't do it that way, and it makes sense to enact these changes in the interest of improving the story.
3PO and R2 being there doesn't mean they're getting the spotlight or anything, but they should have a reason to be there. They're not that funny, so they can't serve their intended purpose of comic relief.
On the other hand, if it's symbolic and kind of sad, it fits with the tone of the end of the PT and mirrors the main events of the story.
An interesting way of doing it would be to make 3PO into his original conception, a car salesman kind of guy. He'd have his own small character arc where he learns to not be such a jerk, and then in the interest of protecting secrets, he agrees to have his memory wiped.
That might be interesting but would a used car salesman style personality be employed in the diplomatic circles that Padme and the Jedi move in?
The existing footage has the decision made for him which is more representative of the droid/human relationship as seen in the OT (which is the touchstone in my view to making the PT work as Star Wars films).
Probably not, but that might be a good reason for him to start on Tatooine.
Bingowings said:
If you just twiddled his voice setting he would still be the same droid with the same memories.
If you keep the voice but remove the memories he becomes a blank slate with the same voice.
Like I said, this depends on the idea that droids' personalities are tied to their memories.
If Leia had all her memories removed you'd care right?
So why not Threepio?
See above.
Heck, there are people who lose their memories without personality change!
That being said, we're both beating this to death. I'm in favor of bluescreening a person in an OT Threepio costume into the PT as a member of Amidala's staff, something like that.
As someone who has had relatives with dementia, from my perspective, even partial memory loss has a dramatic effect on personality.
Total narrative memory loss would result in death of personality.
The mode of expression (tone of voice etc) might remain the same but the person that was is lost forever (the person that emerges after, if they can, might be considered by some a better person but it's not the same person).
That is a human being.
The mechanics of droids minds aren't explained in the story.
We know the droids stay in character when humans aren't listening or when they think they are on their own and continue a private narrative but that might be just a quirk of programming.
In terms of the audience that isn't as important as their position as characters.
We are meant to care about the droids (which carry most of the first film and play a pivotal role in the whole of the OT) in the same way as the other characters.
They are our point of view or witness for the majority of the time.
So in terms of making the PT work it's necessary to return to that way of addressing those characters.
I'm not arguing that they should carry the story (though it might have been a good idea if we were starting from scratch).
But the audience should see them as real characters that worry and feel fear, pain etc (even if mechanically they don't and the rest of the characters don't believe it).
When Owen casually insists that Luke has Artoo's memory wiped he is casually insisting that the little guy we have already come to be interested and endeared to be killed.
He is a slave, his memories are inconvenient to his owner.
If a human did that to another human it would be seen as inhuman and yet we, the audience are meant to both empathise with Artoo and simultaneously recognise that Owen doesn't see Artoo as a human (even though we are encouraged to do so).
This is an example of Lucas not understanding how his own work worked.
Star Wars (1977) is more narratively complex than he realises.
Having Artoo laugh his nuts off at Threepio having his mind wiped is a total inversion of the character, it turns him into a evil sod.
Changing R2's "laughing" to a whimper would go a long way.
There's no reason the memory wipe has to be the equivalent of re-formatting a hard drive. It's probably more like when you root thru your computer every now and then and delete old files and folders you don't need anymore. Your computer still works the same way it did before, it's just missing some information here and there compared to before.
As for Owen not recognizing him - it was over 20 years later. Droids are commonplace and there's only so many models and colors they come in. I saw a car at a repair shop that was the same exact make, model, year and color as a car I got rid of six years ago. When I got closer and looked at some of the details, it wasn't exactly the same but at a glance I thought it was. The last time Owen saw 3PO was when he (3PO) had the rusty body plates. When they meet again at the sandcrawler, 3PO is gold (albeit dirty) but not the rust color he was 20-odd years ago.
My outlook on life - we’re all on the Hindenburg anyway…no point fighting over the window seat.
I don't buy that.
Owen is arguing that Artoo is now their property so all that junk about belonging to Obi-Wan would be exactly like getting a second hand laptop with an old user account still on it (or a second hand mobile phone with an address book of the previous owner's numbers).
From an owner's point of view.
Yes there is more to it but we don't know exactly what yet.
From an audience point of view it's that information that makes him a 'person', and a witness to the earlier part of the story.
If Owen wiped that he wouldn't have his mission from the Princess in his mind or possibly his past memory of being 'friends' with Threepio.
As an audience we have an emotional investment in that 'data' like we would with Luke's memory of his Uncle and Aunt and Ben after they died.
While the Vulture Droids make sense in a Science Fiction context (as with the pilot free Cylon Raiders in NuGalactica) does it make sense visually in a Science Fantasy context?
Earlier ideas had droids piloting fighters like their human counterparts.
We see droids driving vehicles and piloting aircraft so would it make more visual sense to see them pilot the fighters instead of being the fighters?
^Good point...and potentially in agreement.
I actually thought that the Battle Droids flew Vulture Droids when the movie first came out.
It'd be cramped in there, but Battle Droids fold up, and don't need comfort. Wouldn't be too hard to explain.
Bingowings said:
While the Vulture Droids make sense in a Science Fiction context (as with the pilot free Cylon Raiders in NuGalactica) does it make sense visually in a Science Fantasy context?
Earlier ideas had droids piloting fighters like their human counterparts.
We see droids driving vehicles and piloting aircraft so would it make more visual sense to see them pilot the fighters instead of being the fighters?
I think we can still assume droids are piloting them. At least I don't recall anything in the movies that can prove otherwise.
aalenfae said:
I actually thought that the Battle Droids flew Vulture Droids when the movie first came out.
So did I.
You might be able to pretend that but it's pretty obvious without reading any books or online material that they aren't intended to be piloted by droids.
They are droids.
At one point they were meant to be general fighter craft with robot pilots inside, then a designer (I'm not sure which one at the moment) came to the conclusion that the ship might as well be a droid itself.
They walk around, their heads bop up and down in response to stimulus and they 'talk' to each other.
Yeah, I'm definitely in favor of removing any Vulture Droids that look like they're acting like independent droids (ROTS, in particular). The Battle Droids pilot tanks, but not spaceships?
Bingowings said:
You might be able to pretend that but it's pretty obvious without reading any books or online material that they aren't intended to be piloted by droids.
They are droids.
At one point they were meant to be general fighter craft with robot pilots inside, then a designer (I'm not sure which one at the moment) came to the conclusion that the ship might as well be a droid itself.
They walk around, their heads bop up and down in response to stimulus and they 'talk' to each other.
The idea of droid starfighters only bothered me during that one shot in Episode III where all the droids are walking on the invisible hand, and they talk to each other and make these laughing sounds. Always thought that was very cartoonish and Un-Star Wars like.
If you had pilots in those ships some of them could still be robots but a few ace pilots could be aliens or humans on the Confederate side.
Vladius said:
Changing R2's "laughing" to a whimper would go a long way.
And change the music so we don't get this "upbeat comical moment" feeling.
Bingowings said:
If you had pilots in those ships some of them could still be robots but a few ace pilots could be aliens or humans on the Confederate side.
I'd be comfortable with a mix of Alien-Piloted Craft and Droid Starfighters.
why stop at one pilot? i think there should be three!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPL7QPCfVZc&feature=related
in all seriousness though, my IDEAL Prequel Trilogy would be a campish retro science fiction romp to the brink of anakin being played by adam west.