this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2026
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From a SF perspective, droids are universally shittily written throughout the franchise:
You have robots that are completely intelligent and self aware and can do any job and they just sort exists side-by-side with humans as helpers without having any significant impact on the economy or asking for rights.
I know there are droid rebellions somewhere in the lore, but droids are assiduously unstudied on film.
Also worth mentioning that a lot of droids start developing personalities if you don't wipe their memories regularly, which is kind of existentially horrifying.
Anti-Janets.
Its kind of like the "wait do they eat the pokemon?" question, where its gone unmentioned for so long its become too big to tackle properly. Instead you get a brief mention of slowpoke soup or a droid who says hey treat me like a person but 90% of the time its brushed under the rug.
There's also, in Scarlet & Violet, Klawf al ajillo, which is just a soup of Klawf claw cooked in garlic, as well as Klawf sticks. This is in addition to a bunch of indistinct meats that seemingly also have to come from Pokémon. (Unless those meats are lab-grown, which seems plausible in a world where Pokémon can magically regenerate to full health at a Pokémon Center.)
Klawf can grow back their claws if they lose them, but organically losing their claws is definitely not how Klawf claws are being harvested for commercial sale.
I suppose we could use whatever technology is being utilised at Pokemon centres to lop limbs off of Pokemon and then regrow them. No animal killing!
In A New Hope, Luke mockingly says “hi” to R2D2 when C3P0 introduces them, as if saying hi to a droid is stupid as they’re not alive.
Later in the series, when R2 gets his head blown off in combat, Luke doesn’t blink. After the fight, they unload R2 from the X wing and he says “fix him” and walks away. Droids are very much not human in the OG trilogy.
Then we get to the prequels. R2 saves the ship as they get past the blockade, and the queen does a formal thank you for the droid. It really is a complete 180 and now droids are “people” in the prequels.
They're not treated as equals in the original, that's for sure, but they're sure written as self-aware individuals.
Luke threatens to wipe Arturito's memory, too, if he doesn't stop misbehaving; or maybe C3PO mentions it because he's internalized droid hatred?
I just popped in the DVD of the Lucas re-release of New Hope and Luke is very concerned when R2 comes down, says "oh no", and only relaxes when the technician says, "we'll fix him" ... so I think we see some growth there.
I’m pretty sure Luke gives an insincere “hi” to R2D2 because he’d rather be running down to Tosche Station instead of doing farm work.
He doesn’t blink when R2 gets shot during the trench run, but his face always conveyed to me that he’s scared shitless to now be alone with fighters on his trail while focusing on pushing through that fear because now he is the last hope for the galaxy.
Before attacking the Death Star, doesn’t Luke tell the technicians take good care of R2D2? “That little droid and I have been through a lot together”, or something like that? Are those the words of someone who doesn’t care?
I mean, I say the same thing to the mechanic when I take my car in for work. We can have sentimental value in stuff we own, doesn’t mean we identify them as independent agents, or sentient beings.
No medals for the Wookiee OR the droids!
I'm mean screw the droids, but Chewie?! No medal?!