The Tragedy of Droids in Star Wars

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.

PATREON
Support this project on Patreon:

PAYPAL
Make a one-time donation via PayPal:

WISHLIST
Send research materials for video essays:

REFERENCES
• Race in American Science Fiction by Isiah Lavender III
• Imagining Slaves and Robots in Literature, Film, and Pop Culture by Gregory Jerome Hampton
• The Cambridge Companion to Slavery in American Literature (Chapter 15) Beyond the Borders of the Neo-Slave Narrative by Jeffrey Allen Tucker
• Asimov on Science Fiction in Science Fiction Digest, October-November 1981
• Janelle Monae's "Many Moons" music video

NOVELS REFERENCED
• Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
• The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson
• Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany
• vN: The Machine Dynasty by Madeline Ashby
• A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
• Autonomous by Annalee Newitz

SUBTITLES
• You can help make with subtitles and captions for this video on Amara:

TEXT TRANSCRIPT

COMMENTS
All YouTube comments are held for approval. If you'd like to participate in constructive online conversations about this video, please share it on your social media networks.

FAIR USE

CREDITS
Writer/Editing: Jonathan McIntosh
Motion Graphics: Jonathan McIntosh
Outro music: Rick Lopez

[n.m.]

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.

[LimeyLassen]

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.

[murphysaburningdeathtrap]

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.

[eldawhatever]

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.

[akorn]

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.

[calliewright]

I always felt disturbed by how uncaring of C3-PO and R2-D2 their 'friends' seem to be. These droids were an integral part of every step in the fight against the empire, savings lives across the galaxy. In Rise of Sky walker they were more than happy to essentially kill C3-PO almost with a relieved smile. I'm glad it wasn't just me who found that horrifying

[Anon]

I've always thought everyone treated the droids terribly and I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed.

[KensanOni]

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.

[thewostr]

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.

[laurahtje]

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!

[rogue]

When I watched Clone Wars it always stuck out to me how differently the narrative treated the clones and the battle droids. The show went out of it’s way at every opportunity to humanise the clones and make the audience care about them instead of seeing them as faceless cannon fodder. There was one set of episodes in particular that stood out to me where Anakin’s devision is transferred to work under a new general who cares significantly less about their wellbeing. The episodes are entirely from the clones point of view and do a great job of making you care about them and the bond they have with each other.

The last fight scene is a blood bath. When faced with a single, powerful opponent, the clones are slaughtered. It’s one of the most powerful scenes in the show. In it, the clones are all wearing their helmets. They were completely indistinguishable and yet every death devastated me. What got to me was that I’d seen this exact scene so many times in so many different stories, the fearless warrior cutting through hordes of faceless mooks. Just by flipping the perspective Clone Wars took a fun action trope and turned it into a tragedy. It completely changed the way I watched the show, it made me more aware of every casualty the war left in its wake. It made me care more.

Which made it really fucking jarring to go straight back to droids being slaughtered for the sake of comedy by the next episode. Especially since so often a part of the joke is just their terrified reactions to realising they’re about to die. The clones and the droids are basically the same in a lot of ways. They’re both artificially created sentient beings who, from the moment they’re born, are given no options but to fight in a war they had no say in. They’re given little to no autonomy, they’re not even given names, and those who command them often treat their lives as disposable. And yet the show only expects me to value the lives of the clones. Why? Because they serve the heroes? They didn’t get to choose who they fight for and neither did the droids. They’re comparable to child soldiers (not that the republic has a problem with more literal child soldiers

Thank you for putting my feelings into words. This has been bothering me for a While now and I’m glad I’m not the only one who found the treatment of droids by the narrative to be kinda messed up.

[itsgonnabeokai]

Star wars treats stormtroopers the same way, they are faceless marionettes until they aren't

[LLWTF]

People were really upset when in the Prequels it was shown that the jedi are ok with slavery. But every Robot in Star Wars is shown to be sentient and nobody cared that people enslave them.

[HashknightGaming]

That scene with chewy trying to protect c3po shows he is a lover more then a fighter and he is a hell of a fighter.

[kaiserberserk]

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.

[calvincorn]

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.

[ninjahunter]

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.'

[ActualLiteralKyle]

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.

[HeavyTFreal]

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.

[pathofthetrickster]

It's actually chilling what they did to L3. Taking away her autonomy 😭 this trapped consciousness is a terrifying thing