This was the moment I checked out of the prequels. Vader, as a child, built C-3PO? I’m supposed to continue suspending my disbelief, now? Impossible.
Definitely one of my least favorite aspects of them. Everyone must get a backstory, and they must all be interrelated. The galaxy’s a small place apparently.
Story takes place in a whole-ass galaxy. Everyone winds up back on Tatooine for some stupid reason; the planet with barely one ecosystem, practically zero vegetation, no economy that matters, yet populated with two (?) cities. Other planets also have exactly one ecosystem, culture, and one optional urban center1. There’s also only 12 or so planets that matter, yet half of everyone you meet are from all the other ones. You may not like what you see, but this is peak sci-fi writing performance, right here. /s
This story could take place in a diverse corner of a single Earth-like planet and it wouldn’t be all that different.
1 - Meanwhile planet Coruscant is an urban center where the ecosystem can best be described as “traffic” and the culture is “city folk that inexplicably eat at 1950’s-style diners”.
Single-biome planet is a quite common trope in “science fiction” (tvtropes warning)…
It’s really funny when you think about it. Nearly all movie planets are actually real places on Earth, from Tatooine (Tunisia) to Endor (Washington IIRC).
Even funnier, a lot of low-budget alien planets (especially the rocky sceneries) are found within a 30 mi radius of Hollywood or whatever the actor guild considers a long distance shoot.
Like that sand pit that are basically all planets on SG1, it’s amazing what a little set dressing and different camera positions do to make a new location with the help of an audience willing to suspend their disbelief.
Exactly this.
Why was Tattooine featured SO MUCH in a galaxy of planets?
Because Star Wars was based on Dune
Even Frank Herbert would have suggested adding more planets.
Maybe C3PO was a kit. Like a gay robot Lego set for ages 5-12. Those Jawas can sell practically anything.
He built it out of junk. Most of internal components were prolly cherry picked and then maaaybe fixed up a bit. Sheesh. Like, kiddo may have been good at soldering, so he fixed a few electronic parts.
There are other bots we see exactly like 3po so clearly not much custom work
This is my favorite theory. I mean, I’m not a star wars historian deep in debate, buffet plate at Bennigan’s, but I like to think I know my stuff.
Gotta make the money, credit’s no good. When the Jawas run the shop in your neighborhood
Not when, in a universe known to contain non-organic beings able to perform tasks like smuggling plans, a gunnery officer decided to save lasers (as though they were apparently a precious resource) and not fire on an escape pod with no life signs? I feel like that would be the most appropriate moment to stop taking Star Wars seriously.
It’s okay to accept it’s got a bunch of plot holes and enjoy it for what it is: grungy WWII fighter pilots/samurai/wizards/Vietnam war allegory in space.
Edit: also nukes
You need to treat the empire like a corporation. They do tons of dumb shit lol
Well yeah, but I was very young. I haven’t re-watched the original movies in a very long time for a very good reason. I’ll keep those memories intact, thank you.
Right? And Luke leaving behind a prosperous moisture farming career to go fight baddies? Um, no thank you. Know your audience, Lucas.
I see you fellow dadder
Look, that dog is making fresh Dilithium Crystals - someone get a bag!
I don’t think he’s supposed to have designed it or anything. I think it’s an existing model, and he just scrounged for scrap to put him together. It’s basically the thing he’s known for as a child. His pod racer seems a little more unbelievable, right?
Not that he couldn’t have put together a droid, but that he put this very specific, very integral-to-later-events one together himself. It’s ludicrously coincidental.
it’s very synchronous rather than causal. i don’t think the rhetoric and messaging of the original star wars was for you. if you’re familiar with the concepts and ideas that went into star wars in the first place then, at least imo, it’s a very natural plot turn that threepio was himself built by vader. yes, the story revolves around anakin in this grandiose and cosmic way. that’s a feature, not a bug.
Hence why star wars is a chosen one, hero’s quest, prophetised fantasy. Not a Sci fi.
When you and your kin are all prophetised to do important shit, there is no coincidence. it’s all part of a bigger divine plan of fate. Or it’s the midi-chlorians or something I dunno, I slept through the prequels.
Makes more sense when you realise there’s only like 30ish people in the entire star wars universe
Mine was Padme dressing in BDSM gear around the incel monk with an obvious crush on her, and then saying he made her uncomfortable when he started creeping on her
Generally I think women should be able to wear what makes them feel pretty/empowered/safe without getting creeped on, but goddamn, read the room chica!
Also, “I hate sand”. Kenobi H Christ, it’s awkward
The whole Anakin-Padme romance was just awful. Weird Al’s line in The Saga Begins:
Ah, do you see him hitting on the queen Though he’s just nine and she’s fourteen? Yeah, he’s probably gonna marry her someday
sums up the absurdity quite well.
Its a five year gap. When their young, its no good. But once they’re both in their 20s, who cares?
It is weird/creepy that they included it so blatently in the first movie with the kids. A real 9 year old would have showed her his toy dino collection and a real teenager would have to play along while despretly looking for an escape route.
I think about this line more frequently than I would expect. Weird Al is a master of parody.
We can’t be together, I’m a senator!
What. When was Padmé in BDSM gear?
It’s hyperbole, but inspired by this outfit
“If you’re going to insist on existing while being so hot, don’t be surprised if I break my solemn vows, and possibly kill a bunch of kids and sand people. Okay? It’s your fault really.”
I’m not sure it is hyperbole.
Yikes
Since her outfit is white instead of black I don’t think I would ever have noticed if it hadn’t been pointed out to me. Nothing wrong with it though, it is mostly funny. XD
Dafuq?
That’s what you’re supposed to do, though. They’re fun space cowboy movies. Anybody who gets upset about the prequels being cheesy or having plot holes is just remembering the originals through rose-colored lenses.
Revolutionary for the time, sure, but the fact that some of it didn’t work in spite of the level of ambition is (for me, at least) part of the charm.
Hold on hold on. You trying to argue that the prequels are the same quality as the originals, that’s just batshit crazy. The revisionism these last years about the prequels because all the kids who were born right around then and grew up watching them is wild. They are not good movies. Sure there’s stuff to like and anyone can find enjoyment in nostalgia, but to say the originals are just as bad and it’s only rose colored glasses is just wrong.
Not just as bad, but bad in a lot of the same ways.
IDK, I kind of agree with them. As a 90s kid, the originals didn’t really impress 12-year-old me. The acting was amateurish and cheesy, the “special effects” were cheesy, the story was extremely cliche by that point, the writing was 18-month aged Parmesan cheesy. To 12-year-old-me, the prequels had slightly better acting, better special effects, a much more compelling and interesting story, and the writing was still pretty cheesy. Maybe the dark, brooding main character really did it for my 12-year-old emo self, I dunno. But yeah, I don’t think it’s that crazy to prefer the prequels to the original trilogy. Like, looking back, neither trilogies really hold up, but the originals are very much propped up pretty much just because they were “revolutionary” nearly fifty years ago.
As another 90s kid that watched the prequels in theatres as they came out: I enjoyed the originals, even though I was only about half your age at the time. Probably worth noting that my mum made sure that I watched the original trilogy before Phantom Menace. And I’m sorry but the acting in the PT is supposed to be better than in the OT? What? No. Nothing against the actors because a lot of it was due to writing (especially for Anakin and Padmé’s shared scenes, especially especially in II where Anakin is such a fucking creep) and direction, but no.
Yes, the acting is better in the prequels than the original trilogy. The main character actors in the prequels had no idea what they were doing, and you could tell. I think part of that was writing, and part was inexperience on the actors’ parts. The prequels kept the bad writing, but at least had more experienced actors reading that terrible script for the most part, which makes a noticeable difference in acting quality. Keep in mind, the prequels have more characters in them than Anakin and Padme - I feel like you’re tunneling on those two.
Revenge of the Sith was the only one I found worth watching.
I liked the last two but that was the best of the bunch.
I remember being so bored watching Ep 2 that I started to notice that every time a scene changes, Padmé has a different outfit on her. The most suspenseful part was when a scene ended with her tied to a pole in an arena. Surely she won’t be able to change now, right? Well, turns out that right as the action switched back to her, she got slashed across her back by a monster and took the opportunity to tear up her long white dress into a different set of clothes.
I haven’t seen them in nearly 20 years. It’s embarrassing how Star Wars obsessed I was as a teenager. Like, holy shit embarrassing. I “photoshopped” images of myself with light sabers and everything.
Fuck it. I’ll show you guys. Man. I shouldn’t.
I thought the one was gone forever, but my sister wasn’t going to let that happen. She said when I posted it to MySpace she knew I’d be embarrassed one day and delete it so she printed it off. Haha. What a dick.
Damn. Here goes.
Beautiful
Looool.
You’re right that the OT are just fun movies that are much less impressive than when they came out.
The prequels are hot steaming piles of shit in comparison though. Maybe you need to remove your rose tinted glasses?
The sequels are worse movies than the prequels.
If that’s how you feel, ok. I’d love to hear your reasoning for why any of the prequels are better than FA.
If absolutely nothing else, none of the prequels are just a blatant, shittier retread of Episode IV. They all at least have their own identities, even if the identities of Episodes I and II are shit. When not taking Episode IV into account, Episode III is still absolutely better than FA even though it’s just like a 7/10.
Even though Episode I and II are actually agonizing for me to sit through, I would still put them above FA because they’re not just shallowly copying someone else’s homework to make a nostalgia-addicted fanbase collectively shit their pants.
Drag likes movies that explore how an opportunistic politician can subvert democracy to create a fascist dictatorship with thunderous applause from the people who are about to be oppressed.
Pointing out that the prequels have the slightest hint of an interesting story does not change that they are garbage movies. All you’ve done is summarize the plot in vague terms that are only slightly more vague than the movies themselves. They do not “explore how an opportunistic politician can subvert democracy to create a fascist dictatorship”, they barely even dip their toes in the attempt.
The prequels do not do an adequate job of establishing why the republic is vulnerable to being hijacked by a fascist dictator. They do not adequately establish how Palpatine is able to seize power. Germany was reeling from WW2 and was thus vulnerable to a charismatic dictator like Hitler. Hitler successfully used the hate and anger of german citiziens, caused by the very real suffering they were experiencing post WW1.
What the fuck happened in the prequels? There was a trade dispute, whatever that means, (it’s never explained in the slightest), and so Palpatine gets appointed supreme leader or something? No suffering of average people is asserted, no populist rhetoric that gains momentum because of real suffering. Just, there’s a war so we need a supreme leader and it has to be Palpatine.
The plot is completely nonsensical and I challenge you to outline Palpatines rise to power in detail. Every single character acts like a complete idiot and does nothing as Palpatine blatantly seizes power.
Not to mention the dog shit dialogue, stiff delivery, boring characters, racist caricatures, and blatant and obnoxious pandering to children.
The prequels are absolute awful movies in basically every way imaginable. Pretending they are some sort of intellectual piece of work just exposes you as an idiot or someone who hasn’t watched the movies since they were 8 years old.
Sorry to be a dick but those movies are seriously fucking bad and I have issues.
The Republic’s democracy is not functioning. The senators are corrupt and only care about laws that benefit the 1%. We see the streets of Coruscant outside of the Senate and Temple, and it’s a shithole. There’s rampant poverty and drug use.
The Trade Federation are a symbol of bourgeois corruption in the minds of the people. The Trade Federation impose unreasonable tariffs and fines on the people, contributing to poverty. That’s what they’re doing to Naboo. The people sympathise with Naboo because Naboo is being oppressed the same way they are. And when Naboo stands up to the bullies, they get blockaded and subject to an illegal invasion.
The Republic does not have an army, a command structure, or a political mechanism for dealing with war. This is silly, but bear with drag. The Senate has to vote to go to war with the Trade Federation. But the Senators can’t agree on how, and they’d much rather be voting on corrupt issues like giving themselves raises or giving tax breaks to trillionaires.
Palpatine offers to take over all the messy business of controlling the political wartime strategy. The Senators support this idea because they don’t give a shit and just want the problem to go away. The people support this idea because they’re tired of the Senators never getting anything important done, and the see Naboo as a symbol of their own problems. Palpatine promises to bring the Trade Federation down a few notches and make life easier for everyone.
Palpatine gains complete control over the Republic’s military policy, and then proceeds to keep the Republic in a forever war that increases poverty and destruction, while promising everyone that the answer to the problem is to just give him more power. Like George Bush.
“The 3PO-series protocol droid, also known as the 3PO-series protocol unit, was a model of protocol droid produced by Cybot Galactica sometime prior to the Invasion of Naboo. They were equipped with a TranLang III communication module, and as a result were fluent in over 6 million forms of communication. C-3PO was an example of this model, though he was rebuilt out of spare parts. TC-series protocol droids appeared similar to 3PO units.”
Wookieepedia
There are a ton of 3PO-series droids in the Star Wars universe.
Vader would not look at a 3P0 droid and think “maybe that’s the droid I built as a child and left on a plant in the outer rim”
Same with R2-D2
It’s just for the movie sake that there aren’t 30 CP0s and 50 R2-D2 units running around in the background. “Wait did Biggs just get R2 in his x-wing?” No, it’s some completely different droid I’ve never seen. Some things have to be adapted for the movie.
As for difficulty, no harder than building like a PC. If there are a ton of CP0 units, he simply takes working parts from a dozen broken ones and pieces them together. He’s a child, they fib and stretch the truth. He could have just attached new legs to the unit that needed only legs and then went through the setup process of “programing” him.
He didn’t Tony Stark C3P0. He pieced together a robot from pre-made CP0 scrap parts.
And according to other posts in here, they’re sentient, and property. And they let kids build them. He also happened to build the one that would be partially responsible for his downfall years later. Star Wars. The universe that keeps on giving.
Anakin was able to build this in a cave! With a box of scraps!
Suspend it and buy the merch!
Considering they are sentient beings they are basically Skywalker family/property, is it really so far fetched they would accompany Leia? Like, they can’t think for themselves and as much as Vader loved the thrill of being right in the center of the action so did r2. 3p0 just wants to be loved.
So, they let kids bring sentient beings into existence. Sentient beings that are property. This opens a whole new can of beans on the Star Wars universe.
Tattooine isn’t really known for its strict laws on morality. Anikin, the slave, was allowed to drive a pod racer, which apparently had like a 10% survival rate per race.
When Vader found out it was R2 he was up against, he knew it was all over.
When R2 stole the plans Vader was looking for it changed his entire campaign.
For R2 it was Thursday.It’s no coincidence that R2 went to a planet full of sand.
You mean the planet full of sand that’s somehow central to the entire Skywalker saga despite supposedly being a remote mostly criminal hideout in the outer rim.
And actually the droids were there to deliver Leia’s message to Obi-Wan.
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Yea I wonder if that was ever addressed? I don’t remember the movies much and I never read the books but Vader must have seen, like, security footage or something and been like hey wait a fucking a second.
Why would he look at security footage? He’s not a cop from the 80s, he just commands his army to find those. He’s not evil enought to micromanage.
Levels of Evil
Level I - burn kittens and watch them suffer
Level II - build a space weapon so massive it blows up planets
Level III - micromanage your minions and review security footageImagine standing around during guard duty and Darth Vader calls up saying if you have time to lean you have time to clean.
Let’s touch base on this at a later date and see if we can really drill down and get our ducks in a row. I don’t have the bandwidth right now, so we’ll circle back now that it’s on my radar.
/mechanical breathing
There was an old YouTube series about this called Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager
Level IV - Negotiations of trade route duty and tariffs in bad faith
Level V - Sand.
You got 1 and 2 mixed up
Surely there must have been at least a few kittens (or their Star Wars equivalent) on Alderaan… I feel like that would make Level I a subset of Level II by definition.
But they didn’t watch kittens suffer. Yuge difference.
TIL my boss is more evil than Darth Vader.
Unironically, somewhat credible supervillains back then where a lot less cruel than many managers nowdays.
There are plenty of 3P and R2 series robots running around. There’s no reason to believe he thought he knew them.
Further, there’s a comic where he sees C-3PO’s blasted body and has a flashback. So even though they didn’t share the screen, Vader did share a moment.
My actual biggest issue is that Vader stood in front of Leia and didn’t seem to have any idea that she could use the force or that she was his daughter.
that she could use the force
Except she couldn’t. She was Force sensitive, but had no training and couldn’t “use” the Force. And he had no idea he had children until after ANH. If he felt any connection at all to Leia he could have easily dismissed it as knowing Bail during the Clone Wars and that her family connection to Bail.
My actual biggest issue is that Mara Jade isn’t canon
Ok nerd, whatever you say.
I’m only salty because you’re absolutely right. (Just kidding, I’m not actually salty, I just think it’s funny to say dumb shit)
I don’t think they have security cameras. You see characters just walking through the halls and you see them running away from soldiers easily hiding behind corners. They don’t even have security near their power sources or jails.
I know they can record videos and holograms. Maybe it’s against culture. Maybe they are just idiots. Maybe the story could not move forward if security was competent.
It’s 70’s technology. They have a couple cameras in prime spots, but no one reviews them unless there’s a reason to. No one is watching them live.
But… why not?
They literally have real artificial intelligence. You don’t even need people. I’ve seen this kid make one with spare parts.
We’ve seen droids are valuable, worth reprogramming, and last an incredibly long time. I guess they are better used elsewhere? Yet uncle Owen, a simple moisture farmer, can afford multiple of them seemingly on a whim.
Also the main place we are talking about there not being enough cameras is warships which lack space. I don’t think battleships have anything like that today. Why doesn’t the fully constructed Death Star in A New Hope have a fully monitored camera system?
No idea.Perhaps Galen Erso managed to include that major oversight in his design. Along with the many other problems with the first Death Star like the vent shaft that destroys the whole thing.One thing about Star Wars that is similar to westerns the film genre, but almost reversed, is that the universe is always in constant decline. Things are always worse than the generation before. So holding onto last generation’s tech is a benefit.
Where in a typical western it’s about the new generation replacing the old, the new tech replacing the old. A new railroad is replacing the horse. Star Wars exists in a place where weapons and armor can last generations.
Characterized by extreme refinement or self-indulgence, often to the point of unworldiness or decadence
Damn you meme, making me learn a new word.
You know there’s just some middle school English teacher out there making memes just for this purpose.
It took me a bit to recognise that as describing “effete”. I don’t think you found the best definition - the main way it’s used today is affected, overrefined, and effeminate.
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Considering he was a standard protocol droid (E chu ta!), he probably built him from the scrap of previously deactivated ones. Still impressive, but certainly not “from scratch.”
I imagine it’s like someone building a computer today. You plug in all the relevant components together but it doesn’t require too much expertise.
I like this analogy in particular because it also explains how Vader might not have connected the dots that this was the same protocol and astrometric droids from his childhood.
When I was a kid I had an old apple IIe computer. An IT guy I knew gave me some parts for it that his company was discarding and I added them to my computer.
But if I were to see another apple II computer today, I would never assume that it was my exact computer from my childhood.
Well, computers don’t have distinct numbers/names they’re called by, either. There’s only one C-3P0 and Anakin called him that when he built him.
I don’t think Vader and the Imperials knew that the protocol droid’s name was C-3PO, though.
True, true, he wouldn’t know him on sight. He’s probably seen lots of golden protocol droids.
He didn’t recognize him because of the leg.
I think it would be harder because not only are droids more complex, but he had to source all his parts from a junkyard.
Maybe the galaxy has an excellent standards committee so all these components are compatible. Like if you just connect red wires to red wires everything just works? So he just went around the junkyard looking for compatible wires and stuff?
Anakin Skywalker was able to build this in a desert with scraps!
That’s how building a computer has been for 20 years.
So, basically, he was a tech-bro who made a fancy ChatGPT wrapper.
Yeah, but I think a droid with its miles of wire and circuits is far more impressive than a tech bro using chatgpt to build a front end for chat gpt
U wanna wonga?
The Betty Crocker of droids.
R2D2 probably remembers Anakin wiping out the Jedi. I wonder if he can get PTSD
distressed beeping
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Nah, he’s too scrappy
There are many gold protocol droids and Blue astromech droids. They aren’t unique
But together? It’s not like they commonly run in the same circles and team up for espionage missions.
Sure, but do those other droids tend to accompany each other everywhere in the galaxy?
Seems like it would vary based on how close to Naboo you were. The protocol droids like C3PO seem to be common everywhere, while R2D2 seems to be the rarer of the two, especially after the end of the Clone Wars.
