Star Words: Episode IV, Part 2

[matril]

We're going to stick with Threepio for another entry, because these suffering droids serve as our entry point into this strange galaxy. I just love Lucas's brazenness for filling so much of the film's beginning with "The Adventures of Threepio and Artoo," as inspired by the peasants in Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress. It's remarkable how such a strange, inhuman duo can be so endearing and even relatable. Let's look at another exchange that furthers this purpose.

Artoo, having received a secret mission from the princess, is about to steal an escape pod. Threepio strenuously objects, and their argument is all the more entertaining in that we can only fully understand Threepio's side of it. It's kind of like a scene with someone talking on the phone to an unheard caller (only better), as we guess what Artoo might have said from Threepio's highly affronted reactions.

"Don't call me a mindless philosopher, you overweight glob of grease!"

I mean. Robots are supposed to be mechanical, emotionless automotons. They talk in monotone voices and dutifully follow their programming. But apparently part of these droids' programming is to exchange cutting insults. I love it. It reveals so much of Threepio and Artoo's relationship, the former fussing over moral implications and perils, the latter charging ahead with blunt determination. It's hilarious, it's a quick and effective character sketch, and it sets a quirky and surprising tone for this space opera.

Next, a less than ideal father-daughter meeting (though no one will know that for another two films....)

Comments

[krpalmer]

I'd known in an abstract sort of way where the inspiration for Artoo and Threepio came from, but the first time I watched The Hidden Fortress the resemblance hit me in an instant when I first saw the two peasant soldiers. So far as "focusing on them to start" goes, though, not that long ago I saw someone sagely explaining how one of George Lucas's colleagues had told him to introduce Luke sooner in the movie, apparently not quite aware Lucas had filmed the scenes and then not included them... I'm afraid I held my tongue and didn't say the commentator might have been trusting in a "Lucas-dismissing source," though.

With this instalment continuing to have a sort of "back in 1977" feeling, I started contemplating previous fictional robots. My first thought was of Robby from Forbidden Planet, although I then thought of "the Robot" from "Lost in Space" even though I haven't actually seen any of that series. I suppose Isaac Asimov's "positronic robot" stories have their own bearing on that picture, even if part of "the Three Laws" is finding unusual ways to apply them. So far as "a comedic duo where one interprets for the other," though, I thought back just to the start of the 1970s and hit on Snoopy and Woodstock...