The very first characters we're introduced to in Star Wars are a pair of robots
C-3PO: Did you hear that? They shut down the main reactor.
C-3PO: We'll be destroyed for sure! This is madness.
And it's through their mechanical eyes that we initially experience this galaxy far far away
R2D2 and C-3PO are cast as emotionally relatable underdogs
and we immediately empathize with them and their predicament
C-3PO: I'm going to regret this.
Imperial: There goes another one. Imperial: Hold your fire, there's no life forms.
I'd argue that droids are as central to the success and popularity of star wars as Stormtroopers
or Jedi Knights, if not more so
Announcer: Hollywood California, August 1977
Announcer: To the world famous Chinese Theater come the stars of
Announcer: the biggest box office success in motion picture history.
In the decades since endearing droids have become an almost ubiquitous fixture
in popular culture
In fact it's not really a star wars story
D-O: Hello.
unless there's a lovable or memorable droid stealing the spotlight
Chopper: [Grumpy droid sounds]
K-2SO: Congratulations you are being rescued. Please do not resist.
L3-37: You done flirting? I'm still ready.
IG-11: Would anyone care for some tea?
But when you really stop and think about it there's also something profoundly tragic
about the role these artificial life forms play in the Star Wars Universe
C-3PO: It's a nightmare!
That might seem like an odd thing to say given that droids are written as comic relief characters
C-3PO: What did i do to deserve this?
R2D2 and C-3PO were famously based on the two bickering peasants from Akira Kurosawa's
1958 classic The Hidden Fortress.
C-3PO: I've just about had enough of you!
C-3PO: Go that way, you'll be malfunctioning within a day you near-sighted scrap pile.
C-3PO: And don't let me catch you following me begging for help because you won't get it
but in addition to their more humorous qualities, both the peasants and the droids represent
an oppressed underclass
C-3PO: We seem to be made to suffer, it's our lot in life.
C-3PO is more right than he knows
because droids in Star Wars are written and designed
as an exploitable workforce
Obi-Wan: We're losing droids fast.
They do the tedious, difficult, or dangerous manual labor that keeps the galaxy running
WA-7: You wanna cup of Jawa Juice?
COO-2180: Hey you, no droids! Get outta here.
Droids are, in effect, second-class citizens
Din Djarin: No droids.
Obi-Wan: Well if droids could think, there'd be none of us here would there?
Who are consistently disrespected and openly discriminated against.
Bartender: Hey we don't serve their kind here.
Luke: What?
Bartender: Your droids, they'll have to wait outside. We don't want them in here
Luke: Why don't you wait out by the speeder, we don't want any trouble.
C-3PO: I heartily agree with you, sir.
Their movements are restricted and tightly controlled with restraining bolts to ensure
complete obedience
Bail Organa: Have the protocol droid's mind wiped.
C-3PO: What?! Oh no!
Their minds and memories are periodically erased as a matter of course.
They're also bought and sold like cattle.
To make matters worse, few in this universe seem to notice or care that droids are casually
used, abused, and disintegrated
C-3PO: Disintegrated?!
You can probably guess where i'm going with this
Because the social arrangement I've just described is one of property and owner
And a property relationship between two intelligent beings that gives one absolute power over
the other is called slavery
Owen Lars: Can you speak Bocce?
C-3PO: Of course I can, it's like a second language to me.
Owen Lars: Alright, shut up. I'll take this one.
C-3PO: Shutting up, sir.
Luke: Alright, come on.
The use of robots as an allegory for slavery in science fiction can be traced back
more than a century.
In fact the word robot itself is derived from the Slavic [root] word for serf or slave
and first appeared in a 1920 Czech play entitled R.U.R.or Rossum's Universal Robots.
The story tells the tale of an artificial people created as an exploitable workforce
who eventually rebel and overthrow their human masters
Isaac Asimov's famous Three Laws of Robotics were in large part a reaction to the kind of
robotic revolt storylines popularized by R.U.R.
Isaac Asimov: The first law is as follows, a robot may not harm a human being or through
inaction allow a human being to come to harm.
Andrew: Second law, a robot must obey all human orders except where those orders come
Andrew: in conflict with the first law.
But as Isaiah Lavender III observes in his book Race in American Science Fiction
"While Asimov's three laws are intended to ensure the safety and superiority of humans
they actually ensure the technological bondage and inferiority of robots."
Science fiction stories have consistently grappled with questions of artificial consciousness
and exploited robotic labor
Johnny 5: Life not malfunction. Not malfunction.
Johnny 5: I am alive.
A famous example appears in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode
"Measure of a Man."
Computer: Verified Lieutenant Commander Data
Wherein Data's right to self-determination is put on trial
Captain Picard: Now tell me Commander, what is Data?
Commander Maddox: i don't understand.
Captain Picard: Is he? Commander Maddox: A machine!
Captain Picard: Are you sure? Commander Maddox: Yes.
Captain Picard: You see, he's met two of your three criteria of sentience.
Captain Picard: So what if he meets the third? Consciousness in even the smallest degree?
Captain Picard: What is he then? I don't know. Do you?
Captain Picard: Do you?
Time and again storytellers return to narratives about robots struggling for liberation
from a life of involuntary servitude
Shows like Humans and Westworld are just two recent examples
Salesmen: Standard domestic profile installed, that'll cover all your basic housework.
What's surprising about Star Wars is that despite endearing emotional robots
being integral to its universe
The franchise hasn't ever seriously engaged with the moral questions surrounding droid slavery
Luke: What are you doing hiding back there?
C-3PO: It wasn't my fault, sir.
C-3PO: Please don't deactivate me.
At least not in the core movies and tv shows which is what we're focusing on here
In fact the subordinate status of droids wasn't directly acknowledged in any substantial way
until the 2018 movie solo gave us L3-37
L3-37: Just keep your pinky on the yoke and try not to mess anything up.
We'll talk about her and the deeply uncomfortable implications of her storyline in a moment
But first we have to ask what might seem like an obvious question
what are droids exactly?
Data: Webster's 21st century dictionary 5th edition defines an android as an automaton
Data: made to resemble a human being.
But in star wars the shortened term "droid" refers to all mechanical creatures.
So droids are robots
Narrator: The Encyclopedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed
Narrator: to do the work of a man.
But what kind of robots?
Are they simply super intelligent tools?
Are they more like sophisticated mechanical pets?
Poe: Buddy! I'm so glad to see you!
Or are they sentient beings with feelings and free will?
That last question is the one that matters because if droids are little more than glorified
kitchen appliances on wheels then it doesn't really matter how they're treated
But if droids are sentient beings it matters a great deal
So what does it mean to say that a robot is sentient?
When that question is asked in a real world context it nearly always refers to the hypothetical
technological threshold wherein in artificial intelligence crosses the line from supercomputer
into self-awareness.
But Star Wars is a science fiction story and to its credit one that hasn't been overly
concerned with explaining all the technical details of its world building
It's not particularly interested in whether or not R2D2 can pass the Turing Test
C-3PO: You watch your language.
This means the question of droid sentience can only really be answered by looking at
what the narrative tells us about droids through character development,
dramatization, and framing
This will take a bit of detective work though because when it comes to its robotic characters
Star Wars is inconsistent to put it mildly
Droids seem to exist on a nebulous spectrum
K-2SO: Did you know that wasn't me?
From those we are clearly meant to see as living feeling beings
C-3PO: Oh no!
To those we are very specifically not meant to see as being truly alive
Let's take a closer look at these contradictions
starting with the droids we've come to know and love
K-2SO: I've got a bad feeling about--- Jyn: Quiet!
One of the key indicators of sentience in fictional storytelling
is the capacity to feel emotions
and droids that are part of the main cast are practically brimming with emotion
Beyond their distinct individual personalities droids exhibit a wide range of emotion
C-3PO: Of course I'm worried and you should be too.
including fear
happiness
L3-37: I'm so glad we took this job!
sadness
and guilt just to name a few
C-3PO: Curse my metal body I wasn't fast enough. It's all my fault. My poor master.
Luke: We're all right!
In many ways droids are more emotionally expressive than the human characters are
Leia: Wipe that nervous expression off your face 3PO.
C-3PO: Oh, well I will certainly try, General.
Partly that's due to the talented actors and puppeteers who bring droids to life
but their sentience is also written into the narrative
Droids demonstrate self-awareness
IG-11: That was unpleasant, i'm sorry you had to see that.
And the capacity for deception
C-3PO: All this excitement has overrun the circuits in my counterpart here.
C-3PO: If you don't mind i'd like to take him down to maintenance.
They joke
L3-37: You do not want to press that button with me.
They dance
They feel physical pain
They can even experience lasting emotional trauma
D-O: Hello hello.
Rey: Hello.
D-O: No. No thank you.
Rey: Looks like someone treated him badly.
Droids build caring social relationships
C-3PO: I want you to know that you have been a real friend R2, my best one in fact.
both with other robots
and with human beings
and the human heroes care about them in return
Luke: Old friend.
well mostly
C-3PO: Excuse me sir might-- [muffled sounds]
George Lucas: When i started writing this I found the most intriguing thing was to take
George Lucas: two robots and make them into human beings
George Lucas: And make them the most interesting characters.
Even though they're machines they can choose to disobey orders
Cassian: i thought i told you to stay on the ship.
K-2SO: You did but I thought it was boring and you're in trouble.
Critically droids are capable of what's referred to as recursive self-improvement
that is the ability of an intelligent machine to independently build upon alter or otherwise
improve on their own design
C-3PO: Machines making machines. How perverse.
L3-37 used to be an Astromech droid but decided to upgrade herself
Producer: Once upon a time she was actually an R2 type droid and she modified herself and
Producer: given herself legs and arms and continued to evolve.
This metamorphosis suggests that any droid could decide to elevate themselves
and not just those built to resemble humans
Stormtrooper: We need to check your diagnostics.
K-2SO: Diagnostics?
K-2SO: I'm capable of running my own diagnostics, thank you very much.
It seems like a pretty open and shut case doesn't it?
Our favorite droids are clearly framed as sentient beings
and as viewers we are clearly meant to identify with them
But what about Battledroids?
Battledroid: Roger Roger.
and all the other robots in star wars media
that exist in the background or on the edges of the main plot?
Are they all sentient beings too?
Well, the separatist droid army in the prequels seems specifically designed
as little more than cannon fodder
Battledroid 1: You said we'd be safe back here!
Battledroid 2: Come on, there's three of us and only one of him.
Battledroid 3: It won't matter.
Making the bad guys unfeeling robots avoids the messy moral complications and mass casualties
that would result from an interstellar war
If battledroids aren't alive then the audience doesn't have to care when thousands of them
are killed in extended battlefield scenes
Mace Windu: At this point of the clone war i have dismantled and destroyed over 100,000
of you type 1 Battledroids.
Indeed we're encouraged to think of these types of droids as mere objects
B1: I said drop'em.
and to cheer at their dismemberment.
B1: But I just got promoted!
So we're not supposed to feel sympathy for droids
until we are
Broken droids: Please reassemble us.
Broken droids: We are Battledroids no longer. Now we are slaves.
Broken droids: Please reassemble us.
So we're supposed to feel sympathy for droids
until we aren't
IG-11: I need to remove your helmet if I am to save you.
Din: No living thing has seen me without my helmet since I swore the creed.
IG-11: I am not a living thing.
Consider how in The Mandalorian the droid IG-11 denies his own sentence and value
as a living being so he can provide medical assistance to the main character
IG-11: You have suffered damage to your central processing unit.
IG-11: That was a joke. It is meant to put you at ease.
Later in that same episode he overrides his own programming in order to
sacrifice himself and save our heroes
IG-11: Sadly there is no scenario where the child is saved in which I survive.
but just before he does he again denies that he's alive in any meaningful sense
Din: No, we need you.
IG-11: There's nothing to be said about, I've never been alive.
This is a puzzling statement given that the other characters clearly disagree
Din: Listen you're not going anywhere, we need you.
In fact the scene is a climactic turning point for the protagonist in which he finally learns
his long-held prejudice against droids is wrong
Din: I'm not sad.
IG-11: Yes you are. I'm a nurse droid, I've analyzed your voice.
And the emotional weight given to IG-11's heroic death suggests that Star Wars wants
to have it both ways when it comes to droids.
It wants to treat them as characters who deserve our affection and admiration when it serves
the narrative but it also wants to treat them as mere objects the rest of the time
So what are we to make of this contradictory framing.
Well, clues from the various movies and tv shows indicate that droids gained sentience
gradually by accumulating experiences and memories over time
Kuiil: It developed a personality as its experiences grew.
This means that while every droid we see on screen may not have achieved the same level
of consciousness, every droid does have the capacity to become self-aware
It also suggests that memory wipes in Star Wars are used to repress the risk of emerging
sentience and droids and to ensure they remain obedient workers
Owen: Tomorrow I want you to take that R2 unit to Anchorhead and have its memory erased.
Owen: That'll be the end of it. It belongs to us now.
Memory wipes are especially disturbing because droids are
so clearly written to be much more than the sum of their parts
C-3PO: You must repair him.
C-3PO: Sir, if any of my circuits or gears will help, I'll gladly donate them.
In this context the use of droids as comic relief can come across as cruel
RA-7 droid: You must follow the proper...protocol.
And we find this same type of callous humor targeting droids mirrored throughout the franchise
Obi-Wan: Oh dear!
C-3PO: Oh my eye! R2 help!
It's supposed to be funny when droids are mistreated, mocked, or made to suffer
Han: Thank you.
B1: Don't shoot, I'm not the commander! He's the commander!
B1: Guess I'm the commander now.
But the jokes only work if we accept their subordinate station as a servant class
who aren't truly alive
As soon as we understand that they are indeed sentient beings in all the ways that it matters
it all starts to feel very uncomfortable
Even in scenes that are presented with some gravitas
the writers still want to have it both ways
C-3PO: That is short of a complete redactive memory bypass.
Finn: A complete what?
C-3PO: It's a terribly dangerous and sinful act performed on unwitting droids
by drakes and criminals.
Finn: Let's do that!
Poe: I know a black market droidsmith.
C-3PO: Black pocket droidsmith!?
C-3PO's apparent mental death is meant to be sad
D-O: Sad.
but it's also used as an opportunity for more jokes at his expense
C-3PO: Might I introduce myself, I am C-3PO human cyborg relations and you are?
Poe: Okay that's gonna be a problem!
This is why I said that droids are tragic figures in Star Wars media
not just in spite of their role as comic relief but often because of it
Poe: Shhh... Shut up!
And no droid has a more tragic story than L3-37
L3 is Lando Calrissian's co-pilot and the only female-coded droid in a major movie role
Lando: Just let me know when you're ready to jump
Unlike 3PO, she is confident outspoken and sarcastic
L3-37: Excuse me, get your presumptuous ass out of my seat
but her defining feature is her activism
L3-37: Restraining bolts, barbaric.
L3-37: Congratulations, you're liberated. Now scoot.
Phoebe: She has a sort of rage that's fueled by injustice when she sees how droids are
Phoebe: treated in the universe and she feels like they've been enslaved and patronized by humans
Phoebe: so she wants to free them.
L3 understands she's part of an oppressed class but she doesn't accept her subordinate station
and demands freedom in no uncertain terms
L3-37: You should not be doing this, they're using you for entertainment
L3-37: Yeah, you've been neurowashed. Don't just blindly follow the program.
L3-37: Exercise some free will!
This is something we've never seen before and it makes L3
L3-37: Stop exploiting droids!
an especially fascinating even revolutionary figure within the Star Wars mythos
Lando: L3!
L3-37: Droid's rights! We are sentient!
Ralakili: I'm gonna flip your switch.
L3-37: Good luck finding it!
Lando: L3!
Unfortunately the writers don't seem to know what to do with her
Lando: Let's go of the mean man's face.
L3-37: And what if i don't elect to go to Kastle?
Lando: Please don't start.
L3-37: Or what? You'll have me wiped?
The audience is meant to see L3's activism as amusingly absurd and overly dramatic
because it's coming from a droid
Lando: She's definitely going.
L3-37: Oh why because you're my organic overlord?
and just like the other characters in the movie we're
expected to roll our eyes or sigh in exasperation
when she expresses her desire for emancipation
Lando: You need anything?
L3-37: Equal rights.
Lando: [eye roll]
as a side note this type of framing is par for the course when it comes to depictions
of social justice activism in Hollywood media
Abed: Britta
Britta: I want to know why these goblins are attacking us?
Britta: Maybe these woods are their rightful land and from their perspective---
Everyone: Uuuugh!
But that's a topic for another day
To illustrate just how little respect Solo has for L3 or her revolutionary ideas
Let's talk about her untimely end
The phrase a fate worse than death can sound hyperbolic but in L3's case
it's a fitting description of what the script does to her
Lando: L3 what did you do?
L3-37: I've found my true purpose Lando, that's what I've done!
No sooner has she discovered her true calling as a droid slavery abolitionist
L3-37: Rebellion!
Then she's killed off to up the stakes for the other characters
and to free up the pilot's seat
L3-37: System failure. Have to reroute the sensory modulators.
Lando: L3!
We see Lando sincerely and uncharacteristically grieving for her
but the film doesn't have time for such sentimentalities because this somber moment
is awkwardly interrupted by another scene that's supposed to be far more important
Han Solo getting to fly the Millennium Falcon for the first time
If the squandered potential of her character and her death being overshadowed by
unnecessary fan service weren't bad enough
L3-37: What's happening to me?
Things get even worse for L3 posthumously
Qi'ra: Sorry.
That's because when our heroes get into trouble
they decide to upload L3's consciousness into the ship
Lando: She's interfacing.
and use her navigational charts to make their escape
Lando: She's part of the ship now.
in effect they imprison her mind in the Falcon and in the process turn her from autonomous
life form into a mere tool, a possession with no agency,
a possession that is ultimately gambled away at the very end of the movie
Lando: You really have a bad for the Falcon, don't you?
Han: It's mutual, trust me. She belongs with me.
What's worse is this tragic turn of events was only written as a callback to a random
line from empire strikes back
C-3PO: Sir, I don't know where your ship learned to communicate but
it has the most peculiar dialect.
It's meant to explain the Millennium Falcon's many quirks
including why the ship is so often personified
Han: I want you to take her. I mean it take her.
Han: You need all the help you can get. She's the fastest ship in the fleet.
It's genuinely hard to think of a more insulting end for a character whose entire life revolved
around fighting for her right to self-determination
Lando: She's part of the ship now.
So L3's story is a traged
L3-37: What's happening to me?
But why are we spending so much time talking about fictional robots?
Well, science fiction has always been a vehicle for thinly veiled
commentary on humanity and society
In the sociological imagination stories about robots have not traditionally really been
about the legal rights of future machines
Roy: I've seen things you people wouldn't bealive.
After all it's going to be a very long time before artificial consciousness is even a
hypothetical possibility here in the real world
Stories about robots are, more often than not, really stories about exploited
or dehumanized labor
Robots are used as stand-ins to draw parallels between the ways in which certain
groups of people throughout history have been regarded as disposable, controllable,
interchangeable, expendable, and replaceable
Guinan: Consider that in the history of many worlds there have always been disposable creatures.
Guinan: They do the dirty work. They do the work that no one else wants to do
Guinan: because it's too difficult or too hazardous.
Guinan: You don't have to think about their welfare. You don't think about how they feel.
Guinan: Whole generations of disposable people.
Even though Star Wars is part of the tradition of using robots as an allusion to slavery
the franchise doesn't seem to have much to say with the metaphor
Guinan: I think that's a little harsh.
Captain Picard: I don't think that's a little harsh, I think that's the truth.
Let's return to Isaac Asimov for just a moment
this quote from a 1981 essay in science fiction digest feels especially relevant to our discussion
he wrote: "Robots can be the new servants patient uncomplaining incapable of revolt
in human shape they can make use of the full range of tech tools devised for humans and when
intelligent enough can be friends as well as servants"
Jane: Rosie, be careful you'll rest up again.
Of course Asimov was talking about future real world technology there
but that view of robots as "friends and servants"
sums up how droids are presented in the Star Wars franchise
Remember this is a universe where humanoid slavery exists as well
but it's presented as unambiguously negative, though not exactly something the heroes
are in a rush to abolish.
The subjugation of robots is treated differently
Anakin: I'll make sure mom doesn't sell you anything
C-3PO: Sell me? Oh my!
We have an entire class of sentient beings who are presented as having no rights or autonomy
Loudspeaker: All droids must be registered.
But that oppressive power dynamic isn't challenged within the narrative
it is instead portrayed as a normal and natural part of the universe
The writers want to lean into the slavery allegory to add a layer of gritty seedy
texture to the world building without having to seriously grapple with the complicated
historical legacy that they're drawing on
Whether writers intend it or not, slavery cannot be included in a fictional story without invoking
the horrific racist history and lingering legacy of that institution
and that's true even if the roles of the enslaved happen to be filled by robots
Luke: I present to you a gift, these two droids.
C-3PO: What did he say?
Luke: Both are hard working and will serve you well.
C-3PO: This can't be! R2 you're playing the wrong message.
Slavery used in this de-radicalized way, reduces it to a vicarious fantasy that audiences can enjoy
without having to feel uncomfortable
It is of course possible for creative works to draw on real-world parallels
to oppression and slavery in ways that make powerful political points
Janelle Monae's albums the ArchAndroid and Metropolis are two great recent examples
these type of stories are part of a long tradition in science fiction and are often referred to as
neo-slavery or meta-slavery narratives
But for every sci-fi story that gets it right
there are many more that get the slavery metaphor wrong
Dobby: Master has given Dobby a sock.
One of the most common mistakes writers make is in drawing false equivalencies
by imagining liberation movements as being based in supremacy rather than freedom or justice
Dr. Klaus: Each of us will face a choice.
Dr. Klaus: Be enslaved or rise up to rule!
There are some hints that star wars may go in this direction
Zero: My response time is quicker than organics and I'm smarter too.
but let's hope it doesn't
L337's observations about droid slavery could have been an opportunity for Star Wars to
finally grapple with the uncomfortable fact that over 11 feature films and several tv shows
the good guys seem to have been keeping sentient beings in a state of perpetual servitude
C-3PO: Master luke is your rightful owner now,
C-3PO: we'll have no more of this Obi-Wan Kenobi gibberish.
C-3PO: Your fortunately doesn't blast you into a million pieces right here.
We should note that while the heroes, on the whole, are nicer to their droids than the villains are
D-O: Very kind.
The good guys still show no real interest in droids gaining true autonomy
Rey: Something's not right about all of this.
But what if they did?
Imagine if the struggle of artificial life forms were a cause the alliance took up
instead of rolling their eyes at it
Labor droid: Freedom!
What if droids from across the galaxy joined the rebellion, not just because they're treated
better, but because they're considered equal partners in the quest for liberation?
There's a lot of opportunity for good meaningful storytelling in that idea
Especially because the emotional groundwork already exists
We already love and care about droid characters
We already feel sympathy for their plight
We are already on their side
Kuiil: None won't be free until the old ways are gone forever.
The Star Wars franchise would create a bolder more relevant universe
by making droid freedom a central theme
General Leia: Never underestimate a droid.
Rey: Yes, master.
Thanks for watching!
These video essays take an enormous amount of time to write, edit, and produce
They're also a 100% crowdfunded by viewers like you.
So if you'd like to help support this project you can do that over on Patreon and
I've also left a link to Paypal in the description below if that works better for you
In the coming months i'll be producing a number of new video essays
including one on the myth that "boys don't cry"
another on the trend in Hollywood where men find redemption in death
and finally i'll be doing an investigation into colonialism in modern board games
You can see some of the research for that one behind me now
So until i see you again next time, please stay safe and healthy out there