Posts tagged robots

UPDATE: Replaced screen shot photos with 3-D renderings by John Jongsma where available.

Astromech droids are cool.  I want one.  I want them all.  All the R-series models produced by Industrial Automaton , at any rate.   If I had one, I bet I would never have to do dishes again, even though they can’t reach the sink.  Here is a list of all the G-canon astromech droids.  Aren’t they pretty?

R1-G4	R2-A5	R2-A6
Episodes: IV	Episodes: IV	Episodes: I
R2-B1	R2-C4	R2-D2
Episodes: I	Episodes: I	Episodes: I II III IV V VI
R2-M5	R2-Q2	R2-Q5
Episodes: I	Episodes: IV	Episodes: VI
R2-R9	R2-T0	R2-X2
Episodes: I	Episodes: I	Episodes: I
R3-A2	R3-T2	R3-T6
Episodes: V	Episodes: IV	Episodes: IV
R3-T7	R3-Y2	R4-A22
Episodes: II	Episodes: V	Episodes: II
R4-E1	R4-F5	R4-G9
Episodes: IV	Episodes: III	Episodes: III
R4-I9	R4-M9	R4-P17
Episodes: IV	Episodes: IV	Episodes: II III
R4-P44	R5-A2	R5-D4
Episodes: III	Episodes: IV	Episodes: II IV
R5-D8	R5-F7	R5-J2
Episodes: IV	Episodes: IV	Episodes: VI
R5-M2	R5-X2
Episodes: V	Episodes: I

Some stuff to take from this:

• Episode IV is the clear winner in amount of astromechs on screen.  Guess they saw a good thing and went crazy with the paint schemes!

• And of course, of the five series shown on screen, the R2 series is the most prevalent.

• George Lucas named and dictated the design for one of the R4 (can’t remember which one, probably R4-P117) and the props guy said “uh…I think the fans have all these R-series worked out and R4’s have a different head than R2’s” and George Lucas didn’t care and went with it anyway, so now all these R4’s that don’t have a cone-like dome for a head are considered R4’s with R2 replacement heads.  True paraphrased story (probably).  Funny how the fans are always fixing Star Wars for George.
• Aside from R2-D2, I think my favorite astromech listed above is R4-D4.  I love me the counterparts, and he was so close to being sold off to the Skywalker’s over R2-D2.  What would have happened?  Good thing his motivator blew out, eh?  He was also the only other astromech besides R2 to get a toy in the first Hasbro wave, which I had of course.
• R4-P17 apparently has female droid programming.  How can anyone tell?  They look the same and all beep and whistle the same.  What about “her” is female?  What about the rest are male, for that matter?
• Speaking of, R4-P17, R2-D2 and R5-D4 are the only three astromechs to appear in more than one film.
• Aside from the R4 series, it seems like the naming convention for each series has a range of A-Z and 0-9.  If that’s the case, each series can have 260 different droids, leaving quite a few left to be discovered.  Of course, I didn’t include anything from the EU, which I’m sure has already accounted for every fricking model that could ever possibly exist.
• Speaking of the EU, though we only see series 1-5 on the big screen, in the EU there is an R6, R7, R8 and R9 series of droids.
• C-3PO reminds me of my grandmother.  This has nothing to do with astromechs.