The Star Wars universe boasts many iconic heroes - Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, Princess Leia and Han Solo, to name only a few. Have I left any important or even legendary ones out of the celebrating? You bet your calculated Midichlorian count! There is one rotund little gleaming artificial being which we all love to never fully understand one beeping, synthesized syllable that he blares out.
A hero!? Oh, no, not R2!! *High pitched exasperated voice*
George Lucas, the franchise creator, always felt his little droid, R2D2, the terminally challenged buddy of hyperactive C3PO, was his sci-fi saga's ultimate hero. Amazingly, for writer/director Lucas, R2 even out classes Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi for top heroic character found in a galaxy, far, far away...
Check out my video which relates how the little astromech droid is the ultimate of space ace heroes.
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The six Star Wars movies (I do not count Caravan of Courage!) clearly are structured around R2D2 as the focal character. It follows from the influence of Akira Kurasawa's 1958 The Hidden Fortress on the first movie (1977's Star Wars, not 1981's Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope). The genius of Kurasawa's film was to make peripheral characters (the farmers) into the protagonists, where the usual heroic characters of warriors and princesses are in a sense being watched by 'nobodies'. Eight years later, the same inversion appears in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Star Wars completes this 'trilogy'! 😁 Of course none of this fancy arthouse stuff survives in Disney Star Wars, but mostly people seem to be happy as long as the sound effects match.
The six Star Wars movies (I do not count Caravan of Courage!) clearly are structured around R2D2 as the focal character. It follows from the influence of Akira Kurasawa's 1958 The Hidden Fortress on the first movie (1977's Star Wars, not 1981's Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope). The genius of Kurasawa's film was to make peripheral characters (the farmers) into the protagonists, where the usual heroic characters of warriors and princesses are in a sense being watched by 'nobodies'. Eight years later, the same inversion appears in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Star Wars completes this 'trilogy'! 😁 Of course none of this fancy arthouse stuff survives in Disney Star Wars, but mostly people seem to be happy as long as the sound effects match.
I agree with Lucas.