Star Wars: Andor

[MarkB]

Yeah, I think the only way to "be your own droid" is to become a bounty hunter.

Maybe not even then. IG-11 in The Mandalorian seemed beholden to a larger organisation (possibly of fellow droids) to the extent of having a self-destruct system he was obliged to engage in order to protect his proprietary design.

Which is the other thing about droids - they're frequently treated as entirely disposable.

I never like it when a fictional species is depicted as being servile by nature or design. @Celebrim mention House Elves earlier, which are also an uncomfortable example. Anything that points people to the idea that a sentient species can be seen as having an innate need to serve others is teaching a bad lesson. If we ever do get to make our own sentient 'droids', it'll be a bad day - a society based upon intrinsic servitude is unhealthy for both the servants and the served.

 

[Celebrim]

And yet we frequently see droids being treated simply as property, in Star Wars. Probably one of its few recurring social commentaries.

Droids are property. If they weren't property, no one would make them.

 

[Celebrim]

@Celebrim mention House Elves earlier, which are also an uncomfortable example. Anything that points people to the idea that a sentient species can be seen as having an innate need to serve others is teaching a bad lesson. If we ever do get to make our own sentient 'droids', it'll be a bad day - a society based upon intrinsic servitude is unhealthy for both the servants and the served.

The house elves don't think so. I think they think they got the better end of the deal.

 

[MarkB]

The house elves don't think so. I think they think they got the better end of the deal.

And that message - sometimes making someone your servant is doing them a favour - is not a healthy lesson to impart to children.

 

[Celebrim]

And that message - sometimes making someone your servant is doing them a favour - is not a healthy lesson to impart to children.

Only because house elves aren't real.

Besides which, that isn't even the message.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Which is the other thing about droids - they're frequently treated as entirely disposable.

I never like it when a fictional species is depicted as being servile by nature or design. @Celebrim mention House Elves earlier, which are also an uncomfortable example. Anything that points people to the idea that a sentient species can be seen as having an innate need to serve others is teaching a bad lesson. If we ever do get to make our own sentient 'droids', it'll be a bad day - a society based upon intrinsic servitude is unhealthy for both the servants and the served.

So, basically how women in the real world have been treated for at least a couple thousand years, and only as recently as the 1970's started to change, depending on country and religion, or course.

 

[pukunui]

Luthen's ship is seriously tricked out. Were those giant lightsabers he used to cut up the last two TIEs?

 

[Mallus]

Luthen's ship is seriously tricked out. Were those giant lightsabers he used to cut up the last two TIEs?

And he handed Saw’s guard a lightsaber. I wonder if this is foreshadowing?

(it’s funny how much of Luthen’s speech to the ISB mole also applies to being a Jedi, come to think...)

 

[embee]

B2EMO is breaking my heart and I love Brasso being so empathic towards the droid. I find the status and sentience of Droids is one of the weirdest things about Star Wars, and a lot of things break if you look too closely at it, but I am a sucker for kindness towards droids.

Two things:

1) Joplin Sibtain's (Brasso) very restrained performance, like every other actor's performance in this show, was spot on. It truly is jazz. It's not the notes that are played; it's the notes that aren't played.

2) The biggest problem with Solo is how close it came to actually addressing a huge moral quandary in Star Wars and how, instead, it chose to go for cheap laughs. Droids are sentient. One of the immoralities of the Empire is that it routinely wipes droids' memories. Basically, they get lobotomized. But that's not to say that the "good guys" aren't morally blameless either. When Luke first meets Threepio and Artoo, he takes off their restraining bolts, not to free them, but because he figures that they won't run away. He very much regards them as property. The ugly truth is that droids in Star Wars are pretty close to being chattel slaves. And in Solo, when L337 tries to lead an uprising, it's pretty much a joke.

Andor has the people with whom we are supposed to empathize regard droids as people, not as property.

B2EMO is amazingly human. Brasso is refreshingly humane.

 

[Vael]

2) The biggest problem with Solo is how close it came to actually addressing a huge moral quandary in Star Wars and how, instead, it chose to go for cheap laughs. Droids are sentient. One of the immoralities of the Empire is that it routinely wipes droids' memories. Basically, they get lobotomized. But that's not to say that the "good guys" aren't morally blameless either. When Luke first meets Threepio and Artoo, he takes off their restraining bolts, not to free them, but because he figures that they won't run away. He very much regards them as property. The ugly truth is that droids in Star Wars are pretty close to being chattel slaves. And in Solo, when L337 tries to lead an uprising, it's pretty much a joke.

Precisely. It's one of those things that I just try not to look at too closely, because this is the conclusion I reach. And so Solo commits the double sin of both pointing out something that I'd sooner not and says "isn't this funny?", to which my answer is "no, that's horrifying". Then tripling down on it with the fate of L337.