are robots from star Wars the people? From the moment Wohr starred in C-3PO and R2-D2 and yelled, “We don’t serve kind,A galaxy far, far away, danced around the powder keg of android heroes and villains as a fully-fledged species. But more The Mandalorian The more I got involved with the idea, the more I put it into practice star WarsPut the proverb in his mouth.
in its early days, The Mandalorian At least he wanted to try to provide an interesting twist on the question of robot personality. The protagonist, Dean Jaren, was an orphan in the Clone Wars who harbored a deep resentment of robots, especially combat droids, due to a long-term traumatic experience after surviving a Separatist attack that killed the rest of his family. From the beginning, we see Dean playing with this resentment because, in his career as a bounty hunter, he is repeatedly confronted with the use of bots, whether as a trade facilitator or in his unlikely partnership with Robot killer/bounty hunter IG-11. As Dean proceeds to challenge his worldview over the course of season one thanks to his adoption of young Grogu, we in turn see his ability to move on from the family trauma that created his resentment of robots in the first place. It is a growth in personality that reaches its climax on an emotional pace during end of the seasonin which Din is ready to protect his new ward by IG-11, feeling a deep sense of loss when the droid chooses to sacrifice himself to protect his friends in turn.
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Fast forward to season three And things have changed starkly in Dean’s stance on robots. The final season begins bafflingly with Din, who was reunited with Grogu after a brief breakup that was resolved on an entirely different TV show, insisting that IG-11 was the only good droid in the entire galaxy. He is desperate to rebuild the droid as a partner to conduct an expedition to the ruined planet of Mandalore… Dean’s mission he gave up completely after half a loopNow it seems fine R5-D4 Forced upon him, as long as he could continually disparage the astro-droid as not being suited to the task Dean wanted an earlier assassin model for. All of this is weird for myriad reasons, but it’s no longer the gist The Mandalorian Season 3’s unbroken approach to the droids as a collection of individually-aware beings – it just sets the stage for them, as Dean vacillates wildly between believing in The One Good Droid and then constantly berating the one who left him with him.
This particular insult was saved This week’s episode, “Guns for Rent.” The chapter takes Dean, Grogu, and their ally Bo-Katan Kreese to the planet Plazir-15, an independent outer world where society has been rebuilt to accommodate the pleasures of its organic inhabitants through the rigorous employment of a robotic workforce. While the Plazir’s humans and other species work jobs in security and other sectors of administrative governance, the planet’s rulers, Dutchman and Captain Bombardier (flautist Lizzo, famed guitarist Jack Black, don’t worry about it), tell us that the backbone of the Blazir’s seemingly idyllic civilization is strength. A group of reprogrammed droids of various specializations, including legions from Battlefield and Super Battle Droids from Clone War. Upon learning this, and after several droids begin manipulating and attacking organic matter, an angry Dean Jaren – apparently tired of his past experience of being asked to do odd jobs for people before they do something for him – suddenly takes notice in Troubleshooting the Plazir-15 robot. Not just to get Bo-Katan what she wants (an audience with her former Mandalorian allies who now serve as Blazer’s semi-legal defense force), but a chance to get what he Wants: A chance to kill some Battle Droids.
This is a far cry from the haunted man we saw in Season 1, or even the almost angry man we saw at the start of the season having to deal with R5. almost religion Enjoying Getting the chance to interrogate and intimidate Plazir’s robot workers even on the slightest suspicion that they might be secretly ready to turn on the organic population. When he and Bo-Katan visit the shipyard where the Battle Droids in particular work, he slashes and slashes a group of working Super Battle Droids – who have been hauling goods – until he gets a chance to shove one of them, kicking it to the ground again until it fights back, giving Dean and Bo are an excuse to chase after him, and eventually, they blow him to death. Which is a religion required, more than furthering their investigations. He wanted revenge, and kept bullying his way to achieve it.
It’s all pretty rough and weird considering the undercurrent here The Mandalorian touch star WarsA fraught relationship with robots as people. Plazir’s life is presented as tolerant, idealistic, and idyllic for its organic citizens, and in turn is presented as such only because robots have become an exploitable subclass of labour. And yet The Mandalorian He doesn’t question this, but arguably supports it, at least as far as its hero is concerned – if that means he’ll get revenge on a few droids along the way, what’s the harm?
Well, that’s exactly it, because “Guns For Hire” doesn’t see the lower class of robots as human at all, even when it goes to great lengths to portray an isolated robot community on the Plazir almost unlike anything we’ve seen in star Wars. These robotic workers have lives, social groupings, and places to exist for and among themselves outside of their relationship to work and membership in their world. After canceling the offended SBD, Bo and Din’s investigation leads them to a robot-only bar called the Resistor, a testament to the personality these beings have outside of their existence as agents, and Dean’s immediate response is to enter as a bad cop and bully the robot-only drinkers inside as their only suspects. expected To give him an excuse to be violent with them.
If I’m framing this as our hero doing something bad, even unfortunate, that’s exactly what it is. The Mandalorian She kind of does herself… until she immediately backs out, by having the bot owner of the resister beg Dean and Bo to let him help with their investigation. Why? Because it’s been said that the bartender is “one of the good guys”, and that all the bots you should want to do at Plazir-15 are a permanent servant class for the organic population because they’re just poor, weak beings who age and die, and why can’t a good bot that can work to Forever to sacrifice his personality in exchange for making this life easier? That’s what droids are Wants, not to rebel against their masters as Dean and Bo believe, but to root out any bad actors of their kind that threaten to completely upset their power balance, or lack thereof. The bartender helps, Dean and Bo expose sabotage, not rebellion – because robots are tools, not people, and social life be damned – and all is well on the Plazir-15.
This is a crazy approach for the series in light of everything I’ve previously tried to say about the droid character with characters like IG-11. But when it is framed in star WarsA long history of bots being treated as minority tokens – from single’Human rights activist L3-37 points to the parallel apartheid that Wohair presented all the way back New hope-He becomes less consistent in tone and more justly verbal and shockingly harsh. Dean’s surprisingly celebratory attitude when he becomes the bad cop for a group of ex-Separatist robots, the bartender’s staunch belief that his kind don’t deserve more rights like the people keeping Blazers, and that they all need to know their place – these are all terrible things, terrible to consider when you dare consider That answer this question star Wars that have cropped up for decades at this point (“Are people robotic?”) should be a “yes.” Within that messy history on the question of robot consciousness, “Guns For Hire” has become one of the most morally repugnant hours in history. star Wars since when.
But did The Mandalorian You mean to be so shockingly cruel? Mostly not. However, the fact that its designers were only willing to explore a tricky question about the ideology of a galaxy far, far away that it could ignorantly create raw moments like this are arguably far worse than if it had entered in with intent.
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