STAR WARS

Jedi Droid Tricks

Don't believe a droid can pull off a Jedi mind trick? There's nothing in the stated Force philosophy that excludes the possibility. Use of the Force to "influence" the "weak-minded" is essentially using the power of suggestion. Could a robot be programmed with formulaeic hypnotic suggestion routines? You bet. Keep in mind that C-3P0's self-stated "primary function" is "protocol". This is a droid who is kept around to smooth things out for the royals. He's so good at it that he's been kept around for decades. More importantly, he was BUILT AND PROGRAMMED BY ANAKIN SKYWALKER! Yeah, you bet Threepio can influence the weak-minded.

He tries twice to sway Owen - Owen just cuts him off. Owen is pretty sharp, and no doubt always a little on edge from having Vader's kid around. The big question here: Does Owen recognize the droids (Threepio was around for YEARS, and R2 stopped by in Attack of the Clones)? He doesn't seem to (he completely overlooks R2 initially). This would be in keeping with the general cultural flow of Star Wars - the Imperials relegate robots to background machinery, the Rebels nearly venerating them. Owen is helping Vader hide Luke, so he's likely an Imperialist - he's watching out for people (Kenobi or Rebel hit squads), not droids.

When Owen chooses C-3P0 and another droid (R2-D4), Threepio looks hesitant and reluctant to be leaving R2-D2 behind. He should be. They make a good team, and being seperated endangers their mission (to get the plans to Kenobi, who then presumably takes them back to the Rebels).

R2 starts to shake and rock side to side. The Jawas trip a remote control that stops him. As a child watching the movies, it took a long time to figure out the whole 'restraining bolt' thing. Both R2 and Threepio have these chunky little cylinders attached to them, put there by the Jawas. They are shown being used in two ways. Here we see it used to freeze the droid in mid-action (an emergency shutdown/restart?).

Note that a Jawa physically places himself between R2 and Luke leading away the other two droids. Was R2 charging up some kind of weapon? The Jawas, who deal with droids all the time, felt the appropriate action was to jump in front of the robot and shut it down.

Too late, perhaps, as R2-D4 explodes at this point. Suspiciously convenient luck that allows Threepio to start working on Luke;

A flawless Jedi mind trick! Luke doesn't even hesitate. Luke's guard is down obviously, as he knows nothing of Owen's struggle; being caught between the last surviving Force wielders. Kenobi and Vader are both heavy hitters and have a long history of mortal opposition. Man, that's pressure.

That's not the only trick Threepio's picked up from hanging around royals. We're about to catch him in a couple of rather obvious falsehoods.