The New Essential Guide to Droids (Page IX)

Introduction

What would Star wars be without droids?

In the mld-1970s, to sell George Lucas's risky idea to potential movie studios, artist Ralph McQuarrie worked up a series of conceptual paintings.

One depicted the slender, golden C-3PO and the rotund R2-D2 cresting a desert dune. The two robots in the painting conveyed an air of eerie otherworldliness, but In the final film, the warm bickering between the two grounded the proceedings In the familiar humor of Abbott and Costello. The robots — or droids, as Lucas called them — became some of the most human characters of the classic trilogy.

The Expanded Universe of comics, novels, and games jumped in to swell the ranks of Star wars droids. When the first edition or The Essential Guide to Droids hit bookstores in 1998, it became clear that droids could fill any niche, from childcare to bartending. No matter what problem the inhabitants of the Star Wars galaxy might face, they could be sure of one thing — there was probably a droid for it.

Then came the prequels. Helped along by the vivid imaginations of a new generation of concept artists, the droids of the prequels wormed their way into nearly every frame of film. A unicycle droid pulled a rickshaw on Tatooine, while another served hot plates in a retro diner on Coruscant. Droids Installed panes of glass, tinkered with Podracers, and delivered babies.

And, of course, droids made menacing, implacable soldiers. The Separatists' use of factory-built battle droids raised an interesting question of moral ambiguity, especially after the Republic assembled an army of vat-grown clones to oppose them. This conflict came to a head in Revenge of the Sith, when the heroes suddenly became the hunted and droids turned out not to be the true bad guys after all.

The New Essential Guide to Droids is proud to present all the key automatons from both the classic trilogy and the prequel trilogy, as well as notable Expanded Universe players, and a few nostalgic gems from decades gone by.