Question: Has there ever been any sort of canonical discussion about the morality of droid treatment in any Star Wars titles? They're intelligent/sentient, are treated well by most people, even like friends/pets by some. And yet they also seem to casually get their minds wiped, or if they're destroyed many people shrug rather than mourn. Tools to some, valued comrades to others, it's just a bit all over the place. Idle thought really.
Jon Sandys
24th Nov 2019
Star Wars (1977)
Answer: Not in the films, but several of the books removed from canon by Disney mentioned a "droids' rights movement" that decried memory wipes and other dismissals of sentience. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Droid_rights_ (movement).
Solo, which is canon, features a subplot about droid's rights. So not everything has been scrubbed regarding this topic.
Chosen answer: Nobody in the Star Wars universe, except on rare occasions, has shown sympathy towards a droid or any AI. Even though these robots learn, they don't really evolve beyond their programming so they aren't considered "alive" (unlike in other fiction like Wall-E), not even by the most sentimental of people. Organic beings develop attachments to droids, but mostly towards their usefulness, not because they like their personality, not even Luke Skywalker towards R2 or Poe towards BB-8. If they are destroyed, too bad. Memory wiping doesn't remove the droid's original programming either, and their way of talking and manners stay.
In Episode 2, Obi-Wan makes the offhanded comment "Well, if droids could think there'd be none of us here", implying that droids do not actually possess artificial intelligence. R2-D2 seems to be a particularly unusual droid in that he is uncommonly resilient and steadfast, which makes his allies quite fond of him. Poe and BB-8 appear to have a bond that goes beyond simply being attached to the droid's usefulness, but like you say that appears to be a unique case.
Just because he said that doesn't mean they didn't have AI. They think for themselves, so they have AI. Just not as advanced as in other fiction.
The point is raised again later in the film when the cloners state that unlike droids, clones can think for themselves.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Answer: Lucas has gone on record as to the treatment of droids in Star Wars being a thought-provoking allegory for the way people treat minorities. I've never heard him specifically talk about how it's almost never commented-upon in-universe, but intentionally or not, I'm of the opinion that it's more compelling this way. Why doesn't anybody do anything about the way droids are treated? Well, go around asking people why they don't do anything about the way other people are treated and you'll quickly find out.
TonyPH