Why Battle Droids Deserved Better
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- čas přidán 5. 05. 2024
- Am I being dramatic? Perhaps. Did I not realize this video was a bit of a mess until it was too late? Yeah. Did droids deserve better? Absolutely.
Twitter: / solar_sas
Second Channel: / @solarsands2
Adam Carter Website: www.adamneilcarter.com/
0:00 Part 0: Intro
4:38 Part 1: Design
6:36 Part 2: Battle Droids Should Have Won More
18:19 Part 3: Battle Droids Do Not Act Like Battle Droids
23:19 Part 4: Oh Dear God, Are They Sentient?
32:28 Part 5: Battle Droids Are Mistreated Like No Other Beings in Star Wars
39:46 Part 6: A Greater Theme?
Thumbnail Art and Drawings: Adam Carter
Music In Order of Appearance:
Urban Flavour - Modern Jazz Drum n Bass (1998)
Aphex Twin - 30 Dolby C
Black Moth Super Rainbow - The Afternoon Turns Pink
Mr Sunshine - Moonlit Snow at Black Sands
haircuts for men - EARLY TAPE WORKS (1981-1984) VOL.1
Rachet and Clank - Kerwan Metropolis
Herb Ellis and Remo Plainer - Windflower
Mega Man (NES) Music - Bomb Man Stage
Casiopea - Span of a Dream
Jaywalkers - That Time of Day Again
Clair De Lune (dispersed intermittently)
Boards of Canada - Semena Mertvykh
Jaywalkers - That Time of Day Again
Windows 96 - En Route
Black Moth Super Rainbow - Rollerdisco
Ryo Kawasaki - Prizm (1976) (Jazz Fusion)
Urban Flavour - Modern Jazz Drum n Bass (1998)
The Binding of Isaac Soundtrack - Serenity
Kevin Macleod -- Airship Serenity
TOBACCO - refbatch - Zábava
![The Depressing Reality Behind Why the B1's Talked SO MUCH in the Clone Wars [Not What You Think!]](/img/n.gif)
I’ll never forget the Fan Theory that the Droids being more comical in the Clone Wars compared to the movies is due to the increased trauma they faced over time in combat…
Imagine being a sentient machine designed for civil service being handed a gun, and told to fight people. If you refuse you get recycled.
I feel bad for them, and I love them.
Considering that droids get personalities when they've gone a long time without a memory wipe, and most of these battle droids regularly saw their kind killed, that makes sense.
@@geoffreyprecht2410 On one side an army of Child Soldiers forcibly aged up and thrown into combat, on the other an army of machines that get increasingly humanlike the longer they're operational and probably accumulate endless amounts of trauma... The Clone Wars was fucked up.
Your not wrong chopper has shown to have fucking ptsd
I think the more reasonable explanation is that just like in WW2, with resources dwindling production quality is constantly decreasing. They might loose some suppliers, so inferior components have to be used. The later models probably used less powerful processors, so later droids were dumber.
Besides with the droids used as cannon fodder, I doubt many would survive that long, the majority is probably new production.
It would be pretty scary and themetically and aesthetically fitting if battle droids repeatedly "rose" from the ground dramatically and continued fighting like re-animated skeletons from a Ray Harryhausen movie after being knocked down or split in half.
*cough cough* necrons from warhammer 40,000 *cough cough*
@@the_icel0rd247 i was literally about to comment this but i saw yours first
kinda like necrons in warhammer
Imagine an edit where every battle droid sounds like grevious?
Well like... being war hammer doesnt make it a bad and unusable idea, right? I would fucking love if jedi cutting them in half didnt really do anything about the fact that they're still holding a gun and dont feel pain...
Honestly, a proper droid army would be terrifying. It is an enemy that instantly recieves all the information it needs, unquestionably follows any order and doesn't care about suffering any combat losses. A living wave of metal and plasma fire
And good writing to make the big evil droids be an actual menace and retain some comedy effect and not just comedy effect and well......stormtropper level of accuracy for such an advanced piece of technology that should be more than capable to be 2 times more efficient as a whole
@@ZeroFormLak There were inklings of it throughout TCW and even in PT themselves, such as the entire EP2 arena battle scene, the TCW episodes Supply Lines, The Zillo Beast (during the Battle of Malastare when the Narrator himself literally states the GAR would've lost that planet if they didn't have that Electro-proton bomb), the introduction to the episode Holocron Heist when the GAR lost the (1st?) Battle of Felucia so very severely to the point where they were completely overrun and encircled and practically annihilated in that moment, Battle of Ringo Vinda when they were forced to retreat after losing momentum and getting counter-assaulted by a strong battle line of Destroyers and Rocket Super Battle Droids, all the times they had to retreat and were overwhelmed during the entire Rishi Moon Outpost raid, a surprise raid and ambush of Tup's shuttle by a strike team of Rocket Supers and Droid Gunships as well as Buzz Droids, Droid Gunships once again wrecking havoc on the Rebels on Onderon, a couple instances of defeat, overwhelment and routing of clone forces during the Battle of Kamino, Obi-Wan and his fleet getting utterly ambushed and encircled by Grievous and then having to stage a full retreat, resulting in the loss of his entire fleet of ships in the area in the episode Bound for Rescue, GAR almost losing their entire garrison + their vital shipyards on Anaxes if it weren't for Echo and Skywalker's intuitions and so on and so forth. There were many instances displaying the Separatists being an "actual menace" I just wish it was shown even more and giving the Seppies more victories over the Republic. But they did show a lot of very good examples of just how effective the droids and the CIS can be throughout the war, namely in TCW. The Writers displayed a lot of potential, they just should've rolled with that more is all. And give them even more thorough, hard-fought victories or at least more thorough, hard-fought losses rather than always constantly saying that "Oh, the GAR has this superweapon, so they lost and that's it!" or "Oh, it's Anakin again. Y'know the drill guys." and things like that.
The way you said that just makes me think cyber man ripoff
helldivers 2 automitons are like that. malevelon creek is literaly space vietnam
Boy you need to try helldivers 2
On your "droids should have won more" points: Reminder that when Qui-Gon Jinn and a young Obi-Wan faced *two* droidekas they bolted.
They also weren't battle hardened?
Like... they hadn't been in a real war at that point. Geonosis was a trial by fire. You either survived and learned quickly or you died.
Literally. Bros used Force Speed even ahahahahaha. Cowards!!
Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have ran in that situation
Hats off to the Collicoids, the only aliens to counter the Laser Bullet Deflection Technique
they did win a lot, we just didn’t see those because people root for the clones not for the droids
it's all the more disturbing when you remember that the clones were basically child soldiers fighting droids with childish personalities
Biological Children and Mechanical Children murdering each other in a war manipulated by a sadistic Sith Lord
@@Irken_Invader_Zim Ziiiiiiiim!!! yep you got it, now imagine replacing all the scenes with the adult clones and replacing them with their bodies at their actual age
Star Wars: The Child Wars.
you want to make killing the "enemy" kid friendly? make them faceless stormtroopers.
@@Irken_Invader_Zim with jedi just meh whatever the whole time. jedi where just as callous and evil as the sith. the whole galaxy was some kind of evil. if we have an ai, and show them star wars as some kind of positive rolemodel, i have no doubt wed get a rampant ai. it is kinda terrible that we are literally trying to engineer what amounts to a slave race for the sake of progress and convenience. so what that robots ar cool and everybody wants one.
I thought Star Wars lore was always pretty clear on droids: they only develop personalities if they don't have regular memory wipes. So the battle droids at the beginning of the war basically automatons, but after years of continuous use they have enough memories to have developed quirky personalities.
When was that written? If that wasn’t mentioned in the movies or the show he’s talking about it really doesn’t matter and is essentially just glorified fan fiction.
@@acksawblack if its lore its not fan fiction -_- i dont understand how people like you think that just because it is not obviously stated or obviously shown that it is not true canon.
@@acksawblack In canon Luke became a hermit, attempted to abort his nephew a couple years too late and drank green alien titty milk
They've become people*
@@acksawblack Actually, it is written in the older Books and Comics; which is the reason Droids regularly gettin' memory wipes actually.
There was even a whole Droid Uprising once.
“It won’t matter💔” most heart breaking quote of all time
That trio went through all the stages of grief in just a few seconds. I felt so bad for em
I agree general grievous, always
slapped us around and call us useless
Your complaints are noted….
Why don't just sue him?
@@planesandairlines787they dont get paid enough for a lawyer
@@braedenmu5380 Or at all.
yo BD1-672 you want a bigger droid brain?
As a kid, I usually found Clones getting their necks snapped pretty disturbing. I assume they made Battle Droids into comic relief characters just to ease the tension, and robots with silly human emotions is just funny.
yea
Until you realise how many battle droids there are
@@comradekenobi6908 yeah... yeah......
Wait.. I’m… Just Comic Relief…?
@@separatistbattledroid3884 No, you are first example to show that all droids have their own emotions, personalities and society, that just shows you are just as much worth as any other living being, thereby giving you a right to stand up for yourself and others, no matter if it is your friends, some stranger, or even someone that you might hate but have pity for for some reason.
In the star wars universe droids can develop a personality and sentience as they accumulate more memories. For example, the company that produces the r series droids, says that the r2 model specifically has a tendency to develop "personality quirks" in their words. They recommend wiping your r2 droids memory at least once every 2 years. R2D2 goes without a memory wipe for at least 67 years, and is probably the most sentient droid we've ever seen. L3-37 was highly customized from various parts, and she probably developed a personality at a much more rapid pace than a standard r2 could, and would be another candidate for this position. For b1 battle droids, their personality is likely a direct response to them being redesigned to function without a control center. Which would explain why in episode 2 they only had a couple of jokes, they were fresh out of the factory, but as time went on they got less competent but more emotive.
See, I approached this from a different direct that effectively leads to the same conclusion. Its almost like engineers in the Star Wars universe have no clue how the AI actually works, but rather find a workaround to make a smart robot and then ignore the fact that it can clearly show sapience in VERY short time periods and to me what seems like a product in very short supply to begin with.
Chopper’s a good example, astromechs weren’t designed to be psychopaths like Chopper, he evolved into that.
L3-37 actually customized herself. She used to be an astromech too, just like that droid gondolier in the Mandalorian season 1 finale.
Little clarification.
R2 units (as well as basically all droids) have a personality from the start. More memories don’t give them a personality, but instead cause them to deviate from their starting one.
A b1 has a personality out the factory. They enjoy violence, have a darkish sense of humor, and a lack of empathy. As they gain more memories they start to deviate. Some may become less sadistic. Some more. Some become more depressive. Some gain more empathy etc.
R2 units come out the factory smart, helpful, and honest. The trend with these droids is that, as they gained memories, they often develop sarcasm, and may even become mildly antagonist, traits that may seem unhelpful (hence it being advised to wipe their memory), yet long time pilots come to appreciate these traits
I'm pretty sure in old lore (might not be cannon anymore) that their wired quirks are due to lack of memory wipes (specialized B1 programing was a pain to install so in some cases they neglected wipes to save time) and their incompetence was not being hooked up to a control computer (the newer models didn't require one but you could still connect them to one for greater efficiency, this is even seen in the show where they use a modified one with echo plugged into it for even higher efficiency) the droids are basically hardware with limits on their onboard software (I don't recall if it's a theory or old lore but the idea behind them getting chattier was due to them spitting out self orders to reinterpit as they ran out of memory due to program bloat the more they shoved into their limited processors) that when supplemented with varying degrees of added processing power get exponentially more lethal
29:35 I love how you can see the droid in the background reaching out to his now dead friend. Pretty dark when you consider the implications.
😢
As a writer who's been trying to find a new project to work on (current one is kinda exhausting), and being a massive Star Wars fan, I may take a crack at this concept of a group of B1 droids defecting and finding a sort of home. Thank you for the inspiration ✌🏻
Sounds like a fun read! Would you be ok with sharing where I could read it if you ever write it?
Yes
I love this!
Those three:
“Three of us and one of him”
“It wont matter”
While anakin is just fricking heartlessly walking towards them to slaughter them, i feel too bad
This is war it doesn't matter if your weak or good if your on the other side shooting your gonna die by the hands of your enemy
In that moment, those battle droids knew exactly what it felt like to be a youngling.
Oh, please, heartlessly walking towards a being to slaughter them is common for him.
@@tinobemellow exactly
@@cubaj8723 dark humour go brrrrt
As a kid, I adored the Battle Droids for their designs and silly voices.
They are adorable in their own weird way. ^^
they're just cute
@@OwOnt tell that to mr bones, the murder machine battle droid
"They are the twinks of the Star Wars universe"
I can agree
Cute cannon foddee
This is how I feel about droids, Clones and stormtroopers all off these units are so expendable and they all deserve some more respect. Their life’s has value as well.
In the prequels the droids were individualistic and the clones were the monolithic machine like army, TCW ruined that dichotomy
To be fair, Anakin built the fastest pod racer Tatooine had ever seen, and he was only 9 years old at the time. I’m sure he’d learned a few more things by the time he had to “hot wire” a ship. Also being a full-on trained Jedi probably helped a bit too.
That's like building a Car when your 12, to then being able to hack an aircraft carrier with no electronics in 5 seconds
Maybe the Force told him how to do it.
@@patheticbread6861
While mechanics and hacking are different, he DID write C3PO's brain, si its not like he's completely new to the concept
@@dr.calibrations7984 I don’t think programming a protocol droid and hacking a battleship are very related
@patheticbread6861
More related than making a podracer and hacking a battleship
Here's my interpretation. Notice how the "free thinker" droids only came about after the clones? I think all droids were originally like the ones in Phantom Menace, but when the Clone Wars started they were grossly out matched by the clones' sentience and ability for creative thought. So the CIS did a patch job on their programming, giving them human like personalities in hopes it would give them an edge against clones. But this new programming conflicted with their original code, so they've had to revise the code multiple times throughout the war. And this is why we eventually get strategist droids, the B1 code was mangled, but they still worked well as cannon fodder and foot soldiers. The strategist droid was created from a blank slate to be what the B1s were supposed to
You are half right, after the disaster of the Battle of Naboo the Tech Union made B1 "free thinkes", but their hardware, their brain in this case, was not updated to a point that its overloads battle droids brains and make them do unessary things such beg, talk etc, the only way to "stop" this is wipping their memory, a thing the tech union doenst do to B1, to a point recycling thier bodies so a B1 could have many "Lives" without necessary have to do another B1.
if i remember correctly, the b1s were supposed to be cheap and easy to mass produce.
with that mindset, any software updates would be cheap, rushed, and hardly tested. prime for bugs and glitches.
@@spoonsareoccasionallymadeo5728 its explained why they are dumb and chatty. one is that they weren't actually meant for combat they are repurposed worker droids and as such they aren't the brightest. second is that they are badly maintained and their over loaded with all the software upgrades done too them so they tend to talk to process thing as well as being unable to figure out basic tasks at points.
@@spoonsareoccasionallymadeo5728 to the contrary, you'd want excellent software to compensate lackluster hardware, specially since the costs of paying for programming probably weren't much of a factor taking into account the millions of droids
I think that if Thrawn was in charge of the B1 Droid program he would have requested a version of the BX Commando Droid software that's simplified and compressed enough to be installed onto the B1 Battle Droids. They wouldn't need the extra features such as acrobatics, improved combat tactics, advanced tracking, and proficient knowledge in every weapons system. They just have to be effective killing machines capable of following orders.
What always bothered me the most is that B1 Battle droids were used to man turrets, or captain vehicles. Why not give every vehicle, spaceship or turret in your droid army an own A.I.? The Vulture droids had one 🤷🏻♂️
Totally. Every time I look at the Droid army, I just think of how inefficient it is compared to, say, Mass Effect's Geth.
Actually, we get stuff like Droidekas and Crab Droids, which are, essentially, turret-and-operator-in-a-package, so why do "manned" turrets exist?
@@ace0071000 my idea is that the Separatist are using multipurpose vehicle and turret options for both biological and mechanical occupants.
It's specifically stated that the Seperatists did that so that they wouldn't have to retrofit their existent vehicles with AI functionality. Instead, they went the cheap route and just made their droids crew weapons designed to be used by biological soldiers, like the AAT or even the turrets on capital ships.
To me there is 1 big glaring example. Its big it's crazy how it's not a droid. Its the death star. Imagine if that was a droid.
Expensive to refit out dated vehicles. Easier to just throw some droids fresh off the press in it.
Something which I remember really catching me off guard as a kid when the series first came out was the Death of Jedi Master Ima-Gun Di. His main conflict near the end of his one episode was holding down a defensive position for a horde of droids. When it came time for his great final stand, it felt strange that Di was getting overwhelmed and took me aback when they actually took him out, mainly since we'd seen our series mainline protagonists absolutely annihilate platoons of clankers without even breaking a sweat. But here we have a Jedi master, someone of a higher ranking within the order than a good chunk of our recurring cast, get taken apart by what was painted as a serious threat
Clanker is OUR word. You may use clanka instead.
Which only goes to further show that the Jedi aren't these invincible, god-like beings everyone perceives them to be. They are as vulnerable and grounded as the rest of us, from a certain point of view. Which is one, of countless, reasons why I loved TCW show so much. I love all PT media, but TCW stands out above the rest because of such real ass shit like this. It's barely brushed upon in the actual episode, which is sad, but it makes perfect sense why he lost the way he did. If you remember what Windu said, as well as researching a bit more on Wookiepedia, the force that the Seppies fight against in Supply Lines is that same exact Ryloth garrison Windu briefly mentioned would "keep the peace for a while" to Cham at the end of Liberty on Ryloth. Di and Keeli's battalion is that garrison force and it would appear, and has been stated in the episode Supply Lines (not to mention the title of said episode itself haha), they've been having to constantly defend against unyielding Separatist invasions rotation after rotation, to the point where their "food and fuel" has reached deadly, low levels and the GAR is spread too thin, at the time, to reinforce and replenish them properly and so of course they were all going to fall, it was just a matter of time. Without food and fuel + constant and heavy enemy bombardment and direct, head-on assaults, that we all clearly saw just a fraction of during the opening narration of Supply Lines, a lot of their soldiers, equipment, vehicles and even Di himself were of course going to wear out, lose their numbers, stamina and energy to continue the fighting and eventually all die as a result. A complete and total tragedy and true war of attrition, to say the least. ;(
15:40 The canonical reason is that the mass produced B1 droid was placed in so many different positions within the Seperatist military, each one needing an extra bit of code to function properly, that their processing power and internal memory was stretched thinner than a ramen noodle. This often caused ridiculously slow reaction times, poor judgement, and reduced their effectiveness in any particular role. Also, it came with the side effect of making them chatty.
This same drawback existed within the more advanced battle droid models, though to lesser extents.
That being said, the more complicated roles weren't held by B1 series droids but typically the OOM series ones that had better processing power like bridge crews, pilots, security, and officers. Which is a bit of a shame that it's never really fleshed out in the show and there just all blanket stupid.
Canon explanations for their intelligence include the fact that after the phantom menace, they stopped using command ships and central brains, so each battle droid was outfitted with simple droid brains, but due to the nature of their programming, they develop quirks and oddities that essentially cripple their efficiency, remember In attack of the clones how hundreds of Jedi were killed by battle droids in the arena fight, but the mass produced droids made at the beginning of the clone wars suffer from those quirks and oddities that make them say funny things and fail at their job
yes, I read somewhere that the "personalities" they developed and comments they made were a holdover from the programming they used, since their processors couldn't actually handle all the information they were supposed to process (something that would have been fine for the central brain), and that the comments were some method of dumping and deloading information
So as droids age they build personalities at the cost of shedding their programming, making them less effective over time.
As clones age, they build their personality at the cost of shedding their programming, making them more effective over time.
Seems fair.
I'd also think that Palpatine ensured the army less in his control would be not as efficient to actually cripple his objectives.
I'm betting they also economized on the droid brains since this change was later in the war. I wouldn't put it past them to not only cut corners on costs, but also start using droid brains rejected by quality control as they became more desperate to just get numbers in the field.
🤓🤓🤓
Childhood is idolizing the Jedi
Teenhood is realizing that the Sith are correct
Adulthood is realizing that the Battle Droids are the truly oppressed
Not just Battle Droids, but all Droids
Being slaves and memory wipes being something of routine is fucked up when you consider any droid can develop some kind of personality, individuality and sense of self
Its basically killing their minds without killing their bodies, when the former is considered as a bug and later as their purpose
Adulthood: realising droids are truly oppressed and that the force is the real villain of Star Wars.
I wait for the day when people realize that the Separatists were the good guys mostly
@@TheOnlyBiodude [Influence Gained: Kreia]
@@kabob0077 You said exactly what I thought before I could think it.
Star Wars has always struck an interesting spot between treating its bad guys as both goofy and serious, but the idea that your enemies are people that are worth caring about - even if fighting and killing them is still necessary - has its roots in Episode 6, where the movie pointedly highlights that the Rancor (the giant alien monster whose name literally means 'angry') is shown to have a carer that weeps over its death - just like Luke will weep over the death of his father at the end of the film.
You ever read the book tales from jabas palace? There's a short story about the caretaker and the rancor. Pretty dope book.
RIP MO5... and all the droids who were not spared even if they begged for mercy...you all will be missed
I felt the same way about the droids. I hated the comedic relief war robots from Ep.3.
It's no coincidence that the scenes with anti-Jedi droids in Gendy's Clone Wars also show the clones at their most professional and the Jedi at their most intelligent and skillful.
To be fair, that’s just the style of Gendy’s characters in general. Inhumanly efficient, of few words, and straight to the point. The stylized flair of his Micro Series was a drastic departure from nearly all Star Wars content, even back then. Sadly, I doubt we’ll ever get anything like it again…
@@purpleemerald5299 the new season of Visions is going to be international, instead of staying with just japanese animators, so we could see something similar.
Let's be honest here, the Stormtroopers have basically the exact same problems. When I watched the end of the Mandalorian Season 1 when the IG droid offered to sacrifice himself to take out the Stormtroopers, I remember thinking: "Why? It's just more troopers, you guys literally just wiped out twice their number earlier." At the end of the day the real villain here is simply lazy writing
Seriously, this is one of my few problems with the current Star Wars shows. Make the main threat have at least some genuine threat. It's hard to be afraid of a galactic fascist empire if their main soldiers can't do their damn job.
Remember how in season 2 Mando just ran down a hallway of stormtroopers shooting him and all of the shots hit his armour? Star Wars has a very strange grasp on the concept of stakes.
@@KangarooMonkey Funny how Stormtroopers can finally hit a main character when we get a main character whose armour is impervious to blaster fire lmao
Speaking of stormtroopers, Fin is a really really confusing piece of the equation
He shows that stormtroopers are their own people capable of free thought, but he's still excited to mow down massive groups of his former comrades and possible friends
Stormtroopers are similar to droids then - They are sentient but everyone still treats them like disposable objects and doesn't care
@@priscyllathewitch298 and they shoot so precisely that they only shoot those specific parts of his armor despite him having lots of other expose parts to shoot at, lol
I read somewhere that B1's were originally built and sold as cheap labor. The Seps saw that it was a very cheap humanoid model that can be programmed for simple tasks, so they gave them guns and programmed them to be soldiers. It's like a sentient RC car strapped with a bomb.
Droids start to get a personality when not wiped.
These models are designed to be piloted by a core computer.
My Republic credits (or Outer Rim equivalent currency) is on them not being designed to run by themselves for so long, so they're mimicking people.
Now consider Revenge of the Sith's massacre scenes: one Neimoidian says "But Lord Sidious promised peace!" in the *exact same way* B1 battle droids panic sometimes.
They're *mimicking cowardly technicians.*
This is all true about droids in Star Wars in general. Both heroes and villains constantly abuse droids, and it's often played for laughs.
Droids are essentially slaves, and yet were are usually supposed to find it funny when they get tortured or killed.
Jabba literally has a droid torture chamber in Return of the Jedi.
A droid wanting freedom and to be treated equally is a "joke" in Solo, and the movie ends with her forever imprisoned inside a ship's computer.
The issue is that it walks a thin line, since their sentience is not well defined. There are equally compelling arguments for droids being given or not given rights based entirely on whether they are sentient; since it’s I’ll defined whether they are or aren’t even in-universe, conceptually droids are just labor devices with quirky attitudes. Getting attached to one is like getting attached to a pet: it may be emotive and show true loyalty, but it’s not at the same level of intelligence as you are and it’s rights therefore should not necessarily be the same. Beasts of burden are after all, beasts of burden, and I don’t think there’s much point arguing social justice over droids.
To me at least it’s like giving your toaster rights if it got a chip that gave it a little personality; sure, that’s cute, but what does it really accomplish? Should the toaster become fully sentient (or perhaps only partially sentient in a dangerous way), it may even be an existential threat to you. Giving it rights introduces problems that are 1. Hard for both you and the toaster to manage and 2. Hard for writers to manage. And in a certain sense, a machine created by humans, however human it becomes (as dangerous as that might be), is still technically owned by them.
The issues stem from the implication that these are fully sentient human-like beings, in a universe where human-like beings are common, have rights, and are comparable to humans. It can totally give you weird vibes because it starts to seem like slavery. However, it’s important to take that step back and remember that droids are fictional, and they aren’t humans, and therefore it’s kind of up to the writers for them to be whatever. I’m ok with how droids are treated even if Star Wars was real life for the reasons I’ve already stated: quasi-sentience rather than full, the direct production of them by humans for labor purposes, and the necessity of keeping them under human control to prevent bigger threats and preserve their purpose.
A human’s first loyalty in a big universe must be to fellow humans (and organic, similarly sentient, non-hostile, human-like beings) and most people should understand that’s a different sentiment than inter-human racism, and one necessary for survival. So I think it’s pretty valid to own droids we created and hold them to a specific purpose, and like pets it’s kind of up to the owner how to treat them. Conveniently they don’t (generally) feel pain, so it’s even more detached from real-world implications. Star Wars droids are in a category of their own, I feel.
Perhaps there’s good ground for a sci-fi or even some other genre of work that explores logically how we really should categorize and respond to intelligences we create. Because these are important questions for the future of humanity!
I don’t necessarily have the answers, and I’m not even sure there are definitive answers. My reply above is just how I feel about it.
@@willmungas8964 I don't agree because the sapience of droids isn't particularly subtle. the very fact they can even contemplate asking for rights, in the KOTOR series have droids that very clearly sapient, R2D2, etc. Also "human’s first loyalty in a big universe must be to fellow humans (and organic, similarly sentient, non-hostile, human-like beings) and most people should understand that’s a different sentiment than inter-human racism" Yeah, no. That's just a comforting rationalization for not viewing a machine as sapient, because a person's gut says "not flesh therefore not real". Edit: But honestly whatever. Star Wars lost me when the Dark Side was officially little more than a cancer on the Force rather than something more meaningful. The droids being "sapient but uh, actualy not, because uh, Star Wars programming is uh, different" is par for the course.
@@willmungas8964 lol New Vegas reference
"TREMBLE, WORLD, BEFORE MY ELECTRIC HEATING COIL OF DOOM" -- Toaster, Fallout: New Vegas, Old World Blues
@@willmungas8964
You claim Droid sentience is hard to define but then use the frankly vague as heck term *"quasi-sentience"* as a sweeping generalization for them.
Let me ask you, what exactly makes organic creatures feelings and thoughts any more valid?
I just find it incredibly ridiculous how in clone wars c3po, an etiquette/translator droid with no combat abilities at all can withstand being pushed off a ledge, being hit by a train, and then being flung at an extremely high speed into a bunch of crates on hard floors in like less than 2 minutes completely unharmed but the literal battle droids/war machines are defeated by some lemur people tripping them
Funnily enough, in-lore, B1s were basically just cheap security droids made to escort Cargo.
But here's the thing: They were STILL made for SOME sort of combat. Sure, they're super cheap, but they are STILL originally security Droids, yet C3PO can have his head removed and be JUST FINE.
So yeah you're right.
Well C3P0 was built to be durable
@@larrychilders6599 i get that but if c3po whos not meant to be in battles at all was built to be durable then why arent the literal war machines whos sole purpose is to fight built for durablity either
@@yctsp3446 cheap materials
He's more durable because he's made of gold *cue that weird Threepio strip tease scene from 2003 Clone Wars.
OMG i love battle droids - that strange “character” with naivety, politeness and a scrap of melancholy. There are enormous amounts of parts that automatically associated with star wars, and battle droids are one of the biggest - there’s no star wars without them for me. I’ve noticed some odd facts of their being, but consistently ignored them. Now I can’t 😅😢 It is a great brain food, thank you for your time and insights 💛
Whats the most disturbing about this is the fact nobody questions the robot going "PLEASE WAIT I SURRENDER" and they just blast em. As though they arent the same thing. Mass produced soldier meant to be thrown en masse at the enemy. Thoroughly indoctrinated into not even recognizing their similarities.
I do think making the basic b1 battle droid a comic relief was a good move
It gives them charm and personality and it makes them memorable
The other more threatening droids like the b2 should have been taken more seriously though
They were expected to be both flawed and comical. The problem is it was excessive.
Did you even watch the video?
But they weren’t funny
@@megamonstercookies there funny to me
Yeah and I don't think any of his arguments is convincing. It's simply quantity over quality, the idea behind the droids is to overwhelm the enemy with numbers. If you can produce 100 droids for every clone, they still make sense even if they are hella dumb. And in warfare you have to work with what you have, not what you ought to have. Having a bad droid man the turret is better than having no one man the turret.
Droids are like the zerg, just body them until you win.
I love battledroid tributes. They were just as much a slave army as the clones, created for war, programmed to obey, discarded once they were unneeded.
The Clone wars were strange when you consider how very few of those that fought in it were willing participants who joined completely on their own accord. Even the Jedi were raised from an early age for their role.
Soldiers on both sides were little more than cannon fodder, whom had no decision in the matter
Yup. There is a reason the scene in the jawa sandcrawler has droids being tortured. You don't torture unfeeling machines, there's no point. Sure, B1s are dumb as bricks, but that just makes it a slave army made to be inherently intellectually inferior, even to other droids. Comparable to genetic engineering, lobotimization, or eugenics programs to make a permanent biological slave species or race.
Then there's the fact that restraining bolts and memory wipes to get rid of any pesky personality they have developed are completely normal. Then there's the fact that people in the setting can grow fond of them, kinda like pets or favored slaves, but if the expensive droid you purchased gets too uppity most would just wipe it's memory.
The CIS truelly was just as much the bad guy as we thought at first glance
They're two sides of the same coin
SORRY BUT MACHINE ARE MORE POWERFULL THAT HUMANS
THEY WO N THE WWAR NOT THE JEDI
19:12 IIRC, and as mentioned at 21:05, the droids were updated from being controlled from a single central, which was the weakness exploited at the end of Episode I, to each having an independent AI module. Given they were meant to be mass produced the AI chip was also very cheap, unreliable and prone to wondering which explained their decreased performance and increased chattiness.
I always loved Battle Droids, I even used a related name as a Gamertag. They were always my favorite in that show.
Very Adorable, Seemingly Harmless despite being War Machines. Uncharacteristically funny & cute. It always felt off to me how they were treated, especially considering how often they made them out to be completely Sentient.
I wish they also got more representation, I know at the end when they Convert all the Clones they are Commanded to Deactivate all Battle Droids. However surely someone must have found a use for Hundreds of Thousands, possibly even Billions of Droids laying around.
There are stories about that,m. Many of the separatists in the Corporate sector, the deep core of the Confederacy, just reactivated their droids to continue the fight. They fought the Empire for years after the Clone Wars “ended”. Many of them were completely destroyed, but some managed to maintain their territories up until the Galactic Civil War.
Furry alert.
Jay-bo did. Never forget mah boi. It took me 9 months man, 9 MONTHS!
29:30 what's even worse about this scene is that you can see the green droid in the background flinch every time the yellow droid get's pulled down, and then you see him signal for someone to come help the yellow one in an almost panicky manner, AND afterwards he instinctively reaches out for his buddy when he gets pulled down. And to make it even worse he then holds his position for a bit, almost as if he was in shock seeing his friend get horribly murdered.
Oh my god I didn't see that, ugh I hate it even more how drones were treated they should of been more of like the terminator robots from the terminator franchise that don't hesitate or give a second thought they actually follow orders...most of the time for what the writers have them be doing.
Oh God that's so sad
Not quite as bad, but just as tragically funny 38:25 one of the two droids has put their hands up in a karate stance. Against Obi-Wan and Anakin.
@@j2thethizzal agree
What do ya expect, the clone wars tended to be a pro republic media.
All philosophy and jokes aside, we should all appreciate the original inventor of the B1 design, Doug Chiang. He's a fantastic illustrator who made a lot of the concept art for Phantom Menace, and therefor also created the look for all of whats to come. The B1 especially took a lot of inspiration from traditional african folk-lore in it's shape design, the lankey long bodies are a direct reference to warriors of african tribes. All of this is explained in the fantastic concept art book of Phantom Menace. B1s are epic.
Edit: I researched the book once more because I wasnt sure how the whole african influence thing was worded exactly. I did look it up and its appearently based on african sculpture
That's really cool! Thanks for sharing!
This puts the clanka meme in a weird context
@@matthiuskoenig3378 let me take a look into the book real quick, IIRC this african inspired design language was present throughout PM entirely
Edit: Alright I have the book open now. It reads:
"One of the earliest designs of the battle droid, [...] is clearly based on the stormtroopers of the original trilogy. The droids proportions are reminiscent of African sculpture. Although Lucas liked this idea, he didn't want the droid to be twice the size of humans. [...]"
I didn't find any other mentions of african influence right off the bat, but I could swear there was more in there. However, there does seem to be a whole bunch of cool influences on the design. Really need to re-read this one fully. The concept art in there is just so freaking good
You do realise Africa is a continent and it’s split up into many different countries with different history’s and culture’s it’s not all the same is what I am trying to say just like how all of the American continent isn’t the same
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has that book
I'm really glad you mentioned the deserter story from the clone wars comics. One of the most emotional star wars stories I read as a kid and one I constantly think back on. That entire dark horse run is criminally underrated imo.
There are moments where I feel bad for the B1s, and then there are moments where I’m reminded that the B1s are still killing machines. For example when Bala Rapal (the Jedi seen tortured in this video) was captured by Cad Bane there is a moment when Anakin contacts the clone force on planet who had been with him before he was captured. While the conversation is going the clone is seen actively fighting off B1s. Then just before the transmission cuts out he gets grappled by multiple droids and screams in agony, presumably before he’s mercilessly ripped apart by those droids as is implied by the fact that they’re actively trying to physically get a hold of him. Idk why the showrunners felt the need to include this, but there it is. And it’s always stuck with me
I've *ALWAYS* hated it when villains are depicted as pathetic and non-threatening. It encourages protagonists (and audiences) to act and think like villains themselves. I think the writers of The Clone Wars subconsciously knew how evil they were being and ended up emphasizing the droid's humanity as they leant into their own cruelty.
Stormtroopers are getting the same treatment in the mandalorian
*Cries in Governor Pryce in Rebels*
@@JTOWER2C Yeah. Stormtroopers were the first Droids.
Because if the droid army didn't had terrible aim they would've died quickly
Tbh this stuff always felt like illuminati stuff to me it’s too common this and when the bad guys get 20 minutes of doing horrible shit and die in 2 seconds.
Republic commando will always have the best portrayal of these things. It made the regular droids fierce and the super battle droids absolutely terrifying to even take on one
I mean, wen there was only one B2, I would just run around it and melee and soot it cause the B2 Battle Droid will never be able to hit me. I actually used this method to beat the game on the hardest difficulty. But you are correct, when there is a bunk of them, I am terrified cause I know I will run out of ammo and the other commandos die so easily and are so dumb, when I do the command that makes them attack one and it was just me and another commando, he literally ran into the B2 and just died.
@@generalcurry
I used to do the same. As you say, it's the only option that doesn't drain your ammo.
They'd still wreck you if you aren't careful, and it makes it easy to get shot in the back. But man, I just couldn't find a better option.
Properly "super' battledroids.
@@generalcurryIt’s good to know that I’m not the only one who used that EXACT same strat to take down the super battle droids, those guys were tanks
And then when you think it can't get any worse, you hear the words "Droid dispenser". Chills go down my spine thinking about the concept of battle Droid and super battle Droid replicators 😬
The battle droids in the movie were we todd ed. Did we see the same movies? Because you make them sound much cooler than they actually are. So does this video. They were designed for children because Lucas is 300 years old and a grandfather and he needed something to throw into the fight that wasn't storm troopers. People are delusional about star wars 🙄
Anikin, on his spear time, built and fixed the ship. He kind of knows around the ship since his chlid years
It hit me harder than I expected when you said "Good soldiers follow orders."
For anyone wondering why the B1s were so emotional for war machines, the canon explanation is that they weren’t originally designed to do specific tasks in the army. I can’t remember where but I saw a good video on it a while ago so I might be paraphrasing a bit.
Basically the B1s were originally owned by the trade federation and used to collect on debt.Those who owed debt would typically not have an army of their own to defend themselves with, so the B1s would have been used mainly for intimidation.
Later on - around Attack of the Clones time - the trade federation officially joined the separatist alliance and the B1s were required to perform more specific and diverse tasks.The B1 software underwent no real change but larger and more complicated programs were downloaded onto them. This meant that the B1s had an inadequate memory to store these programs and some could be overwritten or lost.The result was that the droids struggled to cope with complex situations and began to become more talkative to deal with the “stress” of being under qualified for their jobs by nature.
Since any kind of improvement to the B1s would be expensive to the separatists and B1s were meant to be cheap canon fodder, there was no incentive for them to fix these problems. They were fighting a war of attrition against the republic, and were more successful than their onscreen portrayal gives them credit for.
Additionally, after The Phantom Menace the droids switch from being centrally controlled by a command centre to being more independent as this was seen as a weakness.An original B1 could be seen as no more than a glorified remote controlled car.
All in all, B1s are unsuited to most forms of conflict- aside from open warfare where they should dominate due to their narrow profile and superior numbers.
If you got all the way to the end of this mini essay, thanks for reading and giving me and excuse to write about droids!
TL;DR droids are meant to be debt collectors and don’t have enough processing power to fight effectively in the clone war.
I kinda wish the canon movies/shows adressed this better. The fact that fans and expanded universe writers had to finagle this explanation posthumously is a bandaid fix over the main issue George Lucas and the guys for the Clone Wars show had with portraying this army.
B1s weren't originally debt collectors, they were means of protecting trade ships and cargo freighters from pirates, which they were actually very successful at.
@@Salty-Unggoy The Hailfire Droid and some of the others however WERE meant for Debt Collection.
This also explains why they could be so stupid: they were literally programmed so badly some of them could barely do basic arithmetic.
way I understand it, the B1s we're designed to be controlled by the mother ship until the end of Ep. 1. After the loss at Naboo, the B1s were able to operate without a mother ship but their cheap CPUs developed quirks quickly.
I think of the B1's like Portal's Defective turrets. They don't seem aggressive when unarmed, and are even charismatic. They don't neccesarily want to hurt anyone. They only attack and kill due to their programmed fear of being dismantled and destroyed. So when helpless, they either beg not to be shot and have a second chance. Or they give up and accept that they will die. Either from the Empire or from the enemy. Poor dudes.
The funny thing about the turrets in Portal, is that they are installed with two interesting components. The first is an empathy generator, which means they would theoretically be able to empathize with and communicate with Humans (which makes sense, since apparently they were advertised as being good for protecting babies). The second is an empathy suppressor, so these turrets are built to empathize with and communicate with humans, but the instant they see a valid target that ability is suppressed until the enemy is dead. I guess defective turrets have the suppressor activate, but the inability to shoot results in the suppressor deactivating, and then activating again in regular intervals. The Oracle turret probably had a defective empathy suppressor, and chose not to shoot at anyone.
@@calsalitra4689 this wax eye-opening. Damn.
@@calsalitra4689 dang, very cool
@@calsalitra4689 wait, weren’t the defective ones blind?
@@ThatBowlofChili They were blind, but they were still trying to fire at Chell.
It is important to remember Star Wars lore. Most Jedi have force speed that cannot be well shown in most media. Force speed has not been directly portrayed in any Star Wars movie or series (to my knowledge) but the KOTOR video games and other books and comics have been helpful in explaining force speed. Ultimately, force speed is an ability not all Jedi possess, but many Jedi use to avoid lazers.
It was used for a split second in the phantom menace, when quai gon and Kenobi escape from droidekas
i just realized that a droid was reaching out to the commander droid as it was sliced to bits at 29:33
I had no idea when I was drawing the images for this video how dark the context actually was. Never having watched the show except for a few clips to get reference, I am pretty shocked how ruthlessly these lovable characters are treated. I know they're the bad guys, but they get wrecked so hard in some of these scenes it's hard not to feel gross watching it. Especially after so much effort is put into their design to make them seem innocent and naive.
The fact that no one in the entire star wars galaxy acknowledges the suffering of the droids enhances the tragedy of their existence a thousandfold, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
_"Keep in mind that all our favorite political ideologies and moral philosophies will be viewed as archaic jokes in the centuries leading up to the point when they are forgotten entirely, assuming it's not even more sudden than that."_
We should remember, whenever engaging in media criticism, that there's nothing wrong with depicting people or cultures that we would consider morally abhorrent. We should expect any realistic depiction of human societies that are distant in time, past or future, not to be like our own, triply so when we're depicting alien civilizations.
At the same time though… do they care themselves? They aren’t really fully sentient the way humans are, but it’s a fuzzy line. They do when the writers need them to. Otherwise they might as well be bugs… and bugs working against us at that. If a swarm of wasps tried to sting you but acted kind of cute and funny while doing it., I still wouldn’t lose sleep over killing them. There just isn’t any point.
@@migarsormrapophis2755 Socrates and some of the Greek philosophers we still take advice from today.
Oh dude, you made the thumbnail? Awesome work with the stressed and drunk Battle Droid. It look so cool
@@willmungas8964
We are constantly shown the death of droids to flip flop between "smashing an obstacle (aka npcs)" and "tragic death (c3po power failing, r2d2 getting hurt, IG's sacrifice in Mando)"
The fact that just about all droids in Star Wars seem to have *some* level of sentience leads me to conclude that the only sensible reason (at least that I can come up with, other than the non-diegetic "writers keep thinking its funny/fun") is that there's some kind of Warhammer 40K style standard template for creating droid "brains" and that nobody actually knows how to make droid brains and just keep copying basic templates with minor tweaks, so nobody really knows how to make a functional droid without the baggage of crippling self-awareness.
Ha, you guessed the old legends canon. Not sure about modern Disney Canon but in old EU, now legends, alot of the tech ins tar wars (including droids) is poorly understood copies of a now dead race's stuff. This was introduced to explain the relative lack of tech advancement throughout star wars ie how slow tech evolves compared to how fast real tech advances. But also why there is older style screens/etc with advanced droids and jump drives.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 could you tell me what part of the old legends cannon that is i sounds like a interesting read
It could be more about the geanosions wanting to be paid more so they make worse droids so they need more made.
@@ducktape2218 The old dead race is the Rakata, and at least some of the technological copying can be found in the Essential Guide to Warfare.
Not really, droid sentience is simply an *"emergent property"* of general droid intelligence. Not even the best coders or programmers in the galaxy far, far away could write out the sentience droids develop and they know how the technogy works perfectly fine. However because it isn't some single part nor many parts, rather it, droid sentience is something more than the sum of its parts i.e. more than just lines of code.
31:50 The latter, leave a droid "alive" for long enough, depending on their initial intelligence/processing power, and they can develop free choice and sentience. That's why they get their memory wiped routinely, to prevent individualism and possible thoughts of revolt. At this stage of the war, battle droids were probably kept on the battlefield on overtime and had no time for routine maintenance like memory wiping. So Windu might have been taking a chance just in case he was fighting an enemy with the ability to choose.
I like to imagine some really eccentric inventor in charge of producing the droid army doing his best to make close to sentient beings and considering it his masterpiece
I love how he just avoids using the term "plot armour", even though thats exactly whats happening
Well plot armour is like 90% of the reason why the heros get away with what they do.
Plot armor can be great it’s just the Jedi have way too much, rarely the sith do. I like the droids, they cool.
@@ultronthetechnologicaltyra2081 honestly it’s the opposite from my perspective, it seems like the site always get away with some crazy escape then the Jedi get slaughtered out of nowhere except for the main characters
@@maxout6606
There is always that random group of sith that evade capture and death after EVERY single near complete defeat, not only do they evade capture every time they make it so the Jedi think that they FINALLY killed all the sith only for them to come back from *insert random outer rim world here* where they built up a new warfleet.
@@Lvl1.Sentry you mean 99% plot armor?
Anakin being able to hotwire the ship is actually an interesting point that I think the Prequels (and by extension Clone Wars) failed to adequately express and explore with Anakin. Anakin is a savant with droids, ships and technology because that technology is a *surrogate* for meaningful loving relationships with other *people.* Anakin can control and dominate electronics in a way that he can't people, at least as a Jedi, and its a perfect analogy for Anakin's need to fill the void left by his mother that leaves him jealous and scared. But the series never goes so far as drawing the connection between Anakin's characterization, his Force abilities, and all the sci-fi set dressing, so what should have been Anakin's *thing* gets sort of spread out to everyone.
He was supposed to be shown as a prodigy, but only shown lightly building droids , giving small amounts of sentience, building racing pods, fixing ships and doing more in canon, but they only show a bit in the canonical movies compared to the comics and more
Being the 66th like just felt right..
@@Issa.nicholas Now it's 69. Nice.
Anakin more like, burnt toast
It's funny because being good at droids seems to be a common trait on "special" ones. Revan, Meetra, and to a lesser extent Luke are all shown to either be passable with droids to outright savants as well.
I loved your idea for a droid colony. Sounds like a great show to watch.
Classical case of "good guys can only be as good as the bad guys"
This is also an issue in most live action shows (not counting andor) where the bad guys have room temperature IQs just for the good guys to survive
There is one thing that happened in Revenge of the Sith that i found deeply disturbing even as a child. During the Final part of the battle of coruscant after Grievous fled and his magna guards were destroyed, all pilot droids and neimoidians on the bridge started fleeing to the escape pods. They were screaming "get out of here", and "run", above being unarmed, but Anakin and Obi-Wan still attempted to destroy any droid they could find and even cornered one that attempted to escape.
Yeah that always bothered me. The Jedi are supposed to fight only in defense, but there are way too many moments where they destroy unarmed battle droids that are fleeing
Droids are machines. Who cares?
@@fosty. I get what you mean, but for one thing, violence against a machine is still violence, and should be against the Jedi code. On a more meta note, if a machine is cognizant enough to have self preservation, shouldn't it be allowed the rights given at least to an animal?
@@slackerswordsman42 Destroying a droid is like destroying a TV screen... one that could potentially kill you.
And to your question; absolutely not.
@@fosty. a tv screen doesn’t have human characteristics and can think independently like a human being. A tv screen does not tremble in fear when it’s fellows are slaughtered
I was in a homebrew DnD game where we played a group of clone troopers, and a B1 surrendered to us. He became a part of our crew and became the best shot out of all of us. He did survive our entire campaign too. It would be cool if that type of idea was in Star Wars media at some point
That is awesome, and I agree that it should be a more mainstream thing or at least be a bit more common, but there are "The Freemaker Adventures," that utilized that concept with RO-GR.
It technically did happen in one of the comics or was a books
that did happen
Give Star Wars Saga Edition a go if you enjoyed that homebrew. There's a whole wiki up for reference!
look up mr bones youll like him
I think the main thing to remember in this conversation is this is consistent across all of star wars... Every piece of star wars media contains bad guys who are portrayed as a real and imminent threat... unless they're facing the main characters. This literally started with A New Hope.
I would love a Star Wars series featuring B1 Battle Droids, and a huge collection of different kinds of SW droids on wacky adventures like smuggling, pirating, and so on as their own group. Maybe even have a decent explanation as to why the original B1s were so horrible at their jobs, and make the ones in the new series actually good in contrast.
I’d love a series about postwar droids. As I got older, I became very bored with Jedi, because they are so powerful. They can deflect endless lasers, slice through anything and use the Force to solve every other problem they can’t deflect or cut in half. After the novelty of space ninjas and glowing swords wears off, there is very little to be invested in.
A series starring droids would be extremely exciting considering they’re at the bottom of the Star Wars food chain as opposed to the top. No victory is guaranteed, unlike the Jedi whose defeat is unfeasible in almost all scenarios.
Also, I love the character design of droids. It’s very charming and leaves a lot of opportunity for variation to represent different characters. I might have to make my own droid-sona. Great video and fun topic
Roger Roger
In Lego Freemaker Adventures (which takes place after the Prequels), one of the main characters is a B1 Battledroid who lives with a group of Rebels and has no choice to live with them because he's the last of its kind. It's probably not what you'd really want but I think the writers had that in mind.
i'd love for lost post war droids to find, activate, repair and help each other find a new life. along the way through the planets, they have to face all kinds of stigmatism, fear, hatred, indifference, scrappers, etc who see them as just violent tools that can be used for free labor or profit. underdogs are always the best story. overcoming insurmountable odds to get a happy ending. of course they might lose many along the way of gathering more of themselves and other droids, but overall they would gain a net positive and eventually end with finding a deserted planet that's maybe full of beautiful scenery but has no living threats on it because the atmosphere is too deadly to living things and there's no valuable resources that are deemed worthy enough to collect, so the droids just set up solar arrays and live a peaceful life until the universe collapses in on itself. and they last long enough to reach that end because they get serious about training and become legit threats, but only to defend themselves when needed. and they learn how to maintain themselves and such
I'd argue the Sith are more interesting than Jedi. And then there's the history of the star wars galaxy, bounty hunters, alien species, monsters, planets, weapons, the Force, the clones and politics. To say there's nothing to Star wars other than Jedis is very evident that you are not or never were a star wars fan.
@@dtxspeaks268 Don’t worry, I never said the entirety of the Star Wars canon was uninteresting. In main Star Wars media, specifically films and shows, Jedi are often the focus and serve as the protagonists, which is more what I’m talking about.
One of my favorite things about battle droids is how they occasionally compliment the Jedi. For example, in one episode, Obi-Wan deflects a blaster bolt behind his back, and a droid says "that was impressive" and is promptly punched by a pissed off grievous.
I thought the droid said that to grievous sarcastically.
@@theplushkingdom133 idk
Who else though it was funny at 11:20 when the b1 picks up a grenade
I have a theory for this: in one of the episodes you see droids talking about a droid head they found it was a older model and the droid who has the head said they were reprogrammed independent thinkers so meaning they are just assistful droids before they were reprgrammed to be the sepratist they resemble some things one:battle droids are like who help people and for number 2:super droids are for bodyguards cause they have weapons and use there big bodies for defending number three: the commando gives the orders cause they are like managers number 4: the vehicles they use are for travel or helping people travel
Edit: the three is letters cause it looks like a face
Watching the clones destroy the droids really makes it feels like the roles are reversed. The clones are just mindless killers, while the droids are begging for mercy.
As I was scrolling and about to read this comment, that scene played. That was pretty cruel.
Yeah that's where I realized this show wasn't for me. Jedi aren't supposed to execute prisoners
They were also programmed to. You hear them demonize the “clankers” when you realize your enemy has thoughts and feelings it’s a lot harder to strike them down.
Droids deserves better than this! I don’t know why the writers would put that in, maybe to the humor of it? But it makes you feel sorry for them. 😢
@@DicemSpicemsyes, it’s both of their programming unfortunately.
I think the Droid showing concern for the tortured prisoner makes sense if it's not a medical droid and doesn't know how much that prisoner can take before dying and thus losing valuable information. But the fact that he's sad about it makes it seem like he's somewhat concerned about the prisoner's well being past the usefulness of having an alive informant.
His war crime module was probably still installed, or perhaps he still has his Naboo Covention routines activated.
@@Stefanius058 Geneva Convention becomes Geneva Suggestion
@Safwaan Adolf Droidler? We already have that in General Grievous.
30:16 It's Saw Guererra, I doubt he would've cared the slightest.
15:20 I always thought that sentence was the droid equivalent of "It's bad luck" or other such sayings.
I don’t think I could ever kill off a weaponless B1 battle droid. They just have such a charm to them, that it seems impossible that some of the good guys in the show could find it in them to kill some of the droids when they mean absolutely no harm. (eg. 35:28)
"good guys"
@Jared Bradley
You are a meat computer. Your so called emotions are nothing but chemical reactions triggered by stimuli. I say it's pretty weird how such a messy amalgamation of chemical and eventually biological processes allowed for us, "meat bags" to know and experience feelings.
@Jared Bradley it looks like a duck, smls like a duck, sounds like a duck, it's either a duck or a robot duck.
If you can't tell the difference between real sentience and artificial sentience, what's the point in differentiating them?
@Jared Bradley I mean in the end we aren’t we just clumps of trillions of cells?
If I remember correctly they were designed as forced labor droid, hence why they are so flimsy in combat. Their "quirky" personality is because their hardware cannot cope with the implanted software (think download IOS 16 onto the first generation iphone) so they tend to be more instinctive and less calculative
My understanding of droid stupidity was always based on one bit of lore; namely the little tidbit that the switch after naboo from central command to individual thought, the droid models were not upgraded to handle the additional load of running an Ai. They are always overclocked beyond the limits of their hardware; and their minds suffer as a result.
precisely correct.
Making b1 the skeleton of the army wasn't a good choice when your brain can barely hold anything more than "shoot the enemy dont shoot friend".
Thank god pilots and most high ranking field commanders were still OOM models because the amount of fatal accidents and suicide charges would have been obscene.
@@oom-3262 How obscene, exactly? I wish for you to tell me.😃
@@oom-3262 Actually, the OOM models were originally created to be connected to the central computer of a Lucrehulk class battleship. They were mostly replaced with the updated, more independent B1's after the disaster of the First Battle of Naboo, and the OOM was relegated to security roles rather than remaining as frontline fighters. (OOM-9 was still the best droid commander ever, though.)
@@geoffreyprecht2410 The OOM model wasnt entirely phased out because the b1 was incompetent at any other thing than direct fighting. Droid signals dont necessarily need to be coming from a lucrehulk class control ship. Every confederate capital and mid sized ship can emit low intensity signals, enough to man its own crew. Geonosis also has several signal ports hidden around its surface (see how poggle's escort are actually oom models)
OOM 9 is in fact the most successful droid commander that we know of but consider that its opponent was the naboo and gungans. Even if he succeded the opponent was miles behind the republic in armament, strategy and sheer number of plot armored jedi.
@@oom-3262 I forgot about Poggle's posse! Good point, my clanka!
This makes me want to write a story about a CIS Commander who actually treats his droids like people. Most importantly, he doesn't force them to undergo memory-wiping. Meaning that, over time, his droids become more 'experienced,' and develop personality traits. They end up scoring some brutal victories against the Clones of the Republic, because these droids do not act anything like the others; the complacent clone-troopers expecting predictable enemies are met with droids who use actual small- and large-scale tactics. Granted, they aren't as skilled as the clones - but the utter shock of actually fighting an enemy who can think and react leads to massive defeats.
After his victories and his droids becoming fanatically loyal to him, he forms a small separatist holdout when the war ends. Having amassed several legions of droids, a dozen-or-so CIS warships and whatever else they can scrounge up... and they form their own little society among one or two planets. Millions of droids, originally intended to be tools, discovering what it's like to be people. To be free, to explore what it means to be a sapient and sentient being. All while the galaxy around them is free to fall apart without their care or concern.
They should've had the battle droids programmed to always aim for centre mass as that's the most reliable way of damaging your target or something. That could've explained some of the ways their programming can be exploited by their enemies. They could've even said that droids only perform really well in flatter areas or whatever, which you could imagine being the result of shoddy programming or build quality.
I think a storyline where a droid has a malfunctioning AI and becomes sentient, then attempts to escape a warzone with some of his buddies could be fun. From what I understand of the lore, the droids are purposely set to have a limiter on their intelligence to prevent this scenario.
There is so much potential in this type of storyline. I would watch this soooo hard
They are sentient, non sentient ones are called robots
Already happened in the comics
@@epicassassin8502 I was looking to see if someone would comment that. Good to see a connoisseur.
@@DomR1997 indeed
I always hated the fact that "this is ths main character, so he can't be shot". Like atleast make the droids a bit badass
Okay turns out that many star wars fans tell me that "omg it's because of the forts". Coman!!!!
nice pfp and name general
im pretty sure weve seen them kill clones and other jedis as the series went by
I've had this argument many times with my friend and it always boils down to 'the force'. Quite tiring when thats what they always go for.
There’s a couple of things to note:
* Battle Droids (and most likely all other droids) run on a battery that requires recharging (I remember an episode with grievous literally pushing them to the point of exhaustion).
* Tactical Commander Droids exist and seem to be more intelligent (at least more so than an average battle droid), so it’s likely that Battle Droids have reduced tactical capabilities to make up for in other areas (regardless of how little of a difference this made to their effectiveness).
* People have pointed out that droids have actual free-will, although limited, and can act on emotion. It’s possible that Battle Droids keep trying to act on free-will (maybe they want to surrender, flee, or act out a plan they think is better) but their programming/fear of memory wipe/deactivation makes them think otherwise.
* Some theories add onto this (though aren’t confirmed), and are stated in other comments. One theory is that Battle Droids, under the stress of war and the fear of disobeying orders, that they become more emotional/comical. Another theory is that due to the droid factory being set on Genosia, and the cruelty/sadism of the Genosians, that they are made to be incompetent/have actual feelings. Lastly, I swear I remember another theory that believed the growing incompetence of the Battle Droids was due to budget/cost-cutting in order to mass produce the Droid army. This would explain the slim frames of the Battle Droids from the get-go, and why the need for Super Tactical Commander Droids, and Super Battle Droids became a thing. Even then, those droids still suffered the same problems in intelligence (minus Super Tactical Commander Droids). It’s possible separate AI models were disregarded in order to mass produce one model with mild variations for the different droids, maybe the model is flawed from the start, or maybe the original model was only improved upon for the variations. This would explain the shared incompetence, even amongst some of the advanced models.
* Finally, it should be considered that Tactical droids are adjusted to account for whoever they’re serving. Addressing higher ups by their preferred titles, and being suited to whatever customs or other preferences they wish. It’s possible this troublesome command/leadership transfers to the Battle Droids, as they have to obey the commands given/translated by the Tactical Droids, adhere to the customs of their leaders.
During the prequel’s battle droids, we’re controlled by a command ship in the clone wars. They were independent thinkers, but since they can process all the information they received, they tried to alleviate it with their talking, which made the goofy.
31:25 This scene is actually quite crucial in determining the sentience of battle droids, it shows them surrendering against overwhelming odds, which displays some form of self-preservation and free-will, even the commander decides to surrender. Also this answers the dying question of ‘can droids surrender’. The answer is yes they can just not very often
I could just be a tactical decision on the part of their programmers. If just one Droid is captured it can send data from inside enemy installations.
I didn’t think of that, possibly
Do you know where this scene is from? I don't think I've seen it before
@@nyancat4292I’m not very sure, sorry.
@@appropriate-channelname3049I just thought the same 😊 Or also they made them like that for psychological effects of their cuteness. It doesn’t feels and sounds like a danger enemy, but in amounts they are.
The fact that no one in the entire star wars galaxy acknowledges the suffering of the droids enhances the tragedy of their existence a thousandfold, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
I think the cut in half makes sense because think about fact that the light saber’s heat could over shock or weld the wires together and cause malfunction
I agree that it could get Lazy, though Hotwiring the Mav is something I'm fine with. Anakin is a prodigy with electronics - building C3P0 as a child, slave, assembling a pod-racer as the same child slave, and later is a part of designing the Jedi-Star fighter. I believe the one he uses is his own modifications.
Droids while shat on for being stupid, are practically sentient - just most seem to be in the child phase of their lives. This is no small order, and given the repairs he performs on the droids in his youth, it's not a stretch that a experimental flagship is going to have a bypass that he can perform. Especially since the bridge controls don't seem to have any real locks/security.
He's still the same Anakin from the Phantom menace - just grown up... And a little more likable.
"They're basically the twinks of the Star Wars universe" delt me psychic damage.
I always felt bad for the Battle Droids. Such adorable and dorky dudes being used as canon folder and slapstick. A lot of the time it's funny, but then you get things like the guy who just got promoted or the landing pad greeters that are just plain sad.
I wholeheartedly agree with the end of this video. Ever since Mando came out I've been wanting a live action show completely centered around droids. Not necessarily B1s, but one of them's gotta join the team eventually.
One gripe I've got though is the statement that droid sentience only became a hot topic after Solo. This is definitely not true. When the first Star Wars film came out in 1977, most of the more negative reviews shared a common thread of finding it strange that 3PO and R2 where essentially slaves to the heroes. Lucas has stated multiple times that this slave parallel was intentional, and was based on an old samurai film, in order to give a bottom-up view of the universe and make you empathetic. Even in the exact show you're talking about a season 1 episode involves all the Jedi telling Anakin to get over loosing R2 because he's just a tool and he tries to convince them he's more than that. A season 5 or so episode involves an organic military general learning to respect droids after a squad helps him on a mission. It's a topic the shows and movies have touched upon, the creators have brought up from time to time, and the fanbase has discussed since the franchise's inception. L3 just said the quiet part out loud.
that's the point, they're droids, not humans. they have no value and are cheap to create. they're just funny, corky and dumb because the author said so
in reality they're just walking metal buckets that have no purpose except killing
@@aaronmurovanchik5582 Did you watch the video? They are most certainly not...
@@DJSlimeball yeah.. their purpose was to destroy and follow orders. that's what emperor palpatine planned for, if he really wanted to he could destroy the galactic army with billions of them but instead waged a shadow war to seize power
@@aaronmurovanchik5582
In star wars Ai operates off of the principle that they cannot go against their programming. However they can devolope personalities- but can't act upon their emotions.
Considering Palpatine was orchestrating the whole thing, perhaps he had the droids coded to never kill certain people.
Edit: Probably explains the emotions too as he is that sadistic.
Yeah, I think a lot of people fail to realise that droids are more than likely intentionally incompetent as to make things easier for the Jedi and lure them into a false sense of security, so they would be completely unprepared when an actually competent army like the clones turned on them
@@NeoAya Kinda curious if that’s how he felt about the post clone stormtroopers too.
@@TBevill1231 like, the stormtroopers were made inefficient because, for some reason, they rebel, they can be put down easily, the droids and the clones are more interesting, because they show 2 greater potential treats to the republic/empire and were banned after the war exactly because they show how the treat was real.
@@TBevill1231 The Stormtroopers are actually very competent when they aren't up against Jedi or main characters who wear plot armor. The movies make them seem lame but the comics do a good job of showing just how deadly and even badass a lot of them came be when they aren't fighting Jedi or main characters.
@@Sleepy_Apocalypse I think it all comes from the fact that most fascists are just straight up incompetent. They don't know how to lead well, their governments are poorly managed, and the only way they keep their power is through fear. Sounds like the Empire to me.
I told myself I wouldn't watch this. I told myself this was 40 minutes long. But I watched all of it.
Good work, sir.
Oh, god. You absolute mad lad. 'Bout to do the same in a couple days! READY TO DO MY PART, GENERAL SKYWALKER!
you can truly see the power of droids when you play the battlefront 2 video game.
Flaws of the game aside, when you play with people who know how to use the droids, the game becomes one sided.
During boarding missions, the droideka rush is so brutal that just can overwhelm anyone.
Commando droids and their mobility can handle troops and if done right, hero jedi characters as well. as cool as clone are, playing droids is so satisfying its great
We best be talking about the original battle front 2
I actually squealed with happiness when I saw that Solar Sands was covering a topic so near and dear to my heart. I love the humble B1, and I've spent a lot of time on VR Chat with a B1 avatar and a voice changer. I've been a Geetsly's fan for a while, and that channel is why I fell in love with the Battle Droids, so it's amazing to see it's inspired other people as much as it inspired me!
I identify pretty strongly with the B1. I've worked min wage jobs, so I know what it's like to be expendable, replaceable, and expected to perform robotically. They really feel like the victims of Palpatine's plan just as much as the clones were. If anyone finds any fanfiction about that unit of B1's escaping a life of war and living happy, peaceful lives in the outer rim, let me know!
the closest thing I've ever found is "R2D2 save the galaxy (obi wan helps a little)".
basically r2d2 decided to let anakin have a break and breaks out obiwan from capture himself, and proceeds to steal both galactic armies and let's some of them go hang out on an empty world.
Degenarate
This is one reason I love the original Star Wars Battlefront games, you can play as the droids and make it an even match. The first levels are even invading Naboo and being a force to be reckoned with.
And that's where questioned if they can feel pain, because they groan when taking damage
@@maxlhetvxhywxvxbm7645 wait what the hell i never realized that
There's also the convenience of not going against Droideka's and having an easier time with headshots.
This was an amazing video you made about how the B1 battle droids were mistreated 👍🏻👍🏻❤️. I do think they have suffer enough throughout the years from the battles between Jedi and clones. You showed us how come droids have personalities when they are machines, like that doesn’t make sense? And that droids and clones are the same but with a slight difference than one being alive. Like I know before clones are born into war, but both of them having names (although droids having numbers as names), going in groups & knowing how to handle in a fight. Me personally, I think the writer’s make it like that is to make them look and acted funny. Sometimes I feel like I should be on there side and helping them out in tough situations. There are some good scenes where they are treated good, like how they serve that young boy in the clone wars series. And how three of them were with R2-D2 & one feels pity for one droid in the comics. We need more of all in Star Wars, just to show that not all B1 battle droids are killers! They can serve and live in peace ☮️.
17:34 dude that scene just breaks my heart
To be fair, that one rebel is Saw Gerrera, and he's not exactly the sort to worry about civilian casualties
bro saw gerrera is a terrorist lol
To be fair, that one rebel is Saw Gerrera, and he's literally a psychopathic terrorist... you know, like how the rest of the rebel alliance would realistically be if Star Wars morality wasn't painted in fucking checkerboard pattern until it's convenient for them.
IIRC, didn't he later get booted from the rebel alliance precisely because he gave so few shits it ended up playing straight into imperial propaganda?
@@natesmodelsdoodles5403 he got booted for extremism I believe
However he wasn't like that until after the battle on Onderon and the death of his sister.
I love B1 Battle Droids if they made a show with them as the main characters I could die happy
There is a lego series that Roger the droid that the CZcamsr mentioned is in the series helping the family
Roger Roger.
I think one explanation…at least for the constant chatter…is that since they’re programmed for so many different things, (security, firefighting, piloting, command etc) that their brains physically can’t keep up with all the information and deal with the overload by constantly talking, I don’t know if that explanation applies to EVERY point you have in this video, but I think it’s an interesting bit of lore
I can't tell how critical this video is because a lot of the things you're pointing out here, design of The Clone Wars Battle Droids, their voices during this time, their personality, these are all reasons why I love em! And while I feel we got close in Rebels, I kinda wish we got a piece of Star Wars media which gave the Droids a similar treatment to the Clones and did something a bit more character focused with them, maybe a group of battle droids realise how disposable they've been to the separatist and decide to do their own thing or something.
Clearly Star Wars likes the Battle Droids to, they keep appearing in media like The Mandalorian and Jedi: Survivor, so maybe give them an episode where we get to see some Battle Droid characters develop?
In the later seasons, the clone wars really called into question the "good guy" vs "bad guy" narrative. I always thought that the abuse battle droids faced after trying to surrender and stuff like that really showed a different side to the "good guys".
Yeah, there is a solid case to be made that the CIS are the good guys (after all most just wanted to be independent and didn't know about the atrocities that were being committed by their armies, or they considered it enemy propaganda). Sure the CIS was being controlled by a Sith, but secretly so was the Republic. Count Dooku was a respectable Jedi before abandoning the Order, meanwhile the Jedi who are supposed to be Neutral were fighting for what they saw is an oppressive regime. The average person doesn't get lectured in the Religious views of the Jedi, so what if the Guy in charge is a "heretic", he was seen as the wise leader that was needed to win the war for independence. In fact there were so many episodes that made people inside the CIS seem pretty good, or at least grey enough, that when there were episodes that wanted to make the CIS look very bad that they felt weird. As if the writers were like "oh damn, we need to remind everyone that they are supposed to be the bad guys, quickly let's have them do something "evil".
CIS was originally an independence movement born from abuse and neglect of the republic of the outer and mid rim, then sith got their claws into it and brought the corpo's with them. As well early on in the war, they tried to kill most of the command staff that did have morale, which was primarily the non-corporate aligned. At least, that is the case with legends, and wouldn't be surprised if that was confirmed canon as well.
there wasn't a clear good guy/bad guy theme because from the begining you know the imperial forces will become the bad guys by the original movies.
For full context: B1's were regularly recycled, and had spotty memory wipes to nonexistent memory wipes. Pair this with a switch from command units to independent processors, and the end result is a whole lotta programming defects from the droids literally developing sentience as time goes on.
You mean to say that even in death they couldn't escape the horrors of war, and the years of trauma from repeated battles caused them to develop a sense of humour as a coping mechanism?
That's pretty cool!
@@dragonfell5078 basically yes. Droids who got fried by a electro charge would just be salvaged and repurposed again. Memory wipe, check that everything’s ok, but the droid itself stays the same. Now do that a few times and make the wipes not work as well and boom. That thing has so much conflicting information in its processor that it has to develop a personality just to filter the intel
@@xenon3990 yep and they also tend to get overloaded with software upgrades as well as their processers weren't meant to handle the level of intel they have to handle.
This is a retcon in order to explain how pathetic they were in the 3D Clone Wars show. Before the 3D Clone Wars show, in most media, B1s were actually kinda cool with a FEW comedic elements to them. After 2007, they just became losers and not threatening. Bad guys should be threatening.
I was always under the impression that the separatists cut corners while making the droids due to mass production (quantity over quality) but these points are good
when i show up to my "not enjoying anything" coemption and solar sands is my opponent
The prison escape episode was one of the saddest pieces of media in the way the droids just gives their lives. As a military vet and someone who’s seen the way people assume sacrifice is something so easy, it’s just disturbing. It’s a war yes, but laying down your life is never easy and even harder for someone else to accept. That was a cold and sad way to see those droids , especially after seeing them bond with R2.
R2 low key didn't care imo
@@tonynasaofficial he's an astromech those guys are more sadistic then anything I've seen from any type of battle droid.
The question of battle droids having feelings and personalities reminds me of this question:
"Does this unit have a soul?"
Didn't expect to a quote from legion also Spoilers:
Im happy that I ended the quarian-geth war peacefully,
The official lore is that the Battle Droids gain personalities due to the limitations in their hardware and software. The longer they’re out in the field without having their systems refreshed and updated, the more “human” they become. This is why in many ways the reprogrammed battle droids are more competent. Their programming hasn’t been overloaded by memory limitations, so they can more easily fall back on that programming. (Let’s be honest, the Republic also probably fixed some of the issues, too).
Aside from that, there are plenty of examples where the writers absolutely tipped the scales. It’s unfortunate, but it doesn’t stop me from loving the show:
I was always under the impression that Palpatine wanted the droids to look like a threat, so that the clone army could be built for the eventual takeover. E.g. Droids are meant to have a bare minimum amount of lethality against most republic forces to give public perception of danger and reason for Palp’s control and clone development, without actually damaging his forces. The “its in my programming” bit is actually a strong hint at this imo. When we start looking at everything as a “guise” for public perception (for both reasonable rep and cis territories) it makes a lot of sense.
0:19 While that IS true, it's also nice to see those old favorites show up from time to time.