If you're looking for the true lead characters of Star Wars, look no further than C-3PO and
R2-D2.
Together they're one of fiction's greatest duos, and the real POV characters of the franchise.
Let's take a look at the saga from their point of view.
R2-D2 came from the planet Naboo, where he was one of several nearly identical astromech
droids stationed on Queen Padmé Amidala's royal starship.
When the Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi helped the Queen escape from
captivity during a blockade by the Trade Federation, the starship was fired upon by ships hoping
to recapture Amidala.
A bunch of droids, including R2-D2, exited the ship to make repairs from the outside.
While several other droids were blown off the ship and destroyed, R2 survived and made
the repairs that enabled the ship to escape.
He was personally thanked by the Queen, and from that point on served her more directly.
When Amidala's ship stopped on the planet Tatooine, they met C-3PO, a protocol droid
that lacked his outer casing, which made him look like a metal skeleton covered in wire.
Young Anakin Skywalker claimed that he had built C-3PO himself, although C-3PO's databanks
had already existed, and his body was a wreck until Anakin reconstructed him from spare
parts.
When Qui-Gon saw Anakin's potential to become a Jedi, he won the boy's freedom from the
junk dealer named Watto who had enslaved him and his mother, Shmi, but she and C-3PO were
forced to stay behind.
When Padmé Amidala's term as Queen of Naboo ended, she became a Senator.
R2-D2 joined her on Coruscant, the Galactic Capital, where the droid helped Obi-Wan Kenobi
and a grown-up Anakin Skywalker foil an assassination attempt on Padmé's life.
This led Anakin to take her into hiding off-planet, bringing R2-D2 along, but when Anakin began
having visions of his mother in peril, the trio returned to Tatooine.
There, they were reunited with C-3PO, who now had a rusty metal covering that made him
look more like a typical protocol droid.
They also learned that Shmi Skywalker had been freed from slavery by a man named Cliegg
Lars, who became her husband.
After being freed, Shmi and C-3PO moved to the Lars moisture farm, but Shmi was captured
by Tusken Raiders, and died just as Anakin arrived to save her.
C-3PO departed the Lars farm with Anakin and Padmé, and he and R2-D2 accompanied them
to Geonosis.
There, they found their way into the foundry where Battle Droids were built, and C-3PO's
head was swapped with a Battle Droid head, much to his confusion.
Fortunately, R2-D2 was able to reunite his friend's head with his body.
R2 and 3PO escaped with their allies, but the Clone Wars had begun.
The two droids then attended the secret wedding of Anakin and Padmé on Naboo.
After six seasons of the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, R2-D2 and C-3PO have
had far too many adventures to recount them all here.
Suffice it to say that R2-D2 usually accompanied Anakin Skywalker on missions, while C-3PO
was more often the companion of Senator Padmé Amidala.
They did have a few adventures together, however, such as when they accompanied Anakin and Padmé
to Cato Neimoidia as part of a plan to expose Rush Clovis as a Separatist spy.
While there, Padmé was poisoned and 3PO helped a medical droid see to her recovery.
The droids were heroes in their own right when they were sent to the quake-ridden planet
Aleen as a part of a relief effort.
When R2 and 3PO found themselves trapped beneath the planet's surface, they discovered a way
to stop the quakes, earning the eternal gratitude of the Aleena people.
In one of their strangest adventures, R2-D2 and C-3PO made an emergency landing on a planet
where they were tied up by the miniature inhabitants.
"May I say that this is no way to treat friendly visitors to your planet."
The tiny people brought them before their dictator, Hay-Zu, but R2-D2 accidentally squashed
him, to the delight of the other citizens, who then helped the droids repair their ship.
C-3PO introduced them to the concept of democracy, but it only led to more fighting as the droids
made their escape.
Then R2 and 3PO landed on the planet Balnab, which was also ruled by a dictator.
This one turned out to be a hologram operated by a group of Pit Droids who were secretly
running the planet themselves.
By the closing days of the Clone Wars, R2-D2 was Anakin's full-time co-pilot, while C-3PO
stayed with Padmé on Coruscant.
R2 accompanied Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi when they boarded the flagship of Separatist military
commander General Grievous, to rescue the kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine, who was secretly
a Sith Lord.
R2 even fought off some Super Battle Droids on his own, showing how much his abilities
and personality had outstripped his programming.
He joined Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Palpatine on the bridge as Anakin crash-landed the flagship
on Coruscant.
C-3PO met up with R2-D2 soon thereafter, and the two caught up on what they'd missed while
they were apart.
"Well, it couldn't possibly be as bad as all that."
Anakin Skywalker soon fell under the sway of Palpatine, and R2-D2 was noticeably unsettled
by his master's changing behavior, but still accompanied him to the lava-strewn planet
Mustafar, where Palpatine had sent him to kill the Separatist leaders.
When a distraught Padmé followed Anakin to Mustafar, C-3PO piloted her ship himself,
showing that he had gained new skills as well.
While Obi-Wan and Anakin fought their fateful duel, the droids helped an injured and very
pregnant Padmé back onto her ship.
Both droids left Mustafar with Obi-Wan and rendezvoused with Bail Organa of Alderaan
. After Padmé died and her twin children, Luke and Leia, were placed in hiding, Organa
gave the droids to Captain Raymus Antilles, who commanded his flagship.
To protect the twins from Emperor Palpatine and Anakin, who had now fully become Darth
Vader, Organa told Antilles to have C-3PO's memory erased.
C-3PO and R2-D2 spent most of the time between the end of the Clone Wars and the Battle of
Yavin serving Captain Antilles on board his ship, the Tantive Four, which served as transport
for Alderaan's royal family and also flew missions for the burgeoning Rebel Alliance.
They occasionally had other duties, however, such as when Bail Organa sent them to escort
Imperial Minister Tua and an Aqualish arms dealer named Amda Wabo on a mission to the
planet Garel.
Officially, C-3PO was there to translate between Tua and Wabo, who lacked a shared language,
but R2-D2 knew their true mission, which was to prevent Tua and the Empire from getting
their hands on a shipment of powerful weapons.
The two droids were also at the Rebel Alliance base on Yavin Four in the lead-up to the Battle
of Scarif, where a suicide mission by a ragtag group of rebels enabled the Alliance to obtain
the schematics to the planet-destroying Imperial space station known as the Death Star.
Unbeknownst to the Empire, the Imperial engineer who had designed the moon-sized weapon had
included a weakness that would enable its destruction.
Ultimately the plans for the Death Star ended up on the Tantive Four with R2 and 3PO aboard,
which would lead to their biggest adventure yet.
Princess Leia Organa was fleeing from Scarif to Tatooine with the Death Star schematics
when Darth Vader's forces attacked and boarded the ship.
C-3PO and R2-D2 became the most important droids in the galaxy when Leia hid the Death
Star files in R2's memory banks.
C-3PO didn't know about the mission she'd given R2, but still followed his friend to
the surface of Tatooine.
"How did we get into this mess?
I really don't know how.
We seem to be made to suffer.
It's our lot in life."
On the desert planet once again, the droids were captured by Jawas and sold to Owen Lars
and his nephew, Luke Skywalker.
R2-D2, however, was determined to fulfill his mission for Princess Leia by finding the
exiled Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi.
He succeeded, along with 3PO and Luke, but the Imperial search for the droids led to
the murder of Luke's aunt and uncle.
Soon after, the droids, Luke, and Obi-Wan escaped Tatooine on board Han Solo's ship,
the Millennium Falcon.
After rescuing Leia from the Death Star, the whole group arrived at Rebel Alliance headquarters
on Yavin Four.
When Luke volunteered to fly an X-Wing fighter in the attack on the Death Star, R2-D2 performed
the same function for him that he had for his father, interfacing with the X-Wing's
astromech slot to help the ship fly.
He took serious damage in that battle, and C-3PO even volunteered to donate parts for
his repair, but the Rebels, grateful to Luke for destroying the Death Star, did an exceptional
job of repairing R2 on their own.
When the Rebels were forced to flee Yavin for the ice planet Hoth, R2-D2 and C-3PO naturally
came along.
After assisting in the effort to locate Luke and Han when they went missing, R2 and 3PO
were forced to abandon the Hoth base along with the rest of the Rebels when Imperial
forces arrived.
C-3PO left with Han and Leia on the Millennium Falcon, while R2-D2 left with Luke in his
X-Wing.
When the Millenium Falcon arrived in Cloud City on the planet Bespin, 3PO wandered away
from his friends and was blasted to pieces by Stormtroopers.
Fortunately, those pieces were found by Chewbacca, the tech-savvy Wookiee copilot of the Falcon,
who was able to restore 3PO to consciousness but didn't have a chance to fully reassemble
him.
Meanwhile, R2-D2 went with Luke Skywalker to the swamp planet Dagobah, so Luke could
train with the Jedi Master Yoda.
R2's only role in Luke's Jedi training was as a weight to be lifted with the Force, and
he spent a lot of time sitting around waiting.
Eventually, Luke had a vision of his friends in peril on Bespin, and he and R2 left to
save them.
There, R2 and the disassembled C-3PO were reunited once again, and as they escaped on
the Falcon, R2 helped put his friend back together.
Unfortunately, Han Solo had been captured on Bespin and taken to the gangster known
as Jabba the Hutt.
C-3PO and R2-D2 were part of the mission to rescue Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt, although
as usual, 3PO wasn't nearly as informed about the plan as R2.
"We bring a message to your master, Jabba the Hutt, and a gift -- gift, what gift?"
They arrived in Jabba's palace on Tatooine, and R2 played a message from Luke Skywalker
saying that both droids were gifts for the Hutt. 3PO was horrified, but he served as
Jabba's new translator, while R2 carried a drink tray on the Hutt's sail barge.
Eventually the plan came together, and when Luke needed his lightsaber for the rescue,
it turned out R2-D2 had been secretly carrying it in a hidden compartment all along.
C-3PO was much less help, and had one of his eyes pulled out by Jabba's monkey-like companion,
Salacious Crumb.
3PO was lucky that R2 shoved him off the sail barge before it exploded, and their friends
plucked them out of the sand before leaving Tatooine.
R2-D2 took a brief detour with Luke to return to Dagobah for one last visit with Yoda before
he died of old age.
Then both droids accompanied the Rebels on a mission to the forest moon of Endor.
When they encountered the native population a bunch of teddy bear-like creatures called
Ewoks the creatures mistook C-3PO for a god.
With the help of Luke's Force abilities, 3PO was able to prevent the surprisingly vicious
Ewoks from cooking and eating the Rebels, and their cooperation helped the Rebels defeat
the Empire.
After the victory at Endor, C-3PO continued to serve Princess Leia and Han Solo as they
rooted out Imperial holdouts and restored the Republic.
When the First Order arose to attempt to reinstate a Galactic Empire, Leia became the General
of the Resistance that opposed them, and 3PO followed her.
On a mission for the Resistance, C-3PO formed an unlikely friendship with a captured First
Order protocol droid named O-MR1.
When the droids were trapped on a dangerous planet, a tentacled creature ripped off 3PO's
left arm.
O-MR1 ultimately sacrificed himself to save C-3PO, and 3PO wore his red arm for a time
in memory of his friend.
"You probably don't recognize me because of the red arm."
As for R2-D2, he stuck by Luke Skywalker's side as Luke built a new Jedi Temple and attempted
to train a new generation of Jedi.
Unfortunately, all of that was undone by Luke's own nephew, Ben Solo, who led the mysterious
Knights of Ren in slaughtering the other trainees and destroying the temple.
R2 stood with his master as they watched the Temple burn.
Afterward, Luke left R2-D2 behind when he went into hiding, and the exhausted droid
entered a low-power mode that he would maintain for years.
Still wearing O-MR1's red arm, C-3PO accompanied General Leia Organa on a rescue mission to
the planet Takodana.
Back at the Resistance headquarters on D'Qar, R2-D2 was still in hibernation mode when the
Force prodigy Rey arrived and said that the First Order already had found most of the
map to Luke Skywalker's hiding place except for the part that had been hidden in young
droid BB-8.
Some part of R2 heard what Rey said, which brought him out of his low-power coma.
R2-D2 then helped BB-8 assemble the map to Luke's hiding place on the planet Ahch-To.
Leaving C-3PO on D'Qar, R2 accompanied Rey and Chewbacca on the Millennium Falcon to
find Luke.
When the First Order uncovered the location of the Resistance base on D'Qar, it was C-3PO
who received the transmission and informed Leia that they would have to evacuate.
He and Leia and most of the rest of the Resistance leadership escaped aboard the starship Raddus.
As the Raddus was pursued by the First Order, the bridge was destroyed by TIE fighters,
leaving Leia badly injured.
C-3PO wanted nothing more than to stay by her side while she recovered, but he found
himself unwillingly involved in a mutiny led by Poe Dameron against acting Resistance leader
Admiral Holdo.
When Leia woke up and stopped the mutiny, 3PO immediately surrendered.
Meanwhile, R2-D2 was on the distant planet of Ahch-To, where Rey was doing a poor job
of convincing Luke Skywalker to train her as a Jedi.
Luke wanted nothing to do with teaching, but R2-D2 changed his mind by playing the original
recording of Leia that he'd delivered to Obi-Wan Kenobi decades earlier.
But before Rey's training was complete, she, R2, and Chewbacca headed back to the Resistance.
After Admiral Holdo sacrificed herself and the Raddus to enable the other Resistance
survivors to escape, C-3PO fled with Leia and the others to the salty planet of Crait.
In the midst of a devastating attack from the First Order, Luke Skywalker surprised
everyone by arriving just in time to engage his former protege Kylo Ren in combat.
C-3PO seemed like he might have noticed something askew about Luke, but he shut up about it
when Luke winked at him.
Sure enough, Luke turned out to only be a Force projection, and not really on Crait
at all.
He was merely a distraction to give the Resistance enough time to escape.
"This facility is such a maze of endless tunnels that the odds of finding an exit are 15,428
--"
"Shut up!"
"...to one."
Nevertheless, Luke's gambit paid off, and C-3PO was reunited with R2-D2 aboard the Millennium
Falcon when Rey and Chewbacca arrived to help with the evacuation.
In the final days of the war, as the First Order became the Final Order and Emperor Palpatine rose again, R2-D2
remained at Resistance HQ while C-3PO went on a mission with the galaxy's greatest heroes to find the hidden Sith planet of Exegol.
Along the way, they found
a dagger that contained Sith runes that would show the way. 3PO was able to read the runes,
but because they were Sith writing, his programming prevented him from translating them for his friends.
In order to complete the mission, they had to go to a tiny droidsmith named Babu Frik, who was able to
override the programming in C-3PO's electronic brain, but at the cost of his memory. Understanding the odds
well enough to know that his sacrifice was necessary, C-3PO said goodbye to his friends and allowed his memory to be wiped for at least the second time.
When he returned to the Resistance base, R2-D2 was surprised that his best friend didn't remember him.
Although the amnesiac 3PO was reluctant at first to let the pushy Astromech droid mess with his head, R2 was
able to restore his memory. Together, they celebrated the final defeat of Palpatine and the First Order.
Just as they were there for Palpatine's rise, they were around for his fall. After all, aren't they the real stars of the saga?
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