“The Lost Prince,” the fifth episode of the Droids cartoon, tackles questions about droid rights in the Star Wars universe, and the answers are exactly what you hope they aren’t.
We left C-3P0 and R2-D2 floating in space, but since then they’ve landed on yet another desert planet that isn’t Tatooine. Star Wars LOVES desert planets that look like but aren’t Tatooine. This one even has a guest appearance from Jabba the Hutt’s band! But nope, it stubbornly refuses to be Tatooine.
Anyway, the droids are in search of a new master, and have been sent by an agency to a diner. Yes, an agency – that’s the only description we get, but it feels very much like a temp agency. They screw up their new food industry jobs in comical ways, of course, and are fired by the diner’s owner. The whole first act of this episode treats droids as employees of their masters, rather than possessions. It’s a good kid-friendly way of handling the thorny ethical issues about seemingly sentient beings being owned that the movies tend to gloss over. Well done, Droids!
Until act two. 3P0 is distraught, saying they can’t function without a master. The implications of this are not explored, but they’re worrying. Does he mean they legally can’t function? Does galactic law require droids to be owned? Or does he mean it literally? Is there something in droids’ programming that will shut them down if they go too long without an owner?
It gets worse. Out of options, the droids put themselves up for auction. On an elevated auction block, with a crowd of people gathered around making bids. The money paid for our title characters, though, doesn’t go to them, it goes to the auctioneer. And they have no say in who they’re sold to; they have no choice but to go with the highest bidder.
I’m trying not to take this essay about a kids’ cartoon to too horrible a place, but you can connect the dots for yourself. These dots are not very far apart. This is perhaps not imagery that should have been served up to kids on a Saturday morning, especially when, while we’re supposed to care for the droids’ plight, the circumstances themselves are not presented as in any way morally wrong.
It’s funny, that the droids can’t find a good master. Uh-oh, they were almost sold to a silly-looking abusive alien! Isn’t that hilarious?
It gets worse. Again.
Let’s assume that these droids we love so much aren’t people. They’re not sentient. Forget that they have emotions, they feel pain, they interact with each other even when non-droids aren’t around. These are nothing but extremely sophisticated versions of ChatGPT encased in robot bodies. Fine. If that’s true, then the auction here is no worse than selling paintings at Sotheby’s. I don’t buy that, but let’s go with it, just for a moment.
This episode introduces a new kind of being to the Star Wars universe – an android. We don’t get a clear definition of what an android is, exactly, but there are a whole lot of context clues. Androids and droids are definitely NOT the same thing. Droids are entirely mechanical. Androids are living beings with cybernetic parts. What we usually think of as cyborgs. Most definitely people, in other words.
An android is sold at the auction, alongside all the droids. Okay, it turns out not to be an android, it’s the titular lost prince in disguise, but nobody knows that when he’s bought by Jann. Jann’s our new hero of the story, the droids’ new master, who is unequivocally a “good guy,” who helps our droids take down the evil gangster and save the poor lost prince. And Jann doesn’t have any problems at all with buying and owning a living being.
So if androids are people, and they can be owned, then we really don’t have any grounds to think that droids aren’t people too.
It’s probably good that Disney owns Star Wars now. This episode of Droids will fit on the vault shelf nicely, right next to Song of the South.
Previous: Ewoks S1E5 – “The Travelling Jindas” (1985)
Next: Ewoks S1E6 – “The Tree of Light” (1985)
