C-3PO has never really been one of my favorite droids–he was more annoying than anything else, lol. But over the years I’ve softened toward him. I especially liked him in The Rise of Skywalker. And I’ve seen a lot of great fan art of him. Which is impressive, because what do you do to make a droid, whose face remains the same all the time, interesting? You do whimsical, that’s what you do!
I love this series by Kyle Hagey, who puts Star Wars characters into beautiful meadows of flowers while having tea or knitting or some such thing. Threepio is daydreaming here, an idea that tickles me. What does Threepio daydream about? Safety, probably. No laser battles, people behaving, things going as they should. Oil baths. Artoo not getting them into trouble, that sort of thing, lol.
This is another artist whose series I like. I just love the slapdash colors and sense of movement. It looks like confetti is coming off of Threepio, as if in celebration of him.
This outfit just seems to fit Threepio. A Victorian English gentleman overly concerned with propriety.
Who knew the innards of Threepio’s head would be an interesting subject for art? Funny thing is, I never noticed that thing sticking out at the top of his head. Has that always been there???
Another Victorian, or possibly Edwardian, Threepio. This time he’s got a title: Baron von C3PO. I think he’d be quite pleased with that.
This one’s great because he looks like some kind of droid fashion model strutting his stuff, lol.
What do you think of these images? What’s your opinion of Threepio? Let me know in the comments, and we’ll talk about it!
Star Wars and Other Obsessions 
Oddly enough (and this is coming from a guy who, at the age of 58, still loves buying new Star Wars figures and owns multiple copies of the films on DVD and Blu-ray), I was a Star Wars resister who wanted NO PART of the madness over that “space movie” back in 1977.
Most of my friends – in school as well as the Miami-area neighborhood (Westchester) where I lived with my mom) – told me that I had to see Star Wars. That it was the best movie ever. That they’d already seen God-knows-how-many-times that summer, and that they’d see it again another gazillion times until it was no longer in theaters.
1977 was not, I must say, a good year for me. In March, I had my first breakup with a girlfriend. My maternal grandfather fell and broke his hip two months before that, and my mother, who was his favorite offspring, flew down to Bogota (Colombia), to help my grandmother with his care. Mom was gone for my 14th birthday AND the breakup, though she did fly back to Miami when I got pneumonia.
In May of 1977, shortly before Star Wars premiered, my grandfather passed away. So…I didn’t even know the movie was coming out until its “wide release” in early June. And because my mood was so affected by everything that had occurred thus far, I wasn’t too keen on seeing what I figured would be a movie for kids. (Heck, I was 14 and wanted to be treated as a grown up….)
Then, to make matters worse, my grandmother flew up from Bogota to stay with us for a while to get away from the apartment that she had shared with my late grandfather for years and all the post-funeral stuff. I loved my grandmother, yes, but she wasn’t the easiest person to get along with because she was, as they say, “old school” and somewhat overbearing.
My grandmother’s visit directly led to my mom’s decision to sell our house (which I was happy in) and buy a townhouse (which wasn’t even built yet) because Grandma fell in love with a then-new development called East Wind Lake Village. She talked my mom into visiting the model houses and convinced her to buy the one in which we’d live from 1978 to 2015 (the year Mom died. I stayed there till April of ’16, then moved to where I live now).
During the first three months of Star Wars’ long run, then, my mind was not in the best of places, so you’ll understand that my resistance wasn’t because I didn’t like George Lucas or space movies. I had lost my girlfriend, my grandfather, and was going to lose my beloved house, so I was in a foul mood…Palpatine would have been able to convert me into a 14-year-old Sith apprentice then.
What does this have to do with C-3PO, you ask? Plenty.
We sold the Westchester house in late August, and by September my mom, my older half-sister (who had been invited by our parental unit to rejoin the family after a two-year estrangement) and I lived in a cramped apartment in Sweetwater while the townhouse was being built. Mom and my older half-sisters had the two bedrooms, while I slept on a cot in the living room. Blech.
But on September 16, 1977, ABC aired “The Making of Star Wars,” a behind-the-scenes documentary which featured Anthony Daniels (in character and in costume) as C-3PO and Kenny Baker as R2-D2 as the hosts. (William Conrad did the narration.)
Well, I know that a lot of Star Wars fans find C-3PO (or See-Threepio) to be annoying, but I found his English butler’s tone and persnickety personality to be charming. So I watched the documentary (which I was sort-of interested in seeing if only to understand what Star Wars was all about.) And, to my surprise, I found myself wanting to see it.
Which, of course, I did. I convinced my half-sister to drop me off at the nearest theater the weekend after I saw “The Making of Star Wars.” And the rest is, as they say, history.
I tell myself that if I ever run into Anthony Daniels at a Star Wars convention and he asks me how I became a Star Wars fan, I should say, “Well, you know, Mr. Daniels, this is all your fault.”
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That’s a great story! I love to hear people’s “Star Wars Stories.” And it’s definitely escapism at its best–it’s comforting on so many levels. I hope it made that crappy year a lot better for you. And Threepio’s grown on me over the years, and as I said, he was great in TROS. Thanks for reading!
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Hello Tina, the Alessandro Pautasso image makes me think Anakin used cheap paint or chrome on Threepio and it’s all chipping off!
And yes that protrusion on his head has been there all the time though it does vary in length depending on the scene/film and whether or not you are looking at a digital model of him (sometimes the 3D model would omit the spike to cut down on the framework of the model especially if the model was viewed at a distance and wasn’t necessary for accuracy). I was a member of a lightsaber owners forum and another gentleman on that site was a former LucasArts/ILM 3D artist and built the Threepio character you see in the ILM/X-Labs Holographic IR game that came out a few years ago. His 3D Threepio was also used in The Force Awakens in the Rebellion Hangar scenes
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Wow, you know some cool people, FT! Yeah, I can’t believe I never noticed it before, I guess I have to start paying better attention! I like your description of the Pautasso image.
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Hi there, yes I’ve “met” some really interesting people but sadly the forum closed and I lost contact with the guy but I had fun discussing Theatrical Stage lighting and 3D design (I studied to be a Theatre Stage Technician/Sound Engineer so got to play with some really big lightsabers! Well, big spotlights anyway 😁)
The Threepio costume and look was inspired in a big way by the “droid” in the Fritz Lang movie Metropolis which had a similar “headband”.
And one final little droid theory, regards Kurisawa’s “Hidden Fortress” the two characters JulieG mentions were considered the “Narrators” for the film and some SW fans have speculated that the Star Wars story is being retold from Artoo’s perspective and data banks as he is the only character that has appeared in all 9 of the saga movies – and hasn’t had his memory wiped! (< he did endure a partial memory wipe by Cad Bane during the Senate Hostage Crisis but retained the majority of his stored data)
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I like that theory about Star Wars being told from Artoo’s POV, he’s a true witness to it all (except, perhaps, the events of TFA, as he’s shut down for awhile since Luke disappeared).
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Lol You kind of summed up my idea of Threepio when you said “not one of my favourite droids” lol but he does have so much personality which makes him a little annoying but gives him a sense of character which I think is amazing for a droid. George Lucas did create 3PO and Artoo based on two characters from the Japanese film The Hidden Fortress I think 🙂 and they were also annoying lol
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Yeah, I think they were also meant to be a kind of Laurel and Hardy duo, as comic relief. When I was younger I didn’t find it very funny, but I’m more tolerant now that I’m older and love the more silly characters, like Threepio, Jar Jar, the Ewoks, whatever. It’s all in good fun.
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Yeah I feel the same. I love the droids now lol It just wouldn’t be star wars without them 🙂
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