Skip to main content

star wars - Why is C-3PO kept in the dark in Return of the Jedi while R2-D2 is not?



In Return of the Jedi, the beginning sequence shows C-3PO and R2-D2 making their way to Jabba the Hutt's palace. They are sent there to bargain for Han Solo's life.


When the negotiations with Jabba begin, R2-D2 shows him a message from Luke Skywalker. In that message he offers the two droids as gifts in exchange for Han Solo. To which C-3PO says:



C-3PO: You're playing the wrong message!



So C-3PO is obviously very surprised that Luke has just said this.


Then, on Jabba's barge, we see a plan play out that Luke Skywalker has already put in motion.






We see C-3PO bump into R2-D2 and warn him that they are about to kill Luke and that they might be next, but R2-D2 says something which C-3PO responds to by saying:



C-3PO: I wish I had your confidence.



So this just reinforces that R2-D2 was in on the plan as he was also preparing Luke's lightsaber to launch it in the air to where Luke was on the smaller craft.


The only way for this to have played out was if Luke had given his lightsaber to R2-D2 before they were sent to Jabba's palace. This is obviously the case since Luke did not have his lightsaber while being captured at Jabba's palace.


So R2-D2 had to have known details of the ensuing plan, but as we can C-3PO did not.


Why was C-3PO left out of the plan?



Answer



This is addressed in the new (Disney canon) junior novelisation for Return of the Jedi.




So it was up to his closest friends:
the loyal and hairy Chewbacca,
the not-always-so-loyal Lando Calrissian,
the farm boy turned star pilot Luke Skywalker,
and the rebel princess Leia Organa
to come up with a better plan.


A very risky, very dangerous, very easy-to-go-wrong, very unlikely-to-work sort of a plan.
The sort of plan that was so unlikely to work, in fact, that C-3PO would never have agreed to be part of it.
So he wasn’t told.



Return of the Jedi: Beware the Power of the Dark Side!



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...