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C-3PO, Darth Vader's First Child and the Bespin Reunion...

When Darth Vader encounters a dismembered C-3PO across the carbonite freezing facility on Bespin, he is encountering the droid that he built, created and breathed life into as a child on Tatooine. There is no moment of recognition although C-3PO is Anakin / Vader's other and first offspring. The moment is in some ways no less significant than Vader meeting his son Luke for the first time as this actually takes him right back to his early childhood on the desert planet of Tatooine. The moment, however significant, is elided over giving the 1980s viewer no indication that anything of note has just happened and giving the viewer in the Twenty First Century no nod towards the previous connection that has been now established between these two characters.

In The Force Awakens we see C-3PO's anxiousness to be recognised, saying to Han that perhaps he doesn't recognise him because of the red arm. It would be nice to think that Abrams is making a little nod towards this much more significant moment when C-3PO meets and fails to be acknowledged by his creator in another of Han's central scenes. Of course, we now know that C-3PO's memory has been wiped at the end of The Revenge of the Sith, so the significance actually resides in Vader's failure to see or sense C-3PO which perhaps reflects his complete disconnection from Tatooine; something triggered by the death of his mother Shmi and the massacre of the Sand People in The Attack of the Clones.

Obi-Wan hid Luke on Tatooine not just because he had relatives there to take care of him, or because it isn't under the full control of the Empire but because Vader has closed off the emotional attachment that he had to the place and the emotional trauma he experienced there when he was still Anakin.

It is of further note that C-3PO has his memory wiped at just around the same time as the mutilated Anakin takes the final step towards leaving his old self behind and becoming the mechanical man that we know as Darth Vader. We more readily notice the parallel between Vader being created and Padmé's death, both under the care of medical droids. The resonance between Vader's conception and his first droid's symbolic death through his memory wipe is more subtle, but nonetheless the personalities and destinies of the two are somehow inextricably linked. In an instant, both become transformed and yet somehow remain the same.

Despite Darth Vader's blind spot for Tatooine, he is quite happy to do business with the Hutt's via Boba Fett. Since as a child Vader had been the slave property of one of the Hutts it appears quite surprising that he doesn't use his new power and authority to wipe them out. This is of course left to his son Luke who in his rescue of Han inadvertently destroys the patriarch of the Hutt family that had sold his father and grandmother to Watto.)

In fact, Anakin/Vader's disconnection from Tatooine and connection with C-3PO actually helps glue the films together. When we first saw The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 we didn't expect Vader to have any reason to recognise C-3PO. Then following the first trilogy when we do know about the connection between the characters, we know that a) C-3PO has had his memory wiped and b) That Anakin / Vader's traumatic experience/s on Tatooine have caused him to blank out the planet and his experiences there to a great extent. The nexus between mechanical father and android son is one of memory loss or shared amnesia. As such, when we revisit The Empire Strikes Back nothing looks out of place with the lack of acknowledgement between the two during carbonite freezing scene.

It is surely not coincidental that Vader's encounter with his first creation C-3PO shortly precedes that with his twin son Luke. It is a silent parallel which goes mostly unnoticed. C-3PO's loss of limbs on Bespin also prefigures Luke's imminent loss of a hand in the Bespin duel and as such there is an undercurrent of suggestion that the lives of C-3PO, his creator Anakin Skywalker and his master Luke Skywalker are inextricably linked through unseen forces. This is Lucas showing us something rather than explicitly telling us something at its very best and only a careful observer will make the connection, especially since we had no connection available prior to having the context of the Prequel Trilogy for reference.

The Sale of the Droids at the Lars Homestead

In fact, it has not been observed elsewhere to my knowledge that in A New Hope (just like in The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi) Vader is searching for his son. The son he is searching for however is C-3PO (along with R2-D2 and the missing Death Star plans) and not Luke. When C-3PO gets lowered into his oil bath back at the Lars moisture farm there is a deep irony in his exclamation 'Thank the maker!'. C-3PO is back home on Tatooine where he was made and where his maker originally abandoned him and he has been enslaved by the Jawas (with the use of a restraining bolt) and sold to his half brother which adds a whole other layer of irony to the scene.

There is yet further irony in Vader's search for C-3PO in A New Hope which originates from the ease with which his young self as Anakin casually abandons C-3PO on Tatooine in The Phantom Menace. When Anakin leaves Mos Espa to train as a Jedi his farewell to C-3PO is practically an afterthought and an emotionless one, 'I'll make sure Mum doesn't sell you or anything. Bye.' By the time of A New Hope Vader is (unbeknown to himself) desperately scouring Tatooine for the droid son he abandoned so thoughtlessly and who has just been sold.

Notably, as a child Anakin never took the trouble to finish building C-3PO and when (as Darth Vader) he encounters C-3PO again it almost feels like we have come full circle as C-3PO has been dismantled once again.

Note 1: C-3PO is not just a protocol droid. As he tells us in both Episodes I and IV he is 'human-cyborg relations'. The suggestion is that he forms some sort of connection between humans and cyborgs and since droids aren't cyborgs we must look elsewhere for what this means. If we take the literal definition of a cyborg then Vader is the only complete cyborg we encounter (up-until General Grievous in ROTS) which is interesting. In this reading, Threepio's primary protocol is somehow tied up with creating a bridge not between droids and humans but between his cyborg Sith father and humans.

The Wikipedia definition of a cyborg is as follows: A cyborg (short for "cybernetic organism") is a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg).

Complete Cyborgs usually tend to be Sith and their disciples. In the Clone Wars cartoon series, Darth Maul survives and is half cyborg. In ROTS General Grievous is mostly machine and a complete cyborg. Interestingly, Saw Garerra who is as much terrorist as Rebel freedom fighter is also substantially a cyborg. As such we might conclude that it is physically inscribed upon Garerra's body that he has travelled a long way down the wrong path.

The most complete cyborgs that we encounter anywhere in the Star Wars Universe are the B'omarr Monks who have had their brains transplanted into bowls with the body of mechanical spiders.

Note 2: The first thing Padmé says upon being shown C-3PO is 'He's perfect'. She sees through the missing eye, the wobbly legs and the lack of an outer shell and sees something more intrinsically important about him. Notably, in The Revenge of the Sith it is C-3PO whom Padmé chooses as a companion in her quarters and also as her pilot for the trip to Mustafar. C-3PO is also just about Padmés closest companion in the Clone Wars Series, accompanying her as co-pilot on her diplomatic missions aboard the Naboo Starship.

All Star Wars action figures, vehicles, collectibles and Star Wars toys shown on this website are the 3.75 inch scale and from my own private Star Wars collection unless otherwise stated. Where possible original vintage accessories have been used but in some instances I have placed Kenner Star Wars figures with either reproduction weapons and accessories or for Hasbro figures close approximations have been used. This is mostly the case for modern Star Wars lightsabers where the correct item can be very difficult to identify on some ocassions. Vintage Star Wars action figures are shown with their original weapon or accessory when I have them. When a vintage Kenner action figure is shown with an accessory which is not original I have tried to point this out where possible.

All of the Star Wars action figures shown were purchased second hand, usually incomplete, and in bulk. They have been reunited with their original weapons and accessories where we could get hold of them.

All opinions expressed are those of the author and not those of LucasFilm, Disney, Kenner or Hasbro toys. All Trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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C-3PO, Darth Vader's First Child and the Bespin Reunion...

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