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The personalities and characters of the main droids in the Star Wars films raises a central and fundamental question as to what defines and separates the living from the artificial and from artificial intelligence in the Star Wars world and also as to what separates sentient from non-sentient life forms. It is a question which is never approached directly by any of the characters and perhaps with very good reason (except perhaps Anakin's evolutionary relegation of the Sand People to the status of animals – there is irony here since we knew them as Sand People before we knew them as Tusken Raiders). Lucas is, as elsewhere, showing us something rather than telling us something here and the audience is left to figure it out for themselves.

Obi-Wan Kenobi almost certainly doesn't believe in droid sentience. He says to Dexter Jettster in The Attack of the Clones: 'Well if droids could think, there'd be none of us here would there'.(1)

However, by any measure the droids we meet in the Star Wars movies have intelligence, language, personality and genuine emotions (even neuroses in the case of C-3PO). Short of having flesh and blood they meet all the criteria for living entities and also for sentient beings. The only synthetic thing about them is the material from which they are constructed. Moreover, whilst their memories can be wiped like a hard drive, it seems that their personalities can't be.

This then lends a real twist to Anakin's dilemma of discovering the secret of influencing the midichlorians to create and save life which is his motivation for pledging himself to Palpatine in order to save his wife Padmé. It is not alluded to in any way here that Anakin has already essentially created sentient life when he made C-3PO in The Phantom Menace.

Whilst Anakin has infused the parts and machinery used to create C-3PO with life, Palpatine can only attach mechanical parts to an existing life to preserve it. In this sense Palpatine is little more than a chop shop mechanic who claims he can create and save life, whereas Anakin (unbeknown even to himself) is the true sorcerer who can influence the midichlorians to create life.

The great irony of the Prequel Trilogy is that Anakin is making bad choices in pursuit of knowledge that on some level he already possesses. The irony is further compounded by the fact that Anakin's blind pursuit of this knowledge leads him to become Darth Vader and more machine than man, as Obi-Wan later puts it. When he becomes a cyborg he also becomes a black parody (the dark father) of the golden mechanoid son he created. This happens almost as a cruel twist of fate and ironic punishment for having failed to question the definition of life before seeking to meddle with it.

His designation of the Sand People as animals illustrates his journey down this path as he is arrogant enough to put himself in the godlike role of categorising and defining what constitutes sentience. He not only massacres, but also de-values sentient beings to fit with his own epistemological framework which becomes more and more unbending and ironclad as it forms. In short, his failure to save lives he values (Shmi and Padmé) leads him to de-value the lives of others and this coalesces into a hatred that the Emperor can harness, wield and deploy against his enemies. During all this time the first sentient life that he created goes unnoticed and unacknowledged.

C-3PO refers to his maker chronologically for the first time in the reunion with Anakin at the Lars Homestead in The Attack of the Clones, and then again in the same location when he's about to have an oil bath and after he's had his memory wiped and no longer knows who his maker is. C-3PO thinks of his maker in almost god-like terms and this explains his shock at the droid factory on Geonosis: 'Droids making droids! How perverse! [sic].' he exclaims. The irony here is that during Anakin's quest for more and more power and power over life and death, he ignores the one being who thinks of him as a God and who is also a life that he actually created all by himself.

Since other droids seem to be manufactured, this raises the very interesting question of how Anakin brought C-3PO to life. Does he (unbeknown to himself) already have the power over life and death which he so desperately craves in order to save his mother and then Padmé, and which Palpatine blackmails him with? If so, this would be the grandest irony of all.

This assumption that Anakin inherently possesses the power to influence the midichlorians to create life from the very start also provides us with an interesting clue as to how a Skywalker might be brought back for the upcoming The Rise of Skywalker conclusion to the third trilogy. There has been much speculation across the spectrum of Star Wars channels on YouTube that Anakin might be the Skywalker who rises and is brought back. If he was to breathe life into C-3PO as a child then who's to say that he wouldn't be able to breathe life back in to himself as a Force ghost. This doesn't seem too much of a stretch of logic.

However, I am also now wondering if this ability of Anakin's might not also provide some explanations for the origins of Rey, which is also a subject which has been widely speculated about online following The Last Jedi. I've come across explanations that Han might be her father, that Luke might be her father and even one which suggested Palpatine might have created her by influencing the midichlorians. I think that if Palpatine had been behind her creation she'd have been made from nuts and bolts rather than from the Force. The only Force Wielder (aside from Palpatine's old master Darth Plageius) who we know can create life is Anakin. He seems to have breathed life in to C-3PO without being very conscious that he has done so or even conscious of the significance of the feat. Perhaps life was also breathed into to Rey incidently out of pure blind grief for the loss of his wife and children. This argument does feel like its a stretch too far and the chronology of it feels wrong but it also somehow makes sense.

One thing that is for sure is that the very biggest and most important question which is so far left unexplained in the first three Star Wars trilogies is that of how to influence the midchlorians to create and save life. All we know so far is that only a Sith can do it (if Palpatine is to be believed) thus the answer to this question rests with the character of Anakin, who may himself have been created by a Sith meddling with the midichlorians. See my article The Origins of Anakin Skywalker. See also, C-3PO, Darth Vader's First Child and the Bespin Reunion.

Note 1: Obi-Wan's 'well if droids could think' statement could also be seen within the context of the deleted scene in which Research Droids at the Jedi Temple are unable to identify the dart used to assassinate Zam Wesell prior to Obi-Wan's visit to Dexter Jettster's Diner. Within this context Obi-Wan sounds slightly less zenophobic. However, it is notable that whilst Obi-Wan never actually finishes off an opponent in a lightsaber duel (not even Darth Maul who survives in the Clone Wars Series and Solo: A Star Wars Story), he is not so restrained when it comes to slicing up Battle Droids. Obi-Wan seems more concerned than the other Jedi with not taking another human/humanoid life, but he also appears to have quite rigid views upon what constitutes life. (back)

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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.

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