Star Wars: Droids

• 1. Introduction

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  Star Wars: Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO opens with a song called "In Trouble Again", performed by Stewart Copeland of the Police. The title doubles as a mission statement. This animated series, a spin-off from the original Star Wars trilogy, hands the spotlight to the two robots. Across its run, the pair keep landing in difficult situations, and they keep changing owners.

  Who were these masters, and why could the droids never stay with them? How does a cartoon fit beside the films without contradicting them? Who made it, who watched it, and what happened to the toys? And why do traces of it keep turning up in Star Wars stories made long afterward?

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• 2. Masters Come and Go

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  Thirteen half-hour episodes carry R2-D2 and C-3PO through one set of owners after another. The series divides into three cycles, or arcs. Near the start of each, the droids meet new masters, and by its end they are forced to leave. The dangers along the way include gangsters, criminals, pirates, bounty hunters and the Galactic Empire.

  Two familiar names from the original trilogy make guest appearances, one episode each. Boba Fett turns up in one, and IG-88 in another. A 48-minute television special called The Great Heep follows the regular run, and its story is set before the final arc.

  One line of dialogue turned this setup into a continuity puzzle. In A New Hope, C-3PO tells Luke Skywalker that his and R2-D2's "last master was Captain Antilles." Yet at the end of Revenge of the Sith, Bail Organa places the droids in Antilles' care. The series was later set four years after Revenge of the Sith and 15 years before A New Hope. That gap leaves room for many masters, which makes C-3PO's remark look wrong. The explanation is that the droids were accidentally separated from Antilles during the events of the animated series. The placement came retroactively, after the cartoon had already aired.

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• 3. Makers and Voices

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  Nelvana, a Canadian studio, produced Droids on behalf of Lucasfilm. The animation itself was done by Hanho Heung-Up Co., a studio in Korea. Ben Burtt, the Star Wars sound designer, wrote several of the episodes.

  Anthony Daniels voices C-3PO, and Ken Pogue serves as the narrator. Around them stands a long list of performers, many of whom play more than one part. Dan Hennessey voices six roles: Jord Dusat, Uncle Gundy, Vinga, Yorpo, Captain Cag, and the Announcer. Long John Baldry voices both Proto-1 and The Great Heep.

  The casting also reaches back to the films. George Buza voices Boba Fett and a character called Doodnik. Don McManus voices IG-88 and a character named Jyn Obah. Cree Summer Francks plays Princess Gerrin, while Don Francks takes on Kybo Ren and Governor Koong. Those voices were bound for American television first.

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• 4. On the Air

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  ABC broadcast the series from the 7th of September 1985 to the 7th of June 1986. The network paired Droids with its sister series Ewoks under the banner The Ewoks and Droids Adventure Hour. The droids first appeared in 1985 inside a fitness special hosted by Tony Danza and live-action versions of the droids. In 1996, both shows returned in reruns on the Sci-Fi Channel's Cartoon Quest, although the episodes were somewhat edited for time.

  In Britain, the BBC bought the rights to show the whole series between 1986 and 1991 as part of its Children's BBC programming strand. The entire run was screened twice, in 1986 and in 1988. Both showings were timed to coincide with the full release of the Star Wars trilogy and with Droids on VHS.

  The Great Heep was shown just once, in 1989, on the BBC Saturday morning children's show Going Live! It was split into two parts over two weeks. Different episodes from different cycles were also screened across the five-year licence. The Trigon cycle ran in full in early 1991 on another Saturday morning children's show, The 8:15 from Manchester.

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• 5. Toys and Collectors

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  Kenner produced a toy line based on the series in 1985, with action figures, ship models and other items. Two of the figures, Boba Fett and the A-wing Pilot, were simply repackaged from the main Star Wars line. The line was canceled after its first group of 12 figures, because interest in Star Wars was declining.

  In 1987 and again in 1988, the Brazilian company Glasslite issued leftover Kenner stock. It also produced a very limited run of remaining Return of the Jedi and Droids toys from a sell-off. Some vehicles, mini-rigs and figures came out in new packaging.

  One figure from that run became a collector's legend. Vlix, the henchman of Tig Fromm, was an action figure made from unused Kenner molds. Very few were made, even fewer were sold, and most were recycled because money was tight during a failing economy. Vlix became the most valuable Star Wars action figure, at about $6,000 carded or $1,200 loose. That held until a Fett figure sold at auction for £69,000 (US$92,000).

  In 2021, for Lucasfilm's 50th anniversary, Hasbro released a Target-exclusive line based on the series. It featured the two droids and Boba Fett. Fett was also released as a larger Black Series figure.

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• 6. Comics and Games

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  Marvel's Star Comics imprint published a Star Wars: Droids comic series in 1986, spun off from the cartoon. It appeared every two months and ran for eight issues. John Romita, Sr. drew four issues and the cover of issue 5.

  Issue 4 carried a crossover story called "Lost in Time", which was continued in an issue of Ewoks. The last three issues form an arc that retells the original Star Wars film from the droids' point of view. In Spain, the publisher Editorial Gepsa produced two-page Droids comics as part of an anthology series. Other Star Wars comics subtitled Droids have featured C-3PO and R2-D2, but they are not connected to the cartoon.

  Between 1985 and 1987, a number of episodes were adapted into children's storybooks. In 1988, the company Mastertronic released a Droids computer game for the ZX Spectrum, the Amstrad CPC and the Commodore 64.

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• 7. Home Video

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  Almost every episode reached VHS during the 1980s and 1990s. The one exception was "Coby and the Starhunters". The British PAL releases came on four cassettes: Droids 1, 2 and 3, plus The Great Heep. Those tapes had the opening sequences and credits edited out.

  A cheese company created another route to the tapes in the United Kingdom. Dairylea Cheese ran a promotion for this series and Ewoks. Families could send in empty cheese packages and receive one of six VHS tapes in return. Those videotapes are now rare and sought after by collectors.

  Rick McCallum produced The Pirates and the Prince in 1996, a direct-to-video film compiled from four episodes. In late 2004, McCallum and Lucasfilm produced a DVD titled Star Wars: Animated Adventures - Droids. It featured that film and a new compilation called Treasure of the Hidden Planet, with narration from Mungo Baobab, voiced by Alex Lindsay. 20th Century Fox released the DVD in 2005, and both titles included some soundtrack changes.

  On the 2nd of April 2021, Disney+ announced that the entire series was coming. All 13 episodes and the special were added on the 18th of June 2021. Viewers could finally judge the whole run for themselves, as critics already had.

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• 8. Reception and Legacy

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  David Perlmutter compared Droids with Ewoks and was not generous. He wrote that Droids "was rudimentary, with short enough story lines for as many as four narratives in a single episode. Obviously, neither Lucas nor the animation studio had enough faith in the characters to trust them as anything other than second bananas." SyFy Wire writes that "Droids struggles to find a way to make the duo's live-action antics as entertaining on the small screen as they are on the silver one; the show tries to serve up a very, very kid-friendly take on that galaxy far, far away and it doesn't always hit the mark." ComicBook.com, by contrast, calls it a "must-watch".

  Ben Burtt kept the series alive in his own later work. His liner notes for the Shadows of the Empire soundtrack referred to the Roonstones he had written about in Droids. He also made a cameo appearance in Episode I - The Phantom Menace and named his character after the Baobabs.

  The prequel films carry other echoes. The Boonta Eve Classic in The Phantom Menace comes from the series. So do the planet Bogden and a four-armed cook in Attack of the Clones, and General Grievous' wheel bike design in Revenge of the Sith.

  Genndy Tartakovsky gave C-3PO moving, expressive eyes in Clone Wars (2003). It was a tribute to the droid's earlier animated appearances in Nelvana's Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) and in Droids.

  The 2014 rebranding of Star Wars canon excluded Droids. Even so, the recurring villain Admiral Screed survived. A Guide to the Star Wars Universe calls him "the Emperor's right-hand man during the early days of the Empire", and he appears in the canon novels Tarkin (2014) and Aftermath: Life Debt (2016). Observers have also noticed possible sources of inspiration for Rey and Kylo Ren, the main characters of the sequel trilogy.

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