I’m not talking about once they’re in the corridors. The camouflage wouldn’t do much good for any of them at that point. But earlier in the movie they are trying to sneak around the forest, which is where the camouflage comes in handy. But they’re walking around with a bright shiny gold droid. Even if the imperials thought it was just one of their droids, they would still wonder what it’s doing wandering around outside, and move in to find out.
c3po was there to convince Darth Vader to abandon his evil ways by reminding him of his childhood spent building droids and racing pods.
I’ve seen those, and other kind of facial recognition things in robots, but I submit to you C3P0 - clear evidence that the robots in Star Wars do have personalities programmed in them, and annoying ones at that.
I am ok with some emotion, I suppose - be happy when the door opens, etc. But don’t! make! it! sulk! That’s all we need, is a sulky or recalcitrant robot.
I’m surprised they didn’t. At the very least they’d get another action figure out of it!
Droids in Star Wars aren’t programmed to have personalities, but their AI is sophisticated enough that, over time, they develop personalities from accumulated experiences - which leads to various behavior problems, like sulky droids. The vast majority of droids are periodically memory wiped, to prevent this problem, but some people (Luke, for example, in the original trilogy, or Poe in the most recent), become attached to these emergent personalities, and refrain from erasing their droids - in part, at least, because sometimes these emergent personalities include more useful traits, like bravery, or cunning.
But Luke’s X-Wing contains a translator. We see R2’s words translated (admittedly into a weird alphabet) that Luke can read at a glance. And it can’t possibly be a full droid brain doing that, or that would eliminate the need for an astrogation droid to be plugged into the X-Wing in the first place.
I don’t think their computers are primitive at all. The displays are primitive, sure, but that’s a relic of the capabilities of displays at the time the film was made.
That’s what I was thinking. Seeing a deliberately camouflaged protocol droid would attract a lot more attention than just a random droid your average stormtrooper would assume just got lost and wandered off base.
In fact, I’m surprised that they didn’t outfit the Rebels in stolen Imperial garb to go along with their stolen imperial shuttle.
On an unrelated note, I never understood why the Ewoks get so much shit. “How could an army of teddy bears defeat Stormtroopers?”
Because they are an army of intelligent god damn BEARS! Can you imagine anything more terrifying than fighting a bear army?!
In retrospect, I’m guessing the real reason they didn’t repaint him dull green was because we need to buy in when the Ewoks worship the gleaming golden man.
Maybe the Empire imposed heavy environmental restrictions on the fuel Artoo needed to power those jets. Or like many things they just don’t work so good after 20 years of wear and tear.
Or maybe he only had the jets because he was filling in for the DM that night, and when the regular DM got back he nerfed his blatant power grab.
You probably wouldn’t. But it makes for a way, way better movie.
Miller, is this canon or fanwankery? Because if it’s fanwankery it’s pretty goddamn good and would go a long way to explaining why C3P0 is wiped and R2D2 is not.
If it’s canon I take it all back and you get no credit.
In all fairness, he should get a little credit for knowing it. After all, you didn’t, and he relieved your ignorance on the issue. That’s worth good karma here any day, even on an arguably “trivial” topic. 
I don’t really recall one way or the other, btw.
Yeah but Miller’s my friend and he knows I’m just busting his chops.
…You do, right, Miller?
The idea of droids developing personality quirks and having to have their memory wiped is literally in the first hour of “Star Wars.” When Luke talks to Uncle Owen about how the two new droids seem to have some designs of their own, Owen immediately says they have to have their memories wiped.
Miller’s claim that droids are not programmed to have any sort of personality can’t be established in the movies and it’s reasonable to think a protocol droid like C3PO would be programmed to be tactful and grovelling. Droids, however, clearly do seem to pick up things that are convenient to get rid of.
It’s canon. However, my fanwank are amazing.
Also, it was not quite accurate to say that droids aren’t programmed with personalities. C3PO was wiped at the end of the prequels, but still has manifestly the same personality in the original trilogy. So, there’s clearly an essential C3PO-ness baked into him. But he’s vastly less annoying in the earlier films, which I attribute (somewhat wankily) to the mind wipe.
Actually I agree 100%. You have posted in many of my threads before and answered questions. coughWatchmencough 
A somewhat more mundane explanation would be shitty writing. The C3PO in the original trilogy is a character - certainly a comic one, the fool of the play as it were, but still a character with a little nuance, a character who’s supposed to be annoying but is still relatable. He cares about R2D2 and his human companions. The C3PO in the prequels is just a prop.
It’s not canon anymore (thanks Disney), but in one of the novels (probably a Thrawn novel), it’s stated that Luke has not wiped R2D2 or his X-wing’s computer, because they’ve worked together so long that they get some significant improvement in efficiency and performance. The problem is that his X-wing can’t work with any other astromech droid anymore.
I always thought “Just give him a camo poncho… you know like the ones Luke and Leia are wearing.”