From a techical perspective, I would think there is more behind R2D2 than meets the eye. Originally he was a small Astromech Droid for the Naboo Defense Forces, seems inoccuous enough right? Well he has a seemingly unique ability to save the day quickly by hacking various computer systems in a matter of seconds. Unless I am wrong, I would think your run of the mill astromech droid was only programed for certain specific tasks…and would know nothing about hacking an imperial star destroyer to stop a trash compactor. See here for more details:
So what is really behind this most elusive droid? Is he the hacker extraordinaire just because of his superior programing or his he some sort of advanced AI that learned exponentially faster than his bronze counterparts? Anyone care to discuss?
First off, I’ll assume the Naboo bought the best. They pretty clearly had a tiny military but it did well against swarms of droid fighters.
Second, Anakin was prone to making upgrades and supposedly did extensive modifications to R2.
Odd personal wish: Having thruster jets on your droids makes a certain amount of sense for an astromech operating in space. Handy tool, good if you get knocked away or something. I wish, however, that they’d shown this in Episode 1. Then we see Anakin making a modification to R2 in Episode 2, where he removes the thrusters, saying “We won’t ever need these while you’re in my fighter.” Finally, at the Geonosis factory (or whatever) R2 goes to pop out his thruster and - oh wait. WHOOoooo (Sad R2 sounds). It’s would have been ahilarious and yet Star-Wars specific moment, I say.
I think that the key to this one, is that R2D2 had the plans for the death star before being on the death star. That was the whole reason Vader was chasing down Leia. The rebelion had stolen the plans to the death star. It makes alot more sense that he can hack a system that he already had the plans to.
I think the fact that other droids have their memories erased everytime they change ownership has something to do with it as well. C3PO forgot all kinds of shit. But R2 kept his memories, and as a result he has the benefit of experience that comparable droids probably do not have.
Plus you have to figure that the normal service life of an astro droid is probably what? 3-5 years? He outlived that by a long shot. More experience. He can hack into any computer because he’s interfaced with every kind of computer in existence.
He also hacks his way into the Death Star shield generator bunker in Return of the Jedi. I suppose he had the plans for that, too. Yeah yeah, many Bothan died for that information.
Does not Whistler have some pretty gnarly slashing skills, as well? I suppose it was probably based on R2D2, but R2 units seem to be easily modifiable and tend to develop personalities if they don’t get wiped occasionally.
It’s kind of a recurring theme in the books that the makers of the R2 seires, Industrial Automaton, keeps trying to roll out new models of the R series (such as the flower-pot head R5’s; you know, the red one with the bad “motivator actuator”), but none of them ever seem to live up to the R2 series in actual performance.
Basically, you have a droid with a hell of a lot more experience and learning than is normal, heavily upgraded, and fortunate enough to often be in the right place at the right time to learn just the right stuff, or get the right data, to do important things.
But yeah, R2 rocks.
PS. I think the “most advanced hacker” would go to the hacker-only droids, many of which are little more than a sentient computer with a voice (ie lacking any actual robotics). Flirt and Blue-Max would probably be some of the top-dogs here. Flirt’s only shown up in a handful of short stories, IIRC, “she” belongs to a wookie bounty hunter. Blue-Max (a Deep Blue reference) is stolen goods; he was developed as part of an ultra-secret Imperial R&D project for their Intelligence service, but somehow wound up being in the hands of Bollux (BLX-5 or something, a humanoid labor droid), and thus going on adventures with Han Solo way back before the original trilogy takes place.
I remember this because I kind of liked Bollux and Blue-Max quite a bit. Bollux looked cool with the bold blue paint-scheme, and I like the idea of a super-tough but visually unimposing droid carrying around a cutting-edge super computer in his chest.
R2-D2 is a charisma vampire, who has the ability to drain the dignity from his environment and convert it into personal glory. Charisma vampirism is not well understood by science, although it is known to be associated with microscopic organisms known as “fonzarellis.”
This ability was partially disabled when Princess Leia concealed the plans for the Death Star within his systems. As a result, he was briefly displaced as Prime Mover of the universe, and events such as the Rebellion against the Empire began to take on gravitas and significance independently of their relationship to R2-D2. However, being swallowed and expectorated by the swamp monster on Dagobah jogged his vampirism ability back into full working order, and soon the universe was abasing itself shamelessly to make R2-D2 look good again.
Although R2’s vampirism ability has effectively infinite range, allowing him to warp the evolution of whole species into comical, clownish buffoons upon which to sate his unspeakable hunger, he finds it convenient to travel with a rich source of dignity close by. For this purpose he associates himself with protocol droids, who by their very nature as translators and ambassadorial aides, possess the Galaxy’s most sophisticated programming for effortless diplomacy and negotiation. Flawless dignity and unobtrusiveness in performance is essential to their function.
Yet under the influence of R2’s malign aura, a protocol droid finds such skills eroding into uselessness, until at last all that is left is a flailing, shrieking, pratfalling, sniveling shell of a droid. Only when the charisma vampire’s ablity is disabled will the unfortunate protocol droid recover any shred of self-control and competence. R2, of course, always returns to batten on his helpless victim until his vile craving is satisfied. Reports indicate that one protocol droid was so badly drained of dignity that he was worshipped as a god by Ewoks.
For the good of all droidkind, it is devoutly to be wished that this menace will one day be ended, a fiery blade through his black and twisted memory core.
We’re talking about a universe that is either in a technological dark age (yes, another one), or in which technology reached some sort of great plateau.
I mean, starships that are thousands of years old are still relatively comparable to the latest thing.
Out-of-story reason; it allows for that mythic/legendary scope and feel that is quintessential to the whole concept of Star Wars; the Jedi have been using more or less the same weapons and methods for ~5,000 years. That just wouldn’t work in a setting that moved on a realistic timeline.
Of course, in a setting that was truly realistic, interstellar politics and cultural exchange would be virtually meaningless, due to relativistic effects (such as time dialation). I think it’s pretty safe to say that any real interstellar civilization would be little more than a very loose confederation of separate societies in separate star systems, if that even. Trying to criticize Star Wars for a lack of realism about these things vs. another sci-fi space series like Star Trek is a moot point because virtually every major or significant work of this kind is loaded down with an astronomical number of errors and implausibilities.
In ep5, R2 hacked the bay doors on Cloud City so that they could escape on the Falcon.
In ep6, didn’t he use his hacking skills in order to open the doors to the second of the death star’s shields?
In ep4, he figured out that he needed the restraining bolt removed when he was in Luke’s work shop.
We can’t know if R2 was the most advanced hacker Droid a long time ago, in a galaxy far away, but he was one of the smarter characters in Star Wars, especially eps 4-6. They can’t make it without him.
R2D2 clearly has strong AI comparable to human-level intellligence, and when serving as a starfighter astromech can even communicate with the pilot by text. So why the heck doesn’t he have basic speech capability?
I’m glad I’m not the only one who reads it. It takes a great deal of writing skill to turn Artoo into an annoying twit, but to make Jar-Jar rather endearing.
(Sad R2 sounds). It’s would have been ahilarious and yet Star-Wars specific moment, I say. 
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