I always took it as a driod detector, although I don’t remember noticing it until several viewings.
I tend to believe Three-pio’s mind actually was wiped at the end of Episode III. Otherwise, in Episode IV, he would have had to make some connection between Luke and Anakin, if only to say, “I was built by an Anakin Skywalker. Could you and he be related?” I know the mindwipe was put in Episode III strictly to force continuity, as I’m sure people have had the same question since The Phantom Menace.
She wasn’t programmed for it. She picked that up on her own, as it were. Apprently, she had some odd malfunction which caused her to become essentially sadistic. But why not? Apparently Driod tech is very far advanced; all they seem to lack is the capacity to, well, “guess.” Given the emotions expressed by R2 and C3P0, a psycho Droid isn’t unrealistic.
Regardless, Jabba didn’t care what she did as long as the Droids got their jobs done, so she pretty much amused herself by tormenting them, as well as anything else she got her cold droid limbs on.
My take on that was that his mind was wiped at the end of Episode III, but since then he’s had adventures with Capt. Antilles aboard the Organa’s rebel ship Tantive IV, and those adventures involved Leia escaping the Empire on a few occasions.
If it hadn’t, there’d be real problems with him saying things like “What a desolate place this is” rather than “I was built here.”
Of course, there’s the matter of Owen Lars not recognizing 3PO right away when he went to buy droids off the Jawas. (“You. I suppose you’re programmed for etiquette and protocol…on second thought, didn’t you live at my moisture farm for a while before we inexplicably let you fly away with Senator Amidala?”)
Maybe protocol droids all look and sound like that. (Although we’ve never seen another one that looked like him other than the rude one painted black in ESB).
Not true. There was a couple of white ones aboard the Tantive IV and a few on Yavin.
Missed those then. I guess there’s a basic Protocol Droid model kit. (Who put the gold plated skin on him? I can’t remember. Wasn’t he unfinished at the end of Phantom Menace?)
White, or silver? If I remember correctly, the first time we see C-3PO he’s standing, apparently having a conversation, with a silver version of himself.
I’ve actually been pretty curious as to how Anakin came to be building a protocol droid in the first place. Was he refurbishing a broken-down, discarded droid that somebody dumped on Yatto? Assembling random spare parts he found in the junkyard? Or are droids such ubiquitous commodity items in the SW universe, ala personal computers, that it’s simple and inexpensive enough for a slave kid to order a kit via mail order?
He is obviously not running a Robosexual Bar.
Duh.
Or maybe he’s just tired of them hitting on the slot machine.
Or simply that they are machines and you don’t bring them into a cantina for the same reason you don’t bring a motorcycle in. The bartender might have been being sarcastic, telling Luke to leave his farm equipment outside. Clearly anti-droidism isn’t so common on tatooine that it was immediately apparent to Luke what he was talking about.
Or there could be some resentment for droids and automation on depressed planets like Tattoine where jobs may be hard to find.
What did you just say?!!
Oh…sorry…I thought you said roMOsexual.
Well, it’s all part of the magical nuances of Star Wars. You know how subtle those movies are!
Honestly, I can’t tell you if it was **always ** supposed to be a droid detector, but I can guarantee that it’s the current official version of what it is. Hell, there’s probably an explanation in one of the Star Wars novels or even a short story in one of the collections that gives a huge backstory to the cantina owner explaining his anti-droid bias, and I’m 95% sure it likely connects to Anakin Skywalker.
I’m pretty sure the ones in A New Hope were white. You see a silver one turn up in The Phantom Menace. Its name was TC-14. They made an action figure out of him. It was exactly the same as C-3P0, but because of the color and the inclusion of a serving tray accessory, that figure sold for ridiculous amounts at online auctions.
Another nitpick I just remembered. The Death Star Droid action figure wasn’t actually the “Death Star” droid. The one on the Death Star was black. The action figure was silver. The silver model is the droid seen babbling in the Jawa vehicle’s junkhold. I really hope someone got fired over that.
Hmm. I’ll have to dig out my VHS tape and look again. Maybe this is something else Lucas changed on the DVD 
(Bolding mine)
Wasn’t it a woman droid? In fact, didn’t the black-skinned one from ESB also have a woman’s voice? Is 3P0 the only one we’ve heard speak with a male voice?
If I recall, the only thing the 3P0 doppelganger in ESB said was “Et-Chu-Tah!” Wasn’t a particularly male or female voice. With the exception of the robot waitress in AOTC, I always think of most of the droids in the SW universe as male. EV-9D9 never struck me as a female, but the Star Wars Databank describes her as such. Huh.
The “We don’t serve their kind here!” was a joke I say, a joke, son. See, the cantina serves 500 kinds of mutant aliens without batting an eye, yet let a droid walk in and they’re prejudiced.
And there’s a silver version of C3PO in the first minutes of A New Hope, shuffling down the hallways of the rebel blockade runner with C3PO and R2D3…but the silver droid turns left when C3PO and R2D2 turn right, and we never see it again. C3PO has therefore always been some sort of standard model droid. Until The Phantom Menace screwed up the continuity by having him built by Annakin out of spare parts.
Said spare parts from a standard model protocol droid.
That’s the one I’m talkin’ about!
I always wondered what the purpose of the Death Star mouse droid was. Turns out, he was a courier! Found that out when you actually get to play its character during one of the Jedi Knight games.