BB-8 really doesn’t have a lot of screen-hogging time compared to Jar Jar, I think. He’s basically just a newer younger R2. Has some of the same baggage (entrusted with the MacGuffin, sassy) but is pretty good at just sort of blending into the background when he’s not actively doing anything.
Did you notice that he’s not actually with the main heroes for the entire final act of the film? Once they linked up with Poe again, BB-8 was like “Been cool dudes, but my ride’s here!” and away he goes to take part in the big aerial battle because Bro Dameron needs his GIB.
I read it as an older “auntie” figure, a fellow independent, chiding her with a bit of rough encouragement - kind of letting her know it wouldn’t sell well if she didn’t clean it up, or somesuch. It looked like they were all independents, what with the queuing and everything.
I’m now trying to re-imagine the original trilogy, only this time the characters decide to make R2-D2 a General in the first movie and a Senator in the second.
My biggest problem w/ BB8 was - how the heck was his head connected to his body? Supposed to assume some kind of forcefield/magnetism, etc.? Sure, I can accept that - just found myself wondering “How exactly does the body spin like that yet the head stays on?”
Second issue - lots of people talk about BB8 and R2D2 communicating information and emotion very well. Am I the only one who considers most of it just bleeps and whistles?
Magnets and gyroscopes. For reals: BB8 wasn’t CGI, he was a practical effect. They really built a remote controlled robot made out of a spinning ball and a separate head. You can buy one for yourself that works just like the one in the film.
Sorry, bit of technical jargon that I picked up from a retired Air Force pilot who was a high school teacher.
It means “Guy In Back”. While the pilot is in charge of flying the plane, the GIB has important duties to include working the radar system, being an extra set of eyes during dogfights, and ensuring that only quality music comes on the stereo system (that last bit might not be true).
At that, Han Solo seemed to understand Chewbacca – even though he only ever replied in English. And he seemed to understand Greedo, but only ever replied in English. And he seemed to understand Jabba, but only ever replied in English.
Han Solo is basically a typical American traveling overseas.
I said he always seemed to understand them. All we really know is, Chewie growl-yodels something, and Han says “Boy, you said it, Chewie.” Heck, I can do that.
I don’t remember them ever showing Luke being able to interpret what Artoo was saying. The only time he understood Artoo was when they were in the X Wing fighter, and they specifically showed the display in the ship telling Luke what Artoo was saying.
What’s the “in universe” reason for producing droids that only speak in beeps and whistles, anyway? We know droids CAN be produced with speakers that make “real” language sounds (C3PO among others) so why not that?
In fact, you’ve just drawn my attention to the fact that, were it not for the audience, Threepio would of course have replied in boop-beep-BOOP-whistle-beep.
I do believe that the in-universe explanation is that the droids language is designed to communicate a lot of data very quickly. Movie-wise, in A New Hope it makes an interesting dynamic between R2-D2 and C-3PO. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why R2 couldn’t speak human language but it also seems to me that it makes a neat and definitive character trait.
Because, as we can see, they did a terrible job raising Ben and didn’t want to repeat their mistakes. Ben turned to the darkside. Maybe hiding Rey, for some reason not yet explained, was intended to help prevent that.
We don’t know how old Rey is, or, to put a fine point on it, we don’t know how much younger Rey is than Kylo Ren. It’s possible that the timeline was: Kylo Ren turns to the dark side, and then Han and Leia split because of the strain caused by their parenting failure. Han is traipsing across the galaxy with no contact with Leia. Only then does Leia learn that she is pregnant. She later delivers Rey and for (reasons) chooses to leave her on Jakku. Meanwhile, Han doesn’t even know she exists. This seems highly unlikely to me only because Rey remembers being abandoned. She would have recognized and acknowledged Leia if Leia were her mother. Unless Rey’s separation from Leia was during infancy. But then we would an explanation for the separation from Leia and another for the abandonment on Jakku.
Again, it’s at least possible that Han didn’t know that he had a daughter with Leia. And didn’t Han die right after seeing Kylo Ren? That kind of explains why he never said anything to Leia about seeing their son.
