Star Wars: Droids Review, Episode 1

Episode 1: The White Witch.

The series begins by literally plopping us in the middle of nowhere. C-3PO and his companion are dumped overboard onto an inhospitable junk planet. They are soon “rescued” by a couple of speeder jockeys who become the droids’ masters for the time being. This is a pretty clear signal of how this series will go. While the droids are the main characters, they are paired with a series of supporting characters to provide a little more story meat than the bumbling robots can provide.

Thall Joben and Jord Dusat are exactly what you would expect to see in an 80’s cartoon. They are preparing their speeder, the titular “White Witch” for competition in the Boonta something or other race. Unfortunately they accidentally run into some local crime lord’s territory and things go south. A Rebel spy, Kea Moll, happens to see what’s going down and joins in.

In this case, the crime lord is Tig Fromm. Through his advisor, Vlix, we are given the impression that Tiggy is an inferior product to his father, the actual crime lord Sise Fromm. While Sise does not appear in this episode, it is made clear that he is an old-fashioned boss who used traditional methods like hired goons, while his son wants to modernize the operation and rely more on droids. This mindset can be forgiven since Tig would not have seen the uselessness of combat droids in the Prequels.

When Kea and Thall need to break into the crime lord’s lair to rescue Jord, the droids’ combination of clumsiness and technology magic take over to allow the group to get out of a series of near disasters. Fortunately, the inadequacy of Fromm’s droids is displayed repeatedly and the heroes are able to make a relatively clean escape on the White Witch.

This episode is not meant to do much more than to set the table for the series. It manages to establish the general parameters and characters, while still finding time for some action. It also does a nice job of allowing C-3PO to do stuff while balancing his annoyingness. One could argue that R2-D2 is a bit under-utilized here, but before the prequels started adding abilities to him, he was pretty much limited to IT work. In the interest of establishing C-3PO, the writers may have forgotten some of R2’s spunk.

Best moment: (1:55) C-3PO’s Shakespearean soliloquy lamenting the supposed demise of his companion.

Most WTF moment: (13:47) Thall pulls out a lightsaber that someone left in his shop and never came back to pick up. I’m sure this was just an obligatory plug for the Kenner Lightsaber in Droids packaging, but I took it as a reference to the Jedi purge. Still a bit weird that he just had it around.

Released Action Figures: C-3PO, Jord Dusat, Kea Moll, R2-D2, Thall Joben, Tig Fromm, Vlix (but only in Brazil!)

Unreleased: The White Witch was developed, but never made it to production. It looked cool.

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