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Owen didn’t pay for C3PO twice.
Anakin built 3PO for his mom Shmi, who was a slave to Watto. Cliegg (not Owen) bought Shmi out of slavery. C3PO was already Shmi’s.
Ok, but Owen grew up with C3PO. Threepio was his mother's protocol droid, and he was around long enough to meet Beru as well.
Maybe he didn't recognize the new plating, but he should have recognized the name. He would have talked to it almost every day for his entire life.
Do you specifically remember your old smartphone model LG KU2100? Could you identify in a stack of other smartphones? You used to use it every single day.
Droids in Star Wars are appliances. Nothing memorable.
If I had a talking appliance, with a unique name and a personality, I'd probably remember it. If someone tried to sell you an old game console, and it had your gamertag saved on it, you'd probably recognize it. Or maybe you named your first car, and 20 years later someone tried to sell you the same model and mentioned it was called Cecilia, you'd be like "I used to have a Honda Civic named Cecilia! What a coincidence!"
Again, you're making droids a bigger deal than they are in Star Wars. To us they're characters. To them they're toasters.
You're being down voted, but you're absolutely right. More characters are shown straight up ignoring the droids except when they need their function than talking to them like people. Even Anakin himself doesn't seem to regard 3P0 as a friend, or even as valuable, once he grows up a bit.
That's not how humans work though. Just look at how people get worked up over ChatGPT conversations or romantic relationships with Replika. So at best, the Star Wars characters are not credible.
The Star Wars characters are from a galaxy far, far away. Are they even human, or just human in appearance?
I'm really not. I'm using appliances in my examples. If your toaster had a name and a personality and you had to ask it to make you toast every day, you'd probably recognize it if it showed up 30 years later, even if it was now gold instead of gray.
That name and personality is like the name and personality of siri or google assistant. I wouldn't be able to differentiate my old note 10 in a stack of SM-N970U's even if the assistant on it remmebers my preferences on news feed and autocorrect words and whatever. Even the wallpaper may be a default and stuff like that.
But everyone has the same siri or google assistant. Droid designations are relatively unique.
Yes, definitely yes, every single one of them. But I get that most people couldn't. My mom has to put a bright purple case on every new phone she gets so she doesn't pick up the wrong one.
Tatooine is clearly an acient-Rome like place where slaves own property, so only Anakin would have brought C3PO, as parts.
And those 4 letter names couldn't be very unique...
And those 4 letter names couldn't be very unique...
36^4 for four alphanumeric (a-z plus 0-4) characters is 1,679,616 combinations.
How many billion people can live on a planet and how many billion planets are there in a galaxy? How many of them have how many droid slaves? Divide that by 1.7 million and you've got it.
I also know like 8 people named Sandra. The point is that it's distinct enough to remember it as a name.
If 20 years from now you meet somebody named Sandra with a completely different face, coming from a completely different place, would you guess it's her after a plastic surgery?
If they said "hey, it's me, Sanda" then probably.
Obviously C3P0 should have done more to identify himself to Owen as well.
This is all before we consider that droids can face memory wipes.
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I am not sure each droid has a unique name. Are the designations basically not a model number? I.e. there are many c-3po and r2-d2 running around.
Depends on the droid. C-3PO is a 3PO class droid. R2-D2 is an R2 class droid. So there's only 36 designations for 3POs and 1,268 for R2s.
BUT, designations don't always have to follow the standard scheme. For example HELIOS-3E is IG-86 class droid. And we've got Chopper (C1-10P) a C1 class. We've also got R0-GR, a B1 series; though my head canon is that all B1s are jammed Roger, so when they say "Roger Roger" it's actually "Roger, Roger".
So yes. Yes is what I am reading. The designations are more like generic "make/model" numbers and not unique "serial" numbers or names. Thanks for the reply!
No, the designations are unique names.
Droids being given shitty names that are often just their make/model mostly has to do with how droids are treated in the Star Wars universe.
Sentient organics are enslaved in SW; droids gather even less respect, particularly from humans.
If C-3PO is a 3PO series protocol droid, I would find it hard to believe that only 26 (36)? were ever made and each one had a unique name. R2 is an R2 series astromech droid. I would plead a similar case there as well. Especially given the probable number of astromechs built/needed.
Their are many more droids than the easy designation numbers, and droids don't have to follow standard designations at all.
Think of it more like the deragatory terms used on enslaved humans in our own history; the desired names of slaves mattered little to the masters.
Sentient organics are basically saying "yeah, I'll give you one extra letter to make it easier to call you instead of the other 3PO chattel"
C-3PO may have a completely different name they would prefer to self express as; but in a universe where even sentient organics are enslaved, droids don't stand a chance.
To your first point, the droids in question do seem to follow the "easy designations" as you put it. In fact, they are often referred to in the film by them. Examples: Luke often refers to R2-D2 as just R2. And C-3PO as 3PO.
I still don't buy into the notion that these were unique "names" at all and not "model numbers" though, but thanks for the discussion.
We don’t know what Owen’s relationship with Shmi was. Maybe he left home before Cliegg remarried, and was only there when we see him in episode 2 because he came when his dad contacted him in a panic after discovering Tuscan raiders had taken step-mom captive.
In episode 3, when Senator Organa sent the droids to have their memories erased, they also used the force to make everyone (including Vader) forget about them.
Well, technically Cliegg bought 3PO when he bought Shmi. So in a roundabout way the funds of Owen's family went twice to acquiring 3PO.
Three times if you factor in the costs of however Anakin acquired the parts.
And then Owen's moody half-brother and his rich girlfriend just stole the droid.
I disagree with your interpretation that Cliegg “technically” bought 3PO.
We don’t know the legal rights of slaves in that universe, but presuming this is like slaves in ancient Roman times and they can own property, then 3PO was Shmi’s from the beginning. Buying a slave wouldn’t automatically give you possession of the slave’s property, therefore it was always Shmi’s droid and Cliegg never owned it.
It’s possible that in this universe, slaves can’t own property and Cliegg bought 3PO from Watto in addition to Shmi. But I think it unlikely that Anakin would have built 3PO “to help his mom” if Watto automatically owned it. If Watto owned 3PO he would’ve sold it long before Cliegg bought Shmi.
We also don’t know that Anakin stole 3PO. If it belonged to his mom, he could have simply inherited it when she died.
One could also make the argument that 3PO was always Anakin’s property, and he just left it behind when he left Tattooine.