Star Wars’ relationship with droids has always been weird. Their portrayal has run the gamut from revolutionary to servant underclass, to killer foes and straight-laced allies. However no droid has ever felt extra true to the ragtag heroic ethos of Star Wars than Hera Syndulla’s very personal little freak, Chopper.
Don’t get me flawed, Star Wars’ wider media universe has lengthy had droids that lean towards going goblin mode slightly than the stiff-lipped comedic foils seen within the likes of C-3PO. R2-D2 in fact began all that, and that was even earlier than he was flying round with jet rockets within the prequels and setting his fellow droid-kin on fireplace. Knights of the Outdated Republic introduced us the lovable-yet-petrifying, meatbag-crackin’ HK-47, and Marvel’s Star Wars comics gave us Dr. Aphra’s darkish tackle R2 and 3PO in Triple-Zero and BT, gleefully killer murderer droids. However there’s one thing about Chopper’s irascible persona across Rebels’ four seasons that raises him above the noise to be one among Star Wars’ most perfect agents of chaos.
Perhaps it’s that Chopper is an asshole indiscriminately. His “mates” aboard the Ghost (save for Hera, he is aware of by no means to go too far there) and their foes within the Empire are all the time equal targets for him to be a dick to. Chopper’s solely degree of judgment when deciding to be just a little shit—which is 100% of the time—is weighing whether or not he’s pleasant sufficient with somebody to play a prank on them, or whether or not he’s simply going to straight up homicide them. There isn’t a droid in Star Wars with an on-screen physique depend like Chop, who’s willingly electrocuted, charged, blasted, and exploded his manner by Imperial forces in a fashion that may make even Noticed Gerrera suppose he might need gone a bit too far.
Perhaps it’s that Chopper may even do his rattling job on prime of all that—positive, there’s instances he will get frozen out of a system or incapacitated, however he’s additionally the one on the Ghost crew who fixes these issues to avoid wasting the day, and nonetheless has the time on prime of that to play jokes, discuss shit, and sure, sometimes ice a Stormtrooper or two. He’s an expert that takes every part “significantly,” whether or not that’s getting a mission carried out or clowning on his allies. That’s the vitality that makes Chopper so compelling in his chaos—it by no means looks like he’s doing issues randomly or so erratically that you simply don’t okaynow what you’re going to get with him. Chopper totally is aware of what he’s doing (being a dick), and can inform you precisely that in his gruff bleeps and blorps as he rolls away chuckling about it.
And it’s an vitality I actually hope we get to see maintained in Ahsoka. When Star Wars brings over a personality from animation to live-action, there’s all the time a levelling off of a few of their vitality and exaggerations that’s simply a part of the method of translating one thing from one medium to a different. However even whether it is an accepted a part of that course of, you continue to lose one thing. Making an attempt to do this to Chopper is a idiot’s endeavor—he wants that comedian silliness, he can’t simply appear like Chopper and boop like Chopper. He’s gotta be annoying as hell. He’s gotta kill just a few Imperial remnants simply because he discovered a humorous solution to do it. Chopper can, and may, get away with homicide in the best way nobody round him actually can, with out Star Wars asking questions of itself ethically which might be possibly just a little higher suited to the political thriller vibes of Andor than they’re going to be in one thing like Ahsoka. He’s acquired no time for ethical quandaries, he’s busy being just a little robotic shitstain.
As Ahsoka readies to deal with the robust undertaking of bringing ahead these Rebels characters to live-action, and into a time the place they’ve grown up past the heroes we met in animation all these years in the past, Chopper is arguably the one they should get proper essentially the most. Let his chaos reign!
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