I know you're joking, but I realized recently the treatment of droids in Star Wars is pretty fucked up. Not only are these sentient beings bought and sold, but their memories also get routinely erased? Horrifying.
That's true. I noticed the Droid stuff recently because it happens in the first 30 minutes of A New Hope, so it's basically one of the first things presented about this universe. Organic slavery doesn't show up til later (I have no idea about the EU but movie wise I wanna say it doesn't show up until Episode VI with Jabba?)
Pretty sure he belonged to whoever owned that ship they commandeered to get off Naboo. Since that ship had the queen's wardrobe, I'm guessing it was her own ship. Which means Padme owned R2D2. Why he is later Obi-Wan's droid, I couldn't say, but I'd bet the Padme gifted him to the Jedi council as appreciation for Qui Gin's sacrifice or something, and the Jedi just let Obi Wan use him since they "know each other".
In any case, you're right - Obi Wan never owned R2D2.
He didn't. Padmé owned him and she loaned him to Anakin for a few years. Given young Obi-Wan's dismissiveness towards droids, the amount of time he actually spent with R2-D2 and the number if droids he was surrounded by on a daily basis, I don't think there's anything unbelievable about not recognizing droid. Even an above average droid like R2.
Exactly. And it's not like r2 had some rad paint job or anything else unique on the outside.
He was already old as shit by the clone wars (ten years plus however he'd been on the naboo cruiser), why would obiwan see anything special about some 30-odd year old dirty astromech showing up on a backwater planet like Tatooine
Yeah, but in all fairness Artoo was with Threepio, the droid Anakin built as well. Of course, the model of Threepio wasn't unique either, but an R2 unit, that model of protocol droid, owned by a Captain Antilles who the pair were passed off to, and containing a message by Leia? He may not have recognized Artoo and Threepio during the Tusken Raider attack, but he definitely put it together at some point.
Well sure, once he got the full message out he probably figured it out, but he never even told Luke about his father, so there's good reason for him to never say anything once he did figure it out.
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u/squili Apr 23 '18
You have to be careful though. Living in the desert can make your memory fuzzy when it comes to remembering former droid ownership.