Flipping through The Star Wars Vault hardcover book (which I plugged in Cool Stuff a few days back), I came across an interesting bit of Star Wars trivia that I had never known before
How Did George Lucas come up with the name for R2-D2?
The amazing must-see photo answer after the jump.
There must be some complicated technical answer, right? Nope.
Rumor has it that George Lucas and a co-worker were editing American Graffiti, when a co-worker asked Lucas for “Reel Two, Dialog Two”, which is abbreviated “R2D2″. Lucas supposedly wrote down the abbreviation and used it as the name of the now famous droid in Star Wars.
Who would have thought?!
January 10th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Sometimes the origins of famous things is pretty mundane.
The Rock Group named their band AC/DC when the guitarist saw that on the back of his mom’s old sewing machine and though….hey thats a great name for a band.
January 10th, 2008 at 9:07 am
I remember looking at a head less r2 unit in the sfx workshop in elstree many many years ago and thinking WTF is that for
Bit of trivia i can remember going to a hardware and my dad to buy spoons/forks and strange kitchen implements that he then spot welded on to the arms of some spidery looking robot
when luke buys r2 that robot was in the line up ……happy days
January 10th, 2008 at 9:48 am
I think the headline should be “How Did R2-D2 Get Its Name?”
Droids don’t have a gender.
(I’m kidding, of course)
January 10th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Kinda like The Misfits song “We are 138″ comes from the Lucas film THX-1138.
January 10th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
“Rumor has it…”
January 11th, 2008 at 5:27 am
So how did C3P0 get his name then?
January 11th, 2008 at 5:36 am
Well done fellas, good to see you’re breaking 15yrs old news.
January 11th, 2008 at 5:48 am
“george lucas” poses an good question. Here’s what I found after a bit of googling…
C3PO was named after a post office which is located at reference C3 on a map of Lucas’ hometown.
http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question48321.html
Interesting, if true.
January 11th, 2008 at 6:06 am
I’ve always thought of R2D2 as a “she” really..
January 11th, 2008 at 6:22 am
Actually he was in a radio station with a friend who was a D.J and heard him ask for R1-D2 -> Row 2 - Disc 2…
January 11th, 2008 at 6:26 am
@Rick
Nothing to do with the fact that Angus Young is gay then?
January 11th, 2008 at 6:52 am
Nice find. Shame about the big mofo add though. Kind of like answering the phone during sex.
January 11th, 2008 at 7:00 am
His could be referring to a male or female.
January 11th, 2008 at 7:07 am
Wait! What! Darth Vader was Lukes FATHER!
Whoa!
January 11th, 2008 at 7:11 am
I would take this out from the cool section.
January 11th, 2008 at 7:12 am
not that it matters, but slightly interesting is the fact that the “andr” part of android does specifically mean male - from the greek “andros”
see wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android
January 11th, 2008 at 7:36 am
Pretty cool. C3PO got his name from Darth Vader, who built him. I think Darth was smoking some of the death sticks and came up with C’s name.
January 11th, 2008 at 8:02 am
Wow - that’s real breaking news. Especially if you ignore that it was in “Skywalking”, the unofficial George Lucas biography about 20 years ago.
January 11th, 2008 at 8:06 am
“Droids don’t have a gender.”
Well, actually, R2D2 is a ball-bearing robot…
January 11th, 2008 at 8:10 am
That’s nothing. Obi Wan Kenobi owes its name to the synthesizer used to create R2D2’s “voice” - the Oberheim OB-1. Pics & info here: http://www.vintagesynth.com/oberheim/ob1.shtml
January 11th, 2008 at 8:39 am
Come on guys… it clearly states…”I came across an interesting bit of Star Wars trivia that I had never known before”…
We might have known it, but he didn’t know it and thought it cool to post to others who didn’t know it. Give the guy a break.
January 11th, 2008 at 8:51 am
I appreciate the post. While it may be old information im sure alot of people who read it, read it because they didn’t know it. Its the first time I heard of it.
Peace
January 11th, 2008 at 8:51 am
This isn’t news, it’s been common knowledge for years!
January 11th, 2008 at 9:02 am
I love this kind of stuff. Some people may have already known but I didn’t and I’m a movie trivia freak. Thanks! Have you ever heard of or seen the Star Wars Holiday Special? Anyone hardcore into Star Wars needs to see it, a large portion of the opening is entirely in Wookie with no subtitles. It’s beyond amazing.
January 11th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Did you know Indiana was named after the dog? LOL.
I’m a huge Star Wars buff but never knew this - who cares if it’s 20 years old? It’s still cool as hell… it’s STAR WARS.
January 11th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Intelligence bit of star wars intlligence. You have broken the heart of my neighbor who considers himself on the best informed and biggest star wars fans their is.
January 11th, 2008 at 10:46 am
haha this is what you consider “common knowledge”?? this is thankfully not part of my common knowledge… i guess i missed that unofficial george lucas biography from 20 years ago?
January 11th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Rootman Says:
“Wait! What! Darth Vader was Lukes FATHER! Whoa!”
Jesus Christ, use some f’ing spoiler tags next time. Way to ruin the ending for me.
January 11th, 2008 at 11:15 am
You know, if you watch the movies starting from Episode I to Episode VI, you already know that Darth Vader is Luke’s father. How lame would that be if you watched the movies in that order for the first time?
January 11th, 2008 at 11:44 am
And Washington DC was named in honor of the capitol of the ancient world, Washington BC.
January 11th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Still looking for the jump…
Oh! after the fold.
Right.
Jump is a link, people…
January 11th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
heh that’s pretty nifty.
January 11th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
@robis: which is why you’d watch them in this order: IV-V-I-II-III-VI. Set up, revelation, back story, redemption.
January 11th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I think some of you are missing the point. While the story of R2D2’s naming has been well known for years, this is the first photo of the actual american grafitti reel (as far as I’m aware of).
January 11th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
interesting trivia: R2D2 in spanish takes too long to say so in mexico’s translation they called him ^arturito^ which is like litte arthur in english
January 11th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
“Droids don’t have a gender.â€
R2D2 is no “Droid”, C3PO on the other hand is.
Droid is abbreviated form of Android, from the greek “Human-like-form” (i.e. 2 arms, 2 legs, torso, head)
so there…
January 11th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
The name “Wookiee” came from THX-1138 also. Listen to the radio chatter as they are stealing the police cars. One of the voice actors ad-libs the line, “I think I just drove over a wookiee back there”. Again, Lucas liked it and wrote it down for later.
January 11th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I heard that R2D2 was named after a Rainbow series 2 vacuum which his mother used. If you look at the design of R2D2, it looks very similar to the design of a late 50’s canister vacuum.
I don’t know this to be true, but that’s what I heard.
January 11th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Cool… thanks for C3PO one. Any idea why Z6PO has been chosen in the French version?
January 11th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Such a humble beginning for the most famous druid in the world.
January 12th, 2008 at 2:06 am
I gotta say.. who doesn’t know r2d2 stands for reel 2 dialogue 2? Why make a site about it and digg it… I just… I could make eleventy billion websites with my knowledge… I can’t believe one piece of commonly known trivia and it has it’s own url, and the biggest insult is that there is a date on the article… like this is news or something argh
January 12th, 2008 at 6:05 am
it doesnt matter. it looks like vacuum cleaner anyway..
January 12th, 2008 at 8:10 am
@Rookie: it doesnt matter. it looks like vacuum cleaner anyway..
Funny, I just had the same reflexion. A kind of vacuum-transformer…
January 12th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Wizard of OZ was named OZ because the author was sitting in front of the filing cabinet with the bottom drawer labeled O-Z.
Star Wars is just awesome!
January 12th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
r u kidding me?
January 13th, 2008 at 4:20 am
I heard that on TV in a program about authors.
January 13th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Simpsons Reference Number 1: This just reminds me of “Max Power? Cool name” “Hehe, thanks. I got it off a hairdryer”
Simpsons Reference2 : This sounds so much like Comic Book Guy it’s unreal…
“Andras Says:
Wow - that’s real breaking news. Especially if you ignore that it was in “Skywalkingâ€, the unofficial George Lucas biography about 20 years ago.”
January 13th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Look for this on:
http://www.c2i.ntu.edu.sg/AI+CI/Humor/AI_Jokes/FrameProblem.html
It describes the real source of the name.
Once upon a time there was a robot, named R1 by its creators. Its only task was to fend for itself. One day its designers arranged for it to learn that its spare battery, its precious energy supply, was locked in a room with a time bomb set to go off soon. R1 located the room, and the key to the door, and formulated a plan to rescue its battery. There was a wagon in the room, and the battery was on the wagon, and R1 hypothesized that a certain action which it called PULLOUT(WAGON, ROOM) would result in the battery being removed from the room. Straightaway it acted, and did succeed in getting the battery out of the room before the bomb went off. Unfortunately, however, the bomb was also on the wagon. R1 knew that the bomb was on the wagon in the room, but didn’t realize that pulling the wagon would bring the bomb out along with the battery. Poor R1 had missed that obvious implication of its planned act.
Back to the drawing board. “The solution is obvious,” said the designers. “Our next robot must be made to recognize not just the intended implications of its acts, but also the implications about their side-effects, by deducing these implications from the descriptions it uses in formulating its plans.” They called their next model, the robot-deducer, R1D1. They placed R1D1 in much the same predicament that R1 had succumbed to, and as it too hit upon the idea of PULLOUT(WAGON, ROOM) it began, as designed, to consider the implications of such a course of action. It had just finished deducing that pulling the wagon out of the room would not change the colour of the room’s walls, and was embarking on a proof of the further implication that pulling the wagon out would cause its wheels to turn more revolutions than there were wheels on the wagon … when the bomb exploded.
Back to the drawing board. “We must teach it the difference between relevant implications and irrelevant implications,” said the designers, “and teach it to ignore the irrelevant ones.” So they developed a method of tagging implications as either relevant or irrelevant to the project at hand, and installed the method in their next model, the robot-relevant-deducer, R2D1 for short. When they subjected R2D1 to the test that had so unequivocally selected its ancestors for extinction, they were surprised to see it sitting, Hamlet-like, outside the room containing the ticking bomb, the native hue of its resolution sicklied over with the pale cast of thought, as Shakespeare (and more recently Fodor) has aptly put it. “Do something!” they yelled at it. “I am,” it retorted. “I’m busily ignoring some thousands of implications I have determined to be irrelevant. Just as soon as I find an irrelevant implication, I put it on the list of those I must ignore, and …” the bomb went off.
January 14th, 2008 at 1:12 am
Hi rodrigo,
here is a reference which I found:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099464/usercomments
January 14th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
But…
How did George Lucas get HIS name?
January 16th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Well, we all know that George didn’t just make it up, because he’s never come up with a damned original thing in his entire career. yeah, yeah, I know you’re all Star Wars fans; hell, even I liked the first one. Of course, I was fifteen at the time, but whatever. John Dykstra really should get all the credit, since the pre-CG special effects made the film. It surely wasn’t the writing or directing, or the cobbling together of every film cliche ever devised. All I can say for George Lucas is that he’s one of the luckiest bastards ever to stumble into a fortune.
March 8th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
John Dykstra also created the FX in the original Battlestar Galactica series.
If Dykstra’s talent was instrumental in making Star Wars a monumental success, shouldn’t the original “Galactica” be just as massive?
*Think*