How Many Languages C-3PO Can Speak (& 9 Other Facts About The Character You Didn't Know)
Daniel Lopez As a protocol droid, C-3PO is fluent in many languages - how many languages can he speak, you're wondering? The answer might surprise you.
The Star Wars franchise is one of, if not the biggest pop culture phenomenon in the past forty years. It has introduced us to a plethora of characters who are iconic throughout the world, and some of the most well known in cinema. One such character who is instantly recognizable is C-3PO.
Having appeared in every Skywalker saga film, as well as countless other media, Threepio has become a character synonymous with the franchise. There is a lot of information about the character fans find out throughout the nine main films, but there are also some facts fans may still be unaware of, including how many languages he speaks.
10 ANTHONY DANIELS DID NOT WANT THE ROLE
Anthony Daniels is an actor who has appeared in every Star Wars film, as both C-3PO and other characters, and has brought C-3PO to life for over forty years brilliantly.
Daniels met with Lucas in 1975, two years before the release of Star Wars (A New Hope), but was uninterested in playing a robot. What convinced Daniels to join the project was the beautiful artwork of Ralph McQuarrie.
9 HIS HEIGHT
Height is a pretty trivial thing as far as facts about a character go, but Threepio seems to be pretty similar in height to the three main heroes of the original trilogy. Obviously, Chewbacca towers above him, while R2-D2 reaches his hip.
Wookiepedia lists Threepio at 1.71m tall. Interestingly enough, Wikipedia lists Anthony Daniels at 1.75m, but obviously, that should be taken with a grain of salt. Either way, Threepio stands at the height of 5 foot 6 inches - he also weighs 75kg.
8 CYBOT GALACTICA
The Phantom Menace revealed to fans that C-3PO was the creation of a young Anakin Skywalker. Anakin used old parts around Watto's junkyard to create the droid. These parts were Cybot Galactica parts.
Cybot Galactica was a droid manufacturing company that specialized in 3PO protocol units. The parts Anakin used from around the junkyard were parts from Cybot Galactica droids, fortunate for Anakin.
7 HE IS FIRST CLASS
The Star Wars Galaxy is a vast and expansive one with countless groups, orders, species, and classifications. Droids are not exempt from this. While there are different types of droids, such as protocol and astromech, there are also classes of droids.
Threepio is a first-class droid, that being a droid skilled in physical, mathematical, and medical sciences. There are also second-class droids (skilled in engineering and tech), third-class droids (skilled in social sciences and services), fourth-class droids (skilled in security and military), and fifth-class droids (used for menial tasks and non-intelligent work).
6 THE INSPIRATIONS
George Lucas is well known to have taken a lot of inspirations from various films and properties that he adored. Films such as that of Akira Kurosawa and Flash Gordon were big inspirations for the galaxy far, far away. Various other things also inspired Threepio.
As is apparent in Ralph McQuarrie's beautiful art, Threepio was widely inspired by Machinenmensch from the classic Fritz Lang film Metropolis. There is also the Kurosawa touch that is prevalent throughout the original trilogy -- watching The Hidden Fortress, there are two peasant characters with the same purpose as Artoo and Threepio.
5 HOW MANY FORMS OF COMMUNICATION?
"I am fluent in over six million forms of communication." That's it. That's the point; he speaks over six million languages. Except, in the years after Threepio says this quote, leading into The Force Awakens, the famous quote ceased to be true.
By the time of what is known in-universe as the Cold War (the state of tension in the government as the First Order rose), Threepio's Tranglang III communication module got upgraded. The Tranglang III communication module is simply a piece of equipment allowing droids to communicate. When it was updated, Threepio went from six million-plus forms of communication to seven million-plus forms of communication. These include basic, Ewokese, Huttese, Shiriiwook, Bocce, Ubese, and more.
4 HE SPEAKS POLISH
By far, the weirdest of the languages we know that Threepio can speak is the language we see him speak as he attempts to enter Jabba's palace in Return Of The Jedi. That language is Polish.
As Threepio tries to get into the palace, Threepio utters a line that loosely translated means "Does Jabba the Hutt live here?" One would get forgiven for believing Threepio was speaking some obscure alien language, but alas, it was merely the native language of Poland, albeit a bit mangled.
3 HOW HE GOT THE RED ARM
The Force Awakens reintroduced C-3PO with a slight change -- this being the fact his left arm is now red rather than the classic gold. It was a mystery how this came to be, but was finally revealed in the one-shot comic Star Wars Special: C-3PO 1.
The comic follows a ship crashing with Threepio and other droids on board. The droids land on the planet Taul and attempt to navigate it to get off of it. Along the way, Threepio's arm is ripped off by a Thidaxx. Later, a fellow droid Threepio comes to know throughout the comic named Omri sacrifices himself to the acid rain of the planet, with only his arm surviving. This arm later becomes the red left arm of C-3PO we see in The Force Awakens.
2 HE IS A LEADER
C-3PO is a droid who likes to follow protocol. He is loyal and has a personality, and ultimately is programmed to follow. However, what a lot of fans may not know is that Threepio can be a leader in his own right.
The Poe Dameron comics revealed Threepio ran the Resistance spy droid network, a group of droids the Resistance used through the Cold War to spy throughout the Galaxy. The Poe line is an excellent series of comics, so you should read them, but Threepio has the title of Droid Communications Chief, and it played an essential role within the Resistance at the time.
1 HE REMEMBERS
Earlier on the C-3PO one-shot comic was mentioned, and so to was Omri. The red arm revelation was not the most interesting one of that comic however, that honor goes to C-3PO remembering flashes of his past.
Despite having had a previous memory wipe from Bail Organa, Threepio reveals to Omri he still gets flashes of memories. He says he remembers things such as a factory of droids, a body that did not belong to him, a green world with hills, an underworld city, a vast city, mountains of magma and fire, suffering, and more. Threepio says he wonders about them sometimes, but knows his duties and accepts them, so he thinks no further about them.
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