Star Wars: Droids (September 7, 1985 - June 7, 1986), also known as Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO, was an animated television series that featured the exploits of R2-D2 and C-3PO (the droids who have appeared in all six Star Wars films). The series took place in 15 BBY, which was between the Star Wars films: Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.

Throughout the series, the droids team up with four different sets of masters. The first season is divided up into cycles, in which at the beginning of each, the droids usually run into their new masters in an accidental way, and at the end of each cycle, they usually are forced to leave their masters for one reason or another. The television special following the first season, which was The Great Heep, served as a prequel to one of these cycles. It told the adventures of the droids before they joined up with Mungo Baobab in The Adventures of Mungo Baobab Cycle.

Setting

Droids was set in the 19 year time period between the rise of The Empire in Revenge of the Sith, and the events of A New Hope. Many times during the show, agents of The Empire were shown to enforce this idea. The show was set approximately 15 years before the droids ran into Luke Skywalker in A New Hope. This sets the series at around 15 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin) or 15 BSW4 (Before Star Wars 4). This also tells us that the show must be set around four years after the events of the film, Revenge of the Sith, as it was set at 19 BBY or 19 BSW4.

Plot

In the series, the famous droid duo faced off against gangsters, pirates, Boba Fett, IG-88, the Empire and other threats throughout the series. During their adventures, the droids always found themselves with new masters and new difficult situations as a result.

Locations

• Biitu
• Bogden
• Hosk Station (comic series)
• Indobok (comic series)
• Ingo
• Kalarba (comic series)
• Manda
• Nar Shaddaa
• Roon
• Tammuz-an
• Tarnoonga
• Tatooine
• Tyne's Horky

Characters

Named starships

• Caravel
• Demolisher
• Dianoga
• Roon Clipper
• The 'new' umboo light station

Cast and production

The series featured Anthony Daniels as C-3PO, who also portrays the character on the big screen, along with the voice talents of Graeme Campbell, Rob Cowan, Don Francks, Peter MacNeill, John Stocker and Winston Rekert. Plus several episodes feature guest stars like Ken Campbell, Bob Hoskins, Chris Wiggins, Guilio Kukurugya, Darrin Baker and Colin Fox. The Narrator was Stephen Ouimette. Several episodes of the series were written by Ben Burtt. The series was produced by Nelvana on behalf of Lucasfilm and broadcast on ABC. The cartoon series lasted one season and was made up of 13 regular episodes in 1985. There was also a two-part TV special entitled, "The Great Heep" in 1986. Following the original run of the complete series, the entire show was rebroadcast as part of The Ewoks and Droids Adventure Hour the same year, along with its series counterpart, Ewoks.

Cast listing (voice work)

• Don Francks as Jann Tosh
• Winston Rekert as Sise Fromm, Mungo Baobab
• Anthony Daniels as C-3PO
• Graeme Campbell as Proto One
• Peter MacNeill as Jord Dusat
• John Stocker as Vlix, Greej, Zatec-Cha and Sollag
• Rob Cowan as Thall Jobin
• Stephen Ouimette as Narrator
• Dan Hennessey as Jord Dusat (ep4), Uncle Gundy, Jyn Obah, Vinga and Yorpa

Alleged continuity issues

There is some controversy in Star Wars fandom as to whether the "Droids" cartoon series should be considered canon in the Star Wars timeline. Though officially released by Lucasfilm Ltd. and endorsed by Star Wars creator George Lucas as taking place about 15 BBY, the overall premise of the series is not fully explained within the storyline and consequences of the two films, Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.

At the end of Episode III, Senator Bail Organa (adoptive father of Leia Organa) tells Captain Antilles of the Tantive IV consular ship, "I'm placing these droids in your care. Treat them well. Clean them up. Have the Protocol Droid's mind wiped." In Episode IV, C-3PO says to Luke Skywalker that their last master was Captain Antilles. In the Droids series, however, the droids have numerous masters after Captain Antilles is entrusted with them in Episode III, but before Captain Antilles is shown to have or regained care of them in Episode IV. The Star Wars Ultimate Visual Guide gives a similar official explanation for this continuity issue. It mentions that the droids were "accidentally separated" from Antilles, which is when the Droids cartoon happens, "before returning to Captain Antilles' ship, the Tantive IV."

Another continuity problem that seems to stand out is the fact that Jann Tosh is flying an A-Wing. The A-Wing along with the B-Wing were not deveoloped until well after the Battle of Yavin. The A-Wing and B-Wing don't show up in the movies until the space fight in Return of the Jedi. The intermediate, but very similar R-22 Spearhead was later invented to explain this discrepancy.

Prequel trilogy references

In several places, the prequel trilogy references elements from the Droids animated series. Most likely, this was due to Ben Burtt's large involvement in both story elements for the animated series, and his involvement in the prequels.

• In the fourth episode of the series A Race to the Finish, the Droids end up at a race known as the "Boonta Race." A similar name was used for the podrace in The Phantom Menace, which was known as the "Boonta Eve Classic."
• The swamp planet of Bogden is a planet visited by the droids in the series. In Attack of the Clones, Jango Fett says that he was "hired by a man named Tyranus on the moons of Bogden."
• As confirmed by StarWars.com, the wheel bike, which was Jann Tosh's vehicle, and was seen in the animated series, was also the type of vehicle that was the vehicle of choice for General Grievous in Revenge of the Sith, when in a chase with Obi-Wan Kenobi on Utapau.^*
• The diner in an episode of the series has a strong similarity to Dex's Diner as seen in Attack of the Clones.
• Toong from the series was mentioned in the prequels.
• In the episode, The Pirates of Tarnoonga, the pirate caves on Tarnoonga bear a striking resemblance to the sinkhole grottos of Utapau as seen in Revenge of the Sith.

Later EU appearances

• The New Jedi Order (1999-2003) At the beginning of Balance Point, New Republic forces engaged the Yuuzhan Vong over Kalarba. The Yuuzhan Vong use the Yo'gand's Core tactic on Hosk Station, using it to devastate Kalarba. Hosk Station originally appeared in Droids. Also, Kalarba was the subject of some of the Droids comics.
• HoloNet news In several issues of the HoloNet news, Admiral Screed makes an appearance.
• Rebellion In this strategy video game, Admiral Screed makes another appearance.
• Boba Fett: The Fight to Survive (2002) involves the planet Bogden, as seen in Droids.
• In the liner notes of the Shadows of the Empire soundtrack, Ben Burtt references in-universe the Baobab Archives regarding the source which the lyrics of Dha Werda Verda (also written by Burtt) were discovered.
• Admiral Screed was referred to in passing in The New Essential Guide to Characters and Force Heretic I: Remnant. In the latter it was established that he was executed by Warlord Zsinj shortly after the Battle of Endor, which explains his absence from the post-ROTJ EU.
• The planet of Bogden was seen in the video game Bounty Hunter.

Comic book series

In 1986, Marvel Comics' Star Comics imprint published a Droids comic book, which was based on the cartoon series. The comic also had the name Star Wars: Droids. The comic series took place from about 10 BBY - 6 BBY, unlike the TV series which was placed around 15 BBY.

The bi-monthly series ran for a year, ending with issue #8. Significant issues include #4, which crossed over with the Ewoks comics series, and # 6-8, whose story was titled "Star Wars According to the Droids", retelling the original film complete with new scenes told from the perspective of the droids. For more on this series, see this link.

Toy line

In 1985, a toy line from Kenner was produced that was based on the series. This line included action figures, ship models, etc. For more on the toy line, see this link.

Episodes

Season I

Television special

Chronological order

The series was meant to tell the adventures of the droids in a chronological order, based on cycles, or groups of episodes. Though sometimes released out of order, this is the correct order to view the series, chronologically:

The Trigon One Cycle

• The White Witch
• Escape Into Terror
• The Trigon Unleashed
• A Race to the Finish

The Mon Julpa Cycle

• The Lost Prince
• The New King
• The Pirates of Tarnoonga
• The Revenge of Kybo Ren
• Coby and the Starhunters

The Mungo Baobab Preface Cycle

• The Great Heep (part 1)
• The Great Heep (part 2)

The Adventures of Mungo Baobab Cycle

• Tail of the Roon Comets
• The Roon Games
• Across the Roon Sea
• The Frozen Citadel

DVD release

• Star Wars: Droids was released on November 23, 2004 as an edited compilation DVD with the title Star Wars Animated Adventures: Droids. The DVD contained eight episodes in total of the series, edited together as two full length movies.
• Episodes 5-8 were edited together to make "The Pirates and the Prince," and Episodes 10-13 were edited together to make "Treasure of the Hidden Planet."
• Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
• Language: English
• Release Date: November 23, 2004
• The entire original series has yet to be released, either on DVD or VHS. Some of the original episodes were released in the eighties and nineties, however, on VHS. Star Wars prequel trilogy and DVD producer Rick McCallum, along with Lucasfilm head of fan relations, Steve Sansweet, have reportedly stated that a future release of the series in its entirety on DVD is possible.

References

• Star Wars: Droids 1985, George Lucas, Ben Burtt
• Star Wars Insider #27
• A Guide to the Star Wars Universe,
• The Star Wars Encyclopedia by Stephen J. Sansweet, ISBN 0345402278 Del Rey; first edition (June 30, 1998)

Credits

• Executive Producers: George Lucas, Miki Herman
• Produced by: Clive A. Smith, Michael Hirsh, Patrick Loubert
• Supervising Producer: Lenora Hume
• Based on the characters by: George Lucas
• Directed by: Raymond Jafelice, Clive A. Smith, Ken Stephenson
• Music by: Stewart Copeland
• Story Editors: Peter Sauder, Ben Burtt
• Unit Director: David Thrasher
• Assistant Director: Scott Glynn
• Animation Dorectors: Mike Fallows, Gord Stanfield, John Laurence Collins
• Voice Director: Rob Kirkpatrick
• Recording Assistant: Susan Phillips
• Casting Director: Arlene Berman
• Casting Assistant: Deborah Patz
• Production Designers: Jim Craig, Frank Nissen
• Designers: Charles Bastien, Richard Livingston
• Design Coordinators: John Pagan, Tony Eglill
• Design Assistants: George Elliott, Ross Campbell, Brian Foster, Mark Romza, Faye Hamilton, Steven Manning, Mark Harris
• Storyboard Supervisor: Arna Selznick
• Storyboard Artists: Scott Caple, Jim Caswell, Sam Dixon, Jim Craig, Sam Agro, Laura Sheperd, Jim Miko, Dave Cox, Joe Holdor
• Assistants: Ted Ravn, Nicholas Campbell
• Layout Artists: Rick Allen, Roger Jakublec, John Alrd, Brian Lee, Rick Bentham, Dawn Lee, Peter Biellold, Mark Marren, Eric Chu, Chris Minz, Rick Corriganm Tom Nesbitt, Nancy Easun, Dave Pemberton, John Flagg, Rob Sadler
• Character Posting: Shane Doyle, Paul Riley, Mike Girard, Shawn Seles, John Hooper, Linda Williams, Ronald Migliore, Lynn Yamazaki, Rolf Zondag
• Background Stylist: Barry Atkinson
• Assistants: Keith Slache, Judy Mathews
• Special Effects Director: David Marshall
• Special Effects Designers: Trevor Davies, Jan Steel Moffati, Alexis Wallrich, Peter Yamasaki
• Graphics: Kim Cleary
• Color Designers: Jan Leitch, Eileen Middleton, Carol Bradbour, Margaret Rol, Parker McIntyre
• Associate Producers: Dana Orlando, Peter Sauder, Paul Dini
• Associate Supervising Producer: Peter Hudecki
• Production Coordinators: Heather Walker, Judy Nelson
• Production Manager: Barbara Fish
• Production Assistants: Steve Chadwick, Paul Hogarth, Julie Fener, Garth Roerick, Barbara Bjarhasan
• Production Secretaries: Joy Folla, Nancy Shenton
• Quality Control: Evelyn Baker, Rose Nangle, Brenda Kelly, Betty Oldham, Diana Lyle, Lisa Ratke, Rhyette Zazinski
• Supervising Editor: Rob Kirkpatrick
• Coordinator: Steve Fraser
• Pre-Production: John Broughton
• Editors: John Baktis, Gordon Kidd, Richard Bond, Paul McGowan, Peter Goodale, Michele Moses, Mac Holyoke, Sheila Murray, Stephen Hudecki, Philip Stilman, Chris Hutton, Keith Traver
• Assistants: Dave Allman, Ian Jeans, Mike Bass, Al Maciulis, Peter Branton, Kathy Nicholaichuk, Stephanie Crawford, Mike Reid, Steve Fitch, Cindy Romanovich, Tim Griffin, Jamie Whitney, Eric Hurlbut
• Additional Production: Hanho Heung Up Co. Ltd, Minan Inc.

• Producer: Rick McCallum
• Editor: T.M. Christopher
• Main Title Sequence: Kirk Henderson
• Assistant Editor: Mike Jackson
• Music Editor: Robin Lee
• Re-Recording Mixer: Gary A. Rizzo
• Machine Room Operator: Al Nelson
• Lucasfilm Ltd: Tim Fox, Des Carey

External links

• Star Wars: Droids at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Star Wars: Droids at TV.com
• starwars.com DVD "Closer look"
• A very informative fan site
• An article from the Star Wars Insider on the series
• The official Star Wars site details "R2-D2's Greatest Gadgets" from the series.
• A Star Wars.com blog, detailing elements of the show
• Bantha Tracks #29 - An interview with Executive Producer Miki Herman
• An interview with series animator Paul Dini
• A history of home video releases of Star Wars: Droids
• Episode review of The White Witch
• StarWars.com "Droids encyclopedia" blog
• Exploring Droid Adventures at StarWars.com

1980s TV shows in the United States | ABC network shows | Star Wars animated television series

Droids | Droidit