Why Star Wars droids make no sense

Hyperspace is the Nether

A lot of super tech...Yet Han solo drives around in a space shit with a weapon system like a b17 ww2 bomber

Hyperspace is science fiction. When you start over thinking it and applying science fact parameters it becomes an impractical mess. Star Trek did a better job of basing it's warp drive in physics that could work in theory however warp drive is also science fiction and shouldn't be picked apart and examined under a science fact microscope. There are a host of problems with faster than light travel including but not limited to structural integrity and the limitations of the human body. Science fiction concepts are entertainment.

As for droids, they make perfect sense in the science fiction world they exist in. When you take them into science fact based on how AI technology actually works they suddenly become problematic.

There is IV V VI and everything else is trash, garbage, distraction, thus essentially a waste of your time.

In the Thrawn trilogy when they are finding the Katana fleet they talk about how all the ships jumped to hyperspace at the same time and how that was the cause of so many droids and not centralized giant computers that could handle everything.

The millennium falcon had AI.

I'm not sure where you came up with the info for 'hyperspace' speed. It's not based off of 'engine speed or power', but on the number of computerized calculations per second. Its about the computer's ability to determine and track objects that could potentially intersect (collide) with your ship. Clear example of this, the Millennium Falcon, has the same engines, that come with any Corellian Stock light freighter. The boost comes from the fact that it has several astromech droids hardwired into it's navigation system. Most freighters come with a stock 'factory' navigational computer.

Unlike Star Trek, which bases it's 'warp drive' and 'transwarp drive' on the speed of light, which IS a speed factor. Star Wars doesn't really have different grades or types of hyperdrive systems. You either hit 'hyperspace' or you don't. Again, a Stock light freighter is meant to haul cargo, and in most cases, the standard system will travel between star systems fairly quickly. But a smuggler on the other hand, is more like the 'rum-runners' of the prohibition. They achieve this, by having 'faster computers' not bigger engines.

In ST:ANH Luke, Obi, Han, and Chewy are suddenly dropped out of hyperspace, because of the fragments of the recently destroyed Alderaan, far too many fragments for the computer to fully track and avoid at hyperspace. Any ship passing that close to the debris would have lost hyperspace. "This ain't like dusting crops". What constitutes a 'lane', it's a void in space, usually very far from any potential asteroids, space dust, or fast-moving objects, which might hinder the hyperdrive computer, to track the objects, cause the ship to drop out of hyperspace. These lanes might actually be monitored to assure that the 'streets are clear at all times', if it's a particularly popular 'line between two points'.

The hyperdrive system (engines) of a Star Destroyer aren't any different from an X-Wing, aside from the mass of the ship that the drive is intended to 'push' to enter into hyperspace. In other words, there isn't a point to install bigger engines in a smaller ship to make it go 'faster'. It's not the 'size' that matters, it's the ability to 'think on it's feet' that counts.

Your mistake is thinking of STAR WARS as science fiction. However, in actuality, it is fantasy with a heavy sci-fi aesthetic. And no, this is not a diss. George Lucas does not refer to it as science fiction, but as fantasy.

Think of it in those terms, and the droids make a lot more sense.

Oh, come on... R2D2 and its ilk were only there for marketing! To sell merch! That's it!

To mix references: whenever you notice something like that, a wizard did it.

According to the West End Games Star Wars Roleplaying Game, which is basically the origin for everything in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, the reason well traveled hyperspace routes are easier to traverse is because they're updated more frequently.

You have to remember that space is not static, planets and stars and such are constantly in motion. If a hyperspace route is traveled daily, data on that route is constantly being gathered and updated. On the other hand, a route that has only ever been traveled once centuries ago is going to look a lot different from when that last person took it.

This isn't to say calculations don't need to be done when you jump to hyperspace in a well-traveled region, the calculations just take much less time to do. For rarely traveled routes or routes that have never been traveled before, you have to calculate the trajectories of every single celestial object in your path, and so it's much safer to break these trips into multiple smaller jumps rather than doing them all in one go.

As for the role of astromech droids, when traveling via hyperspace it's often more efficient to have a supercomputer calculate the route for you (or download the information off the holonet), upload it onto your astromech, and then have the astromech feed the route information to your nav computer. This is especially true for convoys and fleets who are all making the same hyperspace jump--just have the computer make the calculation once, distribute it to all the astromechs, and then have the droids tell the ships where to go.

I recognise Star Wars as fantasy - nothing more nothing less

"Physical access is total access", plus "in space, no one can hear you scream" - if you're in the middle of nowhere & Important Thing breaks, it's vital to be able to repair or replace it yourself, so many boards with wires connecting them & physical disconnects so that an overload is contained makes sense.
Droids needing to physically spin a complicated connector is rather ridiculous from a tech perspective, many more opportunities for failure than a static connection - but for a movie, it's a visual indicator that they're /doing/ something, vs blinking lights.
Also, there are a few comments about how our "hero" droids are particularly independent & mouthy, their "owners" get criticized for allowing them to be that way, so we can assume most others are much more boring & obedient.

The real issue people have with technology in scifi is that they expect everything to mirror what they see in real life, they believe that there's a tech tree that has to be followed, just as we have in the last few centuries.

When really... no. Most human cultures, before it became easier to cross the planet didn't follow the same tech tree, so to speak. There were certain techs that came about in many places, such as the fire, the wheel, the ability to smelt metals, but even then, it wasn't always like that.

The Romans, for example, had steam engines, but they viewed it as a novelty at best. There were never any grand plans for it, nobody sat there and saw its potential to power this, propel that, used to replace human power.

The Americas never seemed to develop iron working, even though many in Europe did, and had it for centuries prior to colonization attempts.

Y'all who are saying "it doesn't need to be realistic"

Keep coping

We all know you care about realism if you're saying that Starwars doesn't need to be realistic

We all know that you feel your soul being rendered into a bad G rated sequel every time you see a LightSaber fail to boil someone alive when said someone gets stabbed by a tool that can cut through spaceship bulkheads

"Dammit, the door's locked! Where's your R2 unit?"
"Uh... Mine's a girl droid, sir. See the pink?"

If a hyperspace lane is the space between solar systems (where gravity is weak enough to not mess with your nav systems), it will be multiple light-years wide.
ONE light-year is wide enough for 58.7 BILLION Death Stars to fly side-by-side. And of course, this is a 3-dimensional tunnel, not a flat pathway, so 2.7 x 10^21 Death Stars flying in a massive wall formation.
You'd need TRILLIONS of trips by Millennium Falcon-sized ships to have a decent chance of collision.

When in Star Wars Episode 1 no one could just whip out a holo, video, or photo of the Trade Federation blockading Naboo as evidence for the Senate, I was confused. I still am confused by that, but I've learned to not take it seriously, it's a movie.

My question in all those futuristic stories is, who the hell pays for all that tech, fuel, wars, and even uniforms. Imagine those taxes!

Weird take on a series that isnt even sci fi

I run a sci-fi/space fantasy RPG heavily based on Star Wars. I really like the idea of hyperspace lanes being like highways in the sense you can see other ships that are near you. As well as the examples you mentioned, there’s also a scene in the Book of Boba Fett ( Mandalorian season 2.5) where Mando is traveling through hyperspace with Grogu and they see a pod of space whales.

Ah yes hyperspace. How about i destroy your planet with my hyperspace antimater-mater intergalactic missiles? War never changes.

Lucus dreamed this up in the 70's. Sci-fi was still fantastic, unlike now.

What killed Star Warts for me is the walkers. Why are they utilized when levitation is available?

Star wars is totally ridiculous, nothing in it makes sense. Totally dumb story

I think the r2 units are a cool display of futurism, despite a person being able to do the same work easily without them. I just think they look neat as movable objects.

Seems like a lot of sci-fi is rightfully timid about throwing out hard numbers, just look at the supposed official population of Courosaunt with its resulting population density a fraction of Delhi, which isn't even the densest city on earth and definitely doesn't have thousand floor+ skyscrapers.

And before you get into the weeds about water and food, this is a galaxy with casual interstellar travel and tatooine. They have no issue recycling water at any scale and absolutely have enough spaceport capacity for all the needed food.

I personally find it stupidly funny that the Star Wars universe

1) Has been in technological stagnation or even decline for thousands of years
2) Is somehow both more advanced, and LESS advanced than modern day earth

Has no one learned anything from the hack attacks on public infrastructure? Anything networked will become vulnerable to remote attack, that's the lesson. Having mobile, but reasonable secure, units increases digital security. You have to gain PHYSICAL access to the unit, and since the droids are AI, and have their own individuality in many cases, they can resist being hacked, again, physically. Just a thought.

There was the 1980 cartoon series named Star Wars Droids. Had that 70's cartooning but at least it's campy today.

Nothing about Star Wars makes sense. Just enjoy it as Fantasy with some science fiction window dressing. That's it, it's all comic book shenanigans at best.

PLEASE READ! One of R2-D2's head top panels contains a lightsabor storage unit in the return of the jedi, but other movies that same panel contains a lazer gun, and the panel opens 3 different times, it slides open, it opens to the back, and it opens to the front, also a panel next to it also contains a lazer gun??? This does not make sense.

Actually, I pose the opposite question.. Why would you want your navigator to have to communicate with the ship's computer using human language and/or ergonomic touch screens when they could just plug in? Instead of forcing the ship's computer to explain complicated vectors and multidimensional coordinates vocally, have the pilots and navigators interface wirelessly!

Star Wars is a story about a family trying to overthrow Grandpa

Expecting fantasy to make sense is a little asinine.

R2 units make sense think of one in a tank inbeded defending against drones spinning head with radar and shot guns.

They needed those routs to dodge everything rocks exc

Hyperspace TCAS(traffic alert and collision avoidance system )

A lot of things don’t make sense in Star Wars

Okay so: Jace and Janna seem like if you combined Luke, Han, Leia, and Vader into two characters and in the end have Luke kill Vader instead.

Oi, you don't diss a D2!

a 70s super computer isnt that much different from a corporate server rack of today.

Whats up with the outro? I miss home already, its so weird seeing the doge but not hearing home.

The only bigger waste of time than a Stars Wars movie is an analysis of a Star Wars movie. Get a life, people.

Why Star Wars droids make no sense?

There is little about Star Wars that makes any real practical sense. Everything in that universe is designed to sell merchandise and/or look cool. The fact that fans will go into mental gymnastics trying to rationalize and justify what is on screen is amusing to me while often just plain sad to witness.

Methinks you're missing the point of Star Wars.

We can state a true fact though that when you go into hyperspace, no other ships exist in your view. You CANNOT collide with a ship in hyperspace, because there ARE no other ships in hyperspace

There is no question that AI is heavily integrated into the ships and technology, its just not as general as the common droid. It would be akin to modern simple AI that does a task and spits out data and/or performs a myriad of automated operations based on simple user inputs. The droids however are more akin to personal computers. They are discrete units with integrated heuristics which enable them to learn and adapt to their owner/operator, easily be loaded with mission/job specific data and can take verbal and environmental cues as instruction. As such they can operate very independently, make decisions and execute tasks on their own and can be taken offline and wiped on a regular basis to prevent them from developing heuristic quirks. Ships as a whole would be cumbersome to take offline and wipe and as such would be relatively inefficient to add the same level of AI as droids so its better to have droids as distinctly more capable, (general AI), units that can interface with the technology around them.
Basically, yes, droids do make sense. They are personal computers and task oriented appliances in a mobile form factor and act as companions for those who choose to not wipe them on a regular basis, the more humanoid they are, the better they can integrate into daily operations with less consideration for droid friendly, designed or maintained spaces.

The perceived lack of miniaturization would be down to the level of futurism and actual technology present during the initial creation of the star wars story, the technology has to be recognizable, relatable to its audience. That thing they are carrying is a radio, it looks like a radio but its also capable of cutting through insane levels of interference and communicating across vast distances while simple unites that can fit in the palm of your hand can communicate from planet to ship, distances far exceeding that of any conventional communication devices. Miniaturization and advanced tech as we understand it these days has been creeping into the setting with book of Bobafett and even the bad batch animations opening the cybernetics door with augmentations and medical implantation well above simple prosthetics.