R4-P17

• Appeared in:
  
  I
  II
  III
  IV
  V
  VI
  CW

• Size:
  .96 meters (refitted)

• Vehicle:
  Jedi starfighter

• Affiliation:
  Galactic Republic

• Type:
  Astromech droid

• Manufacturer:
  Industrial Automaton

• 

From the Movies

A faithful astromech built into Obi-Wan Kenobi's assigned Jedi starfighter, R4-P17 assisted the Jedi Knight during his mission to track down Senator Padmé Amidala's attacker. The truncated, dome-headed droid served as on-board astrogator, technician and communications specialist for Kenobi during the Clone Wars. During the Battle of Coruscant, R4-P17 had her head ripped off by a buzz droid, bringing her operational life cycle to a violent end.

From the Expanded Universe

R4-P17 started off as a traditional R4 unit, complete with the characteristic conical head, when she was nearly destroyed in a trash compactor mishap on Gyndine. While inspecting the Jedi customizations of the Delta-7 designs, Anakin Skywalker happened upon the wrecked little droid and rebuilt it. The new R4-P17 sported an R2-series dome and would eventually become the prototype for other integrated droid navigators aboard the Jedi Aethersprite fighters. R4-P17 received a full astromech body during the Clone Wars when Kenobi adopted the newer Eta-2 Actis interceptor starfighter.

Behind the Scenes

In early iterations of the Episode II script, R4-P17 was to have a scene wherein it wandered away from the landed Jedi starfighter and was attacked by weird insectoid creatures called rogas. The scene was never filmed -- in fact, the droid's full body look was never finalized. The concept artists developed a tiny body for the droid that would accommodate its placement aboard the starfighter. When this scene was scrapped, it was decided that R4-P17 would instead be a permanent fixture aboard the ship.

Because R4-P17's primary operator was Zeynup "Zed" Selcuk, George Lucas decided that R4 was in fact a "female" astromech droid.