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.




Keywords: Databank - Episode II, Databank - Episode III, Databank - Expanded Universe, Databank - The Clone Wars

Filed under: Vault, Droid