Things I Have Seen on Television Today

Wait okay I suppose the obvious answer is that their memories get wiped whenever they're junked back to Tatooine. But why do I suspect that Lucas, being an idiot, will not milk this for its very huge significance, that significance being that with whatever memory- wiping goes on they love the ability to say "Hey by the way, Luke, we used to hang out with your dad but then he became evil, and incidentally Leia is your sister."

Recent revelation about TPM, which I always liked and I think has gotten a bad rap -- watching it again in audio commentary mode on the DVD made me realize what an absolutely *gorgeous* film it is visually. Since I was concentrating on that by default instead of the actual soundtrack, the eye Lucas and his team have for creating startling and eye-catching imagery really is something. My favorite scene in the film remains the wordless sequence in the Darth Maul/Qui-Gon fight on Tatooine -- look for when it's nothing but a series of quick cuts showing little more than Maul's swirling black robes, light sabers and bits of the desert background. It's pure visual poetry.

Cool! But then, I'm a person who paid money to see Spice World in French.

Nope -- it's wonderful, and excellent for stoned spacerock.

a master mechanic assembles a team and presents them with a challenge i.e. Turn a VW beetle into an amphibious swamp-boat and BEAT a real swamp-boat in a race; turn a Chevy into a mobile wedding chapel with a working pipe organ. If they complete it they win all the tools they were given to work with, thousands of dollars worth of grinders and welding equipment and wrenches and stuff

Leia: Take this message to Ben Kenobi!
C3P0: Oh, shit, that dude?
R2D2: bloop bleep blip whiz bwur bloop blip

Presumably they don't know a) that Leia is Anakin's daughter or b) that Vader is Anakin, and never did know -- I don't think there's any reason to assume that characters present in the 1st/2nd movies are automatically going to be privy to these things. Yoda, Owen, Kenobi, and Leia's adopt-a-pop may be the only ones (if it were me hiding the twins, I don't think I'd share that information with droids who record their memory in stealable media.)

As for knowing Kenobi -- is there really anything in Star Wars that implies they don't remember him? (I don't remember how the scene plays out, so this is a genuine question, not rhetorical.)

(near end of third part)

SOMEBODY: Well, they could still be useful, just wipe their memories.
SOMEBODY ELSE: Sure!

(memory wiped)

A New Hope:

LEIA: I need to give you a message, little droid.
R2D2: Okay. Who the hell are you anyway?