Star Wars Week: Thank the Maker

[cyberghostface]

One of the questions created by the prequels is how come Darth Vader never recognized C-3PO in the original trilogy if he was the one who created him? This comic answers that question.

This comes from Star Wars Tales #6.

Comments

[janegray]

For the longest time I was confused as to why people on the internet called him C-3PO when his name was clearly D-3BO. And why are they calling C1-P8 "R2-D2"?

Turns out the dubbing in my country made the inexplicable decision to change the name of those characters.

Han was also renamed Ian and Leia was renamed Leila, but at least those changes were close enough even if completely unnecessary. But who the hell thought it was a good idea to change R2-D2 into C1-P8?

[q99]

... now that's inexplicable.

Does C1-P8 have better flow in your language or something?

[janegray]

D2-R2 is pronounced as "erredue-didue" and C1-P8 is pronounced as "ciuno-piotto." I suppose C1-P8 kinda flows a tiny little bit better, but it's really a microscopic difference.

I did a google search to try and find the reason, and I found an article with a possible explanation (it's in italian, but just in case http://pensieridiognigiorno.altervista.org/perche-r2d2-e-diventato-c1p8/)

According to the writer, R2-D2 in English is meant to sound something like "Arthur" and make the character come across as sympathetic and likeable. Since those letters and numbers are pronounced in a completely different way in Italian, they decided to change the name into something that sounded funny in Italian so the audience would instantly like the character (ciuno-piotto is a silly name, I guess you could say it's sort of like "bob").

I would say that's a totally unnecessary reason to change the name of a character. But then again our TV companies thought it was a good idea to rename the anime "The Slayers" into "a disclosed spell within the petals of time" and the anime "Magic Knight Rayearth" into "a semi-closed door at the confined of the sun." So I guess ultimately the real reason is "dubbing companies just didn't GAF."

[q99]

Ah, that makes kinda of sense.

-"The Slayers" into "a disclosed spell within the petals of time" -

Huh, I could vaguely see that linked to the spell chant for the Dragon Slave....

- "Magic Knight Rayearth" into "a semi-closed door at the confined of the sun."-

And that has nothing to do with anything.