Did K-2SO Have A Choice in Rogue One?
Does K-2SO’s role in Rogue One indicate a different view of AI in the Star Wars universe?
*This piece is chockablock full of Rogue One spoilers, so if you haven’t seen it, stop reading this immediately and head to your nearest theater for a hell of a ride. If you’ve seen it, carry on.*
To the delight of most Star Wars fans, Rogue One has answered many huge questions that had, to date, been mostly left to the imagination. That said, the film also (purposefully or not) raises a new set of questions about a major part of the Star Wars universe.
There’s always been a divide between man and machine in Star Wars. As the process stands, man builds machine, and sometimes, for whatever reason, machine is instilled with some sort of consciousness and personality e.g. our favorite, iconic, protocol and astromech droids. Mostly though, droids simply represent a tool like any other e.g. those little black boxes (MSE-6 units) buzzing around the Death Star, and the godawful battle droids from the Clone Wars. How the line between machine and fully-fleshed out, personality driven AI is drawn is never explained anywhere within the now defunct TEU or the core Skywalker storyline.
(Correct me if I’m wrong!)
Rogue One, like its progenitors, instills life into lifeless machines. K-2SO, a stolen imperial droid, has arguably the most depth of any character in the film. His childlike bluntness and his unique perspective on the world are endearing, and ultimately, when he sacrifices himself for the cause, heartbreaking. He is the first member of ‘Rogue One’ to die.
He is also unique in the Star Wars universe in that we learn where his personality comes from. It’s a byproduct of his reprogramming by rebels, we learn early on in the film. He wasn’t made that way. He changed, and became that way.
The writing team led by Chris Weitz and Gary Whitta, the director Gareth Edwards, and, presumably, the lovely people over at Disney merchandising, wanted to create a character that everyone would fall in love with, and who, as the first one to die, would set the tone of ultimate sacrifice that delivers the utterly satisfying finality of the film’s ending. He, like the rest of the ragtag band of rebels, gives it all for ‘a new hope.’
While not entirely flushed out, by the end, we grasp each rebel’s reason for risking everything to secure those plans on Scarif: Jyn Erso for her father, Captain Cassian Andor and Bodhi Rook for redemption, Chirrut Îmwe and Baze Malbus for revenge and a renewal of faith, but what is K-2So’s reason?
As K-2SO takes laser blast after laser blast in the digital archives while helping Cassian and Jyn find the plans, the audience thinks, “What a true hero!” But as the droid states a couple scenes earlier in a little comedic reprieve, “I’ll be there for you, Jyn.” Aww.. “Cassian said I had to.” Oh…
The audience laughed. That K-2SO sure has dry wit.
So, unlike the rest of the ‘Rogue One’ crew, K-2SO really didn’t have a choice about going to Scarif and dying for the rebellion. Perhaps then the sadness about his sacrifice misplaced. Does his unique role in the film then change our understanding of the roles of droids as central characters in other Star Wars films?
K-2SO’s personality (what ultimately makes him him) was bestowed by accident. The rebels gave the machine a heart, a mind, and a sense of self. The film even offers direct comparison to other imperial K-series droids, as if trying to highlight the fact that while mechanically identical, K-2SO’s mind is clearly unique, special, and evolved. Other K-units walk around like zombies. K-2SO is sassy!
Because “the droid,” as Cassian explains to Jyn, “…says whatever comes into his circuits,” anything K-2SO says can be taken as his literal feelings and thoughts. He offers a uniquely candid perspective on the role of a droid in a Star Wars story. It is also interesting to notice that Cassian specifically says ‘circuits’ not ‘brain’; maybe an important distinction by the writers to emphasize Cassian’s view of the droid as a simple tool, despite the overwhelming evidence that he gave him life.
Likewise, one can look to the moment at the end of A New Hope, where C-3PO, devastated to see R2-D2’s destroyed remains, offers any of his parts to help fix him. Luke, after an initial ‘oh no!’ upon seeing R2, glibly responds to 3PO, “Don’t worry, he’ll be alright,” and then heads off to get wasted with Leia and Han. The pattern emerges: robots, even the ones they love, have less value than people.
When K-2SO observes that Jyn has stolen a gun from the rebel base on Yavin 4, his question to Cassian is not immediately about what danger that could pose, but instead about why he can’t have a gun. Does that mean that he feels a need to protect himself? Or that he sees no difference in value between his life and Jyn’s?
If K-2SO states he has to go to Scarif, it seems to imply that given the choice, he wouldn’t. This makes sense if his speciality is strategic analysis, and he knows the odds of coming back from the mission aren’t high (understatement of the century?). While his personality sets him apart from the other droids in the film, it seems that his inclination towards self-preservation is the proof of his sentience.
There’s a distinction made between K-2SO and his fellow robots in the film, but there’s none made between him and his human counterparts. His responsibilities and role in stealing the Death Star plans are equally important. His death is equally sad and heroic. So, for the audience, his character is equally ‘human’; with idiosyncrasies and quirks that make him stand out. Edwards and the writers want us to view him as a being, not an ‘it’.
But, the sadness we feel watching K-2SO’s death on Scarif should be redirected to reflecting on how this newly born being was forced to die against his will for a cause he’s not part of. He was, ultimately, not sacrificing himself, but sacrificed by those in a position of power who viewed his rights and priorities as secondary to their own.
Bodhi, as they’re trying to bypass Scarif’s shields and blockade, says something along the lines of, “Well if they reject our codes, we’ll all die in the cold vacuum of space.” K-2SO responds in his typically demure fashion, “Not me. I can survive in space.”
And there lies his final, feeble protest. If taken together with his previous statements, it’s clear he views the difference between himself as machine and Jyn or Cassian as human, as simply a matter of mechanical makeup, not of a metaphysical gap that dictates the right to freedom of choice. It is also a declaration that his problems are of a different vein than those around him.
He is in essence fighting his own rebellion, and his oppression is on a much more local level. He sees himself as the other, as foreign; that this mission (which in his strategic mind equals death), and arguably consciousness (life), have been forced upon him. Having been given the awareness of his life, he’s cursed to walk into a situation where he knows he will die. In someways that inclination towards self-preservation juxtaposes quite well against the sacrifices the ‘Rogue One’ rebels are willing to make for the rebellion.
So why does this matter? Well, whether it was intentional or not, Rogue One raises a new question in the Star Wars universe about the rights and roles of the droids we love. If K-2SO’s place in this movie was forced upon him, what does that say about R2-D2’s ‘devotion’ to Obi-wan in A New Hope? Was he also just following his directive, unable to stop his fate even if it isn’t the one he would choose?
While no clear answer’s presented, Rogue One opens up the possibility for new interpretations of the original trilogy and presents an opportunity to think about where that divide between life and a bunch of lines of code really lies in Star Wars, and, I suppose, in our galaxy as well…