A new force awakens

This evening I saw the latest Star Wars movie. And there was an interesting thing happening. The story is just like the first 3 movies solid and appealing, and the nice thing is that just as the first movie (episode IV) you feel the seventies, here you feel the 10s in the way storytelling is laid out. Think Game of Thrones.

But that is not the interesting thing. For me it was striking how the new BB-8 droid took the stage as leading character in the movie. Droids have an important place in Star Wars since the beginning, but this time it was a bit different:

R2D2 is a friendly smart droid that generates lots of empathy, but BB-8 had more emotions in its moving, and in its interactions. At the same time is the droid more basic in form.

BB-8 was from the beginning the leading character. Not next to the real main characters as Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, in this movie they are almost like the supporting role.

Is this important? It is I think for one of the first times that robots have that human touch. Where in movies like Wall-E the robots are more special constructed as a character (also done very well), is it extra interesting this droid is in the basic setup rather realistic and not over romanticised.

I wonder if this positioning of BB-8 in the movie can have the same role for the appreciation and understanding of human droids, as Her had for artificial intelligence operating systems. We will maybe not see it directly in our personal environment, but it paves the way for a new way of looking to these robots. A new force of robotic love awakens…

Thanks to @lalalinder for sharping the idea with her reactions to this tweet.