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NOTE: Specifically looking for some in-universe explanation; canonical or “legends” is fine. Lots of discussion of this specific line exists online, but nothing seems to go past idle “armchair speculation”; hoping something more solid and substantial can show up here.

At the beginning of the original Star Wars (1977) film, the Rebel Blockade Runner (Tantive IV) is captured by an Imperial Star Destroyer (Devastator) near Tatooine. R2-D2 and C-3PO escape that whole mess by leaving the the ship in an escape pod (aka: lifepod). As their escape pod spirals down to Tatooine, C-3PO states the following:

That’s funny, the damage doesn’t look as bad from out here.

What damage to what doesn’t look as bad from the vantage point of the escape pod? The shooting script for the film (Revised Fourth Draft - January 15, 1976) frames the dialogue as such:

INT. LIFEPOD

Artoo and Threepio look out at the receding Imperial starship. Stars circle as the pod rotates through the galaxy.

THREEPIO: That’s funny, the damage doesn’t look as bad from out here.

Artoo beeps an assuring response.

THREEPIO: Are you sure this things safe?

Is C-3PO somehow referring to the Star Destroyer since that’s what we see on screen (see screenshot) as well as being referenced in the script itself? If so, why is C-3PO interested in the damage to an Imperial Star Destroyer? Is his droid eyesight somehow so strong he could see the Rebel Blockade Runner captured in the docking bay of that Star Destroyer? Heck, was C-3PO even aware of what ship he was on to begin with and maybe thought the Star Destroyer was the ship he was on?

C-3PO and R2-D2 taking in the view from their luxurious escape pod.

Giacomo1968
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    Doesn't the shooting script excerpt you quoted indicate that 3PO is mistaking Devastator for Tantive IV? It says "...look out at the receding Imperial starship". That seems to definitively answer that A) it's a joke and B) the joke is that 3PO has no idea what different starships look like. Of course, starting a joke with "That's funny..." seems a little bit like trying too hard. – Todd Wilcox Jan 11 '16 at 14:36
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    @ToddWilcox "That's funny" usually means "that's odd" or "that's strange". While it could mean "that's humorous" in some instances, the rest of the sentence doesn't indicate that C-3PO thinks it's a joke in this particular instance. C-3PO is being serious, and the joke is on him. – CJ Dennis Jan 12 '16 at 02:03
  • Interestingly, the novelization doesn't include this line. Instead, 3PO asks R2 if he's sure he knows how to pilot the escape pod. – phantom42 Jan 12 '16 at 06:21
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    What makes me curious: "Artoo beeps an assuring response." So as long we can assume Artoo knows what spaceships look like. (I guess we can do so.) This excludes 3PO is making a joke. Or they both make the joke on the audiences cost. what I doubt aswell. So it can't be a joke nor it can be nescience of C-3PO, as artoo should at least know better. – Zaibis Jan 12 '16 at 15:28
  • @CJDennis I always saw the joke being based on C-3PO's ignorance, and not a joke that C-3PO himself was telling. Instead, I see the joke as being told by the screenwriter(s) and/or director and/or editor(s). They all worked together to make sure the words, "That's funny..." made it into the final cut ahead of this line. If the joke was intentional (which it might not have been), then that's pretty heavy-handed, IMHO. Of course the straight reading of the line intends the meaning of "funny" to be "strange". There's no need to insult my intelligence. – Todd Wilcox Jan 12 '16 at 15:41
  • @Todd No insult intended. Sometimes it's hard to tell if a comment is meant to be taken seriously or not. When you said "starting a joke with 'That's funny...'" I took it to mean that you were saying "funny" meant "humorous". – CJ Dennis Jan 12 '16 at 15:50
  • @CJDennis You took it correctly. I also was leaving alone the obvious interpretation of "funny" meaning strange. I was suggesting the word takes on one meaning in-universe as being something the character C-3PO says, and also saying the word takes on a second meaning as something that was written and produced by people who made a movie. C-3PO is not telling a joke. The makers of the movie are (probably) telling a joke. C-3PO says "funny" in-universe and means "strange". The writer(s) wrote "funny" out-of-universe and could have meant humorous, or intended a double meaning – Todd Wilcox Jan 12 '16 at 15:56
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    I always interpreted that like R2 did say to C3PO that they must abandon the ship because its badly hurt and will be destroyed (actually R2 just want to convince C3 to leave the ship to protect the map). When he sees the ship from outside, he note that there is no big problem to the ship (and that R2 lied to him... but C3 is too naive for understanding that ^^) – max pnj Jun 23 '16 at 13:31

3 Answers3

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I've always seen this line as a joke, by the way, playing off of C-3PO's relative ignorance of space vessels and technology in general.

The damage in question is almost certainly the damage that Tantive IV logically must have suffered at the hands of Devastator prior to the capture of the former. The movie opens on a battle between the two ships, and we see R2-D2 and C-3PO being pretty much thrown around the interior of Tantive IV from the impacts of Devastator's attack. It's reasonable for C-3PO to imagine heavy damage being suffered.

Prior to Captain Antilles shutting down the main reactor, we see a shot from Devastator cause a large explosion in the middle of Tantive IV. It's doubtful Antilles would shut down the engines unless some critical system were damaged enough that he had to. They did not want to be captured at any cost.

It's unclear whether C-3PO doesn't seem to find the damage looks that bad because he is looking at the underside of Tantive IV, or they are too far away from it to see the damage, or he mistakes Devastator for Tantive IV, but the joke plays either way. There is a long history of 3PO getting it wrong all throughout the canonical and non-canonical "literature" (yes, I called Star Wars "literature" but I chickened out and put it in quotes), although this would seem to be the first obvious example of him being clearly ignorant of things that are not his specialty.

Out of universe: Note that the scene must have been shot before it could have been composited. That means that Daniels would have read his line in filming while looking at a blank space that might have been blue or black, or he might have actually overlaid it afterwards in ADR. Either way, the intention of the script could have been different from what we see because neither the screenwriter nor Daniels would be able to see the final composited shot. When the shot was composited, it might have turned out differently from how it was imagined (or even storyboarded).

Either way, as a joke the line plays regardless of whether he mistakes Devastator for Tantive IV or he just doesn't understand what damage would look like. The fact that it wasn't edited out, either by muting the dialog track or cutting the shot entirely, strongly supports the idea that it was meant to be a joke. Either that, or when editing of the scene was done, a line that wasn't meant to be a joke made Lucas and the editor(s) present laugh hard enough that they left it in.

DavidW
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Todd Wilcox
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    What idle theories? He mistook the Star Destroyer for their own ship. This seems to be the whole point of that joke at the beginning of a light-hearted fairy tale in space. I got that joke when watching it as a 10 year old and found it quite funny since then. – TARS Jan 11 '16 at 14:18
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    It was always my assumption that C-3PO was mistaking the star destroyer for the Tantive. – evilscary Jan 11 '16 at 14:25
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    @evilscary That would be the funnier version of the joke, IMHO. – Todd Wilcox Jan 11 '16 at 14:30
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    I'd always assumed that R2-D2 had convinced C-3PO to get into the pod by saying the ship was heavily damaged and his statement that it doesn't look too damaged was because he realised it wasn't as bad as he was led to believe – RoguePlanetoid Jan 11 '16 at 16:16
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    @RoguePlanetoid If you re-watch carefully, you'll see that Artoo doesn't do the convincing. Instead, a blaster bolt hitting right near Threepio's head startles him and scares him into the pod. Also, based on Threepio's responses, Artoo's efforts to convince him seem largely based around his "mission", and it even seems more like Artoo is basically saying "I'm going, come if you want, or stay, but decide quickly, my mission is urgent". Then the blaster bolt is the final argument. – Todd Wilcox Jan 11 '16 at 16:24
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    @ToddWilcox Indeed, that makes more sense and sounds familiar - guess had made up my own narrative and read into his statement what I wanted, guess had misinterpreted the statement myself! – RoguePlanetoid Jan 11 '16 at 16:30
  • purely my interpretation: it's just something an awkward nervous person would use for small-talk. Almost a non-sequitur. Kind of like "huh, how about this weather, eh?" – DA. Jan 11 '16 at 20:47
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    That's interesting, I had never caught it as a joke.. at least nothing more than "huh, things look a little better now that we are safely away from the immediate danger" - leading into the next line.. "Are you sure this thing's safe?" – DoubleDouble Jan 11 '16 at 22:34
  • @ToddWilcox: The respective scene is linked to in another answer. It looks a lot as if R2-D2 indeed does persuade C-3PO. R2 insists on his secret mission, while 3PO tries to talk him out of using the escape pod. Eventually, 3PO only gives in to R2 due tot he near hit by the blaster bolt, and upon leaving, C-3PO wonders whether the pod is safe and whether the Tantive wouldn't have been safer, given that it doesn't look as damaged from the outside. – O. R. Mapper Jan 11 '16 at 22:55
  • Why couldn't the joke be that he knows he's looking at a Star Destroyer, but just doesn't realize how ineffectual the Tantive's return fire would have been against such a huge ship? – Hypnosifl Apr 12 '16 at 05:54
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C-3PO, in the earlier scene indicates that he's aware that the main reactor of the Tantive IV has suffered a critical hit.

“Did you hear that?” C-3PO said to R2-D2 as the Tantive IV’s engines powered down. “They’ve shut down the main reactor. We’ll be destroyed for sure. This is madness!” - Star Wars: Junior Novelisation

As the escape pod leaves the vicinity he remarks to his companion that despite this, the Rebel vessel seem to be largely intact.

The escape pod continued to plummet away from the Star Destroyer. Inside the pod, C-3PO peered through the small circular window that was the vessel’s single viewport. Gazing back at the rapidly receding view of the Tantive IV within the Star Destroyer’s main hangar, he commented, “That’s funny, the damage doesn’t look as bad from out here.” - Star Wars: Junior Novelisation

So to answer your specific questions; C-3PO is not referring to the Star Destroyer; His eyesight is evidently sufficiently good enough to be able to make out gross features of the Tantive IV from that distance and he's fully cognisant of what ship he's on.

Valorum
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  • "C-3PO, in the earlier scene indicates that he's aware that the engines (the big glowy things on the back of the Tantive IV) had suffered a critical hit." Sources? – RedCaio Apr 12 '16 at 09:59
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    @RedCaio - "“Did you hear that?” C-3PO said to R2-D2 as the Tantive IV’s engines powered down. “They’ve shut down the main reactor. We’ll be destroyed for sure. This is madness!”" - Sorry, it was a hit to the reactor, not the engines. Arguably a more critical blow. I've edited accordingly. – Valorum Apr 12 '16 at 10:02
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    I'm at a loss why this canon confirmation of what he's looking at would merit a downvote. – Valorum Apr 12 '16 at 19:33
  • I didn't DV btw. Thanks for clarifying. Have a +1 from me! :) – RedCaio Apr 12 '16 at 20:22
  • @RedCaio - It just seems an odd one to downvote. – Valorum Apr 12 '16 at 20:23
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    The answer is fine. It is the novel that should be downvoted for taking C3P0 seriously! – joeytwiddle Jul 12 '16 at 09:36
  • It's quite likely the novel was written concurrently with the shooting of the film, so they could be released together . The author of the novel probably just had the script and notes to work with so may not have anticipated the SFX shot seen in the film, where the Tantive IV is too small to be visible. It's a bit of a stretch to assume a protocol droid has telescopic vision, he doesn't demonstrate this anywhere else in the films. Where the novel and film are at odds we should take the film as canon. – Knight of Few Words Feb 16 '23 at 14:56
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    @KnightofFewWords - In this instance the junior novel was written a significant amount of time later, but it was (and remains) a fully licenced product from Lucasfilm – Valorum Feb 16 '23 at 18:00
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I believe you've misinterpreted what a low tone beep from Artoo means. Please allow me:

Artoo beeps an assuring response OMG, you're an idiot.

C-3PO is referring to the Star Destroyer, that's why Artoo berates him.

At soundboard.com there's an audio clip titled Laughing R2D2, at the end of which are these same two "words" Artoo uses in the escape pod. If Artoo is giving C-3PO an "assuring response", I've misinterpreted him my entire life.

Mazura
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    The quote in the question isn't an interpretation, it's the text from the script. – Plutor Jan 11 '16 at 15:26
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    @Plutor - The script misrepresents the scene, which I can only assume was misinterpreted and seems the obvious reason for confusion. – Mazura Jan 11 '16 at 15:38
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    "The script misrepresents the scene"?? It's the shooting script! The script determined what the scene was! I assumed this answer was meant at least partly in jest, but saying the shooting script doesn't reflect the intention of the screenwriter... I can't even formulate a response to that. – Todd Wilcox Jan 11 '16 at 15:53
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    FWIW I agree with Mazura. "Assuring response", yeah, right. It's a snort! – Mr Lister Jan 11 '16 at 16:11
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    It's the fart sound... If that's assuring, Artoo needs an attitude adjustment. @ToddWilcox - The script determines what the scene should've been, not what it is. It is a cheeky response; one that asks if the OP still has this question after watching the scene. – Mazura Jan 11 '16 at 16:20
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    @ToddWilcox tongue-in-cheek response: why can't robots improvise a much as humans? serious answer: scenes often change from script to film based on actor improv, director changes his mind, mother nature, etc. – DA. Jan 11 '16 at 20:46
  • Threepio does jump slightly at Artoo's little noise there, like it was surprisingly not "assuring". – Todd Wilcox Jan 11 '16 at 21:04
  • Would that I could put what Artoo really says. – Mazura Jan 11 '16 at 22:04
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    R2D2 the most vulgar character ever created. So Vulgar that all his lines were beeped out – John Demetriou Jan 12 '16 at 15:38
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    Even though the snippet is from the shooting script, one must remember that the compositing and R2's "lines" were added after the scene was shot. It could easily be that the scene was taken in a different direction in post production. – John Sensebe Apr 12 '16 at 14:24