8

The distinguishing feature of BB-8's design compared to other astromechs is his spherical body, whereas previously seen astromechs generally have a cylindrical body.

Was the name inspired by BB ammunition, which is also distinctively spherical?

enter image description here enter image description here

enter image description here << R-series astromechs for comparison

Jacob C.
  • 4,396
  • 18
  • 49
ThePopMachine
  • 59,504
  • 42
  • 247
  • 519

1 Answers1

12

Seems unlikely.

Entertainment Weekly interviews J.J. Abrams about the movie, and asked him about the inspiration behind some of the character names. According to him, the design came first and the name came from that:

Abrams chose the droid's name because it looked round and bouncy. "I named him BB-8 because it was almost onomatopoeia," the director says. "It was sort of how he looked to me, with the 8, obviously, and then the 2 B's."

It's not beyond the realm of possibility that the design of BB-8 was inspired by BB ammunition, thus making the name indirectly inspired by it, but it does seem somewhat unlikely. According to an article on StarWars.com, the design came from Abrams himself:

When it came time to create a new astromech droid for the first film of a new Star Wars trilogy, director J.J. Abrams started as anyone might: he made a sketch on a napkin. It’s a fitting beginning, considering the handmade, warm look and feel of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The sketch was basic — two circles atop one another, with a tiny dot for an eye

Although I'm not sure of explicit confirmation, it's commonly believed that the design inspiration for BB-8 came from one of Ralph McQuarrie's early concepts for R2-D2; a Slashfilm article quotes the artist as saying:

I think Artoo was just described as a small robot. I thought of him as running on a giant ball bearing — just a sphere, a circle, wheel-like. He had gyros so he could go in any direction on this ball.

enter image description here

Jason Baker
  • 163,357
  • 44
  • 898
  • 794
  • It was sort of how he looked to me, with the 8 so far so good and then the 2 Bs wow that was sudden and unexplained why not AA xD – yondaime008 Jan 26 '16 at 18:44
  • @yondaime008: I believe what he means is that a B looks like an 8 (looks like BB-8). – ThePopMachine Jan 26 '16 at 19:59
  • @ThePopMachine yea i thought about that too later, what can I say, i'm slow minded ._. – yondaime008 Jan 26 '16 at 20:12
  • 5
    Note that Abrams used the word onomatopoeia incorrectly. He meant autologlyph - the typographical concept of a written word made to look like the concept it represents. In this case the letter B and the number 8 look like the droid design. – Kai Jan 26 '16 at 22:56
  • Yeah. The onomatopoeia (sounds written out as words (e.g. blam, whoosh, etc)) comment kinda threw me too. Made me think of the "beedeebeedee" sounds from Twiki, the robot from the Buck Rogers TV show. – iMerchant Apr 12 '16 at 02:11
  • 1
    @Kai This isn't really an autologlyph either. An autologlyph is something akin to a work of art, twisting the physical appearance of a specific, fixed piece of writing in one way or another to give it the aspectual properties of the thing it represents; this here is sort of the opposite: leaving the writing as perfectly regular writing, but twisting its content to maximise likeness with the concept it represents. If it weren't for the fact that onomatopoeia has become limited to sound, it would be a good word, really. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Apr 12 '16 at 05:56