George Lucas got so many nuances right in Star Wars. Little touches that said so much. One of the most overlooked is a moment that I vividly remember from first seeing it, on the big screen, as a kindergartener or thereabouts. It’s during the scene where Luke enters the Mos Eisley cantina. We still haven’t met Han Solo and Chewbacca. And while we’ve seen space ships and droids, stormtroopers and Darth Vader, Jawas and Tusken Raiders, every character we’ve seen in the flesh is a human. And then, boom, 45 minutes into the movie, we enter the cantina, and the joint is absolutely lousy with dozens of wild and wildly different aliens — including the band playing that iconic jaunty song. We suddenly learn just how diverse the galaxy really is. It’s one of the best and most memorable scenes in movie history.
The moment I’m talking about is when Luke enters with C-3PO and R2-D2, and the frighteningly gruff bartender barks at him:
BARTENDER
We don't serve their kind here!
Luke, still recovering from the shock of
seeing so many outlandish creatures, doesn't
quite catch the bartender's drift.
LUKE
What?
BARTENDER
Your droids. They'll have to wait
outside. We don't want them here.
Luke looks at old Ben, who is busy talking
to one of the Galactic pirates. He notices
several of the gruesome creatures along the
bar are giving him a very unfriendly glare.
Luke pats Threepio on the shoulder.
LUKE
Listen, why don't you wait out by
the speeder. We don't want any
trouble.
THREEPIO
I heartily agree with you sir.
As a kid, I didn’t get it. Why would you not want droids? Star Wars made robots seem so real, so fun. Why would you ban them? That scene has stuck with me for my entire life. I didn’t get why, but I understood what it meant about that galaxy: the underclass deeply resented droids. The bartender’s attitude wasn’t “Hey kid, I’m sorry, but rules are rules and they’re not permitted.” His attitude was “Get those fucking things out of here.”
I think about this scene more and more lately.