CLONE WARS ASTROMECH DROIDS <p> SEASON 1

This page is devoted to the astromech droids that appear in the first season of the Star Wars Clone Wars series that is shown on the Cartoon Network. They are some of the coolest and most colorful droids we have seen in the Star Wars universe so far.

This cool all-astrodroid layout appeared in Clone Wars comic #8. Thanks to Trevor for sending it in!

In the Clone Wars movie, you can see multiple R2 units serving drinks in Ziro the Hutt's nightclub wearing the same serving tray as R2-D2 did in Return of the Jedi! Notice that they have the same cool paint designs that are seen throughout Ziro's bar. (And on Ziro himself!) These would make great figures. Thanks for the scans Daniel & Trevor!

In ep. 112 (Season 1, episode 12) - The Gungan General, we are introduced to a new concept in astromech droids: the blaster-armed Guard Droid. The story on these guys is that they have been equipped with blasters and are on guard duty at the Weequay pirate compound where Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Dooku are being held. The top image was sent in by fellow droid fan Daniel, and is from the Art of the Clone Wars book, and is identified as R5-P8. The other two images are captures I took from the actual episode, and show R5-P8 and another droid with a very similar paint scheme. I think their paint job is awesome, especially the goofy-mean looking "teeth" deco around the bottom of their domes.

In ep. 117 - Blue Shadow Virus, we had the opportunity to visit the interior of a droid repair shop on Naboo. In this shop, Jar Jar Binks set himself on a collision course with some racks of droid parts, including many that belonged to astromechs! Check out the TON of parts to our favorite green & white R5 unit. Looks like Shadow Squadron doesn't have a monopoly on this guy!

See if you can also spot a red R2 dome with white panels, a white R2 dome with yellow panels, two white R2 domes with aqua panels, a white R2 dome with orange panels, and Jar Jar himself is seen getting acquainted with a grey R2 dome with salmon colored panels. There is also at least one astromech leg with red decoration, two gray R5 domes (one with a purple top), and a cool bluish colored astromech body.

In ep.106 - Downfall of a Droid, and ep.107 - Duel of the Droids, we follow the short, but notable career of R3-S6, which culminates in violent confrontation with R2-D2. During the episodes we learn that he is, in fact, working with the Separatists and trying to undermine the efforts of the Republic and, in fact, get Anakin captured or even killed. But how was Count Dooku able to win the loyalty of an astromech droid serving the Republic? Or *was* Goldie actually a Separatist infiltrator? Perhaps he was just an innocent, loyal, droid who was reprogrammed at some point against his will? We may never know the true story. Below are images from the episodes.

In the first season ending ep.122 - Hostage Crisis, we pick up the tale of Ziro the Hutt which began in the season opening "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" movie. In this episode, we follow the nefarious evildoer Cad Bane as he leads a group of bounty hunters in a bold attempt to free Ziro from his imprisonment. To do this, he launches an attack on the Senate to take hostages while accompanied by four of Ziro the Hutt's guard droids: two IG-type assassin droids, and two Commando-type battledroids. It is in this dastardly assault that he viciously guns down four innocent droid bystanders, a binocular treadwell droid, a rabbit droid, a blue protocol droid, and the nifty looking R5-S9 pictured below.

"This spunky astromech serves the Republic on the front lines. "Katie" and R2-D2 like to trade news and gossip about the latest doings in the Republic fleet."

She also serves on our very own planet doing an important mission you can read about here!

In the first image above you can see R2-KT in the hangar during the STAR WARS: The CLONE WARS movie. On the right, you can see her in the hangar of a Republic Cruiser during ep.119 - Storm Over Ryloth. The episode guide on www.StarWars.com identifies this droid as R2-KT!

Above is an astromech seen briefly in the Hangar of Aayla Secura's Republic Cruiser right before it is destroyed during ep.113 - Jedi Crash. It has pink markings, making it very possible that this is also R2-KT. You can also see a "Plunk" droid to the right of the image.

Once again we find that if you want to see some astromechs in a Star Wars movie, start looking around the hangars and in the back of starfighters. Look carefully in the image above from ep.103 - Shadow of Malevolence, and you can see three astromechs lined up in the back, a orangish R2 unit, a green R5 unit, and a blue R2 unit with a red dome. R2-D2 is also in the scene. Close ups of these droids are below.

According to "Star Wars, The Clone Wars Incredible Vehicles:" This plucky astromech flew with Shadow 5, whose callsign was "Tag". He was destroyed when the Y-Wings piloted by Matchstick and Tag collided. (Thanks, Daniel!)

Also, you'll notice some confusion over his name coming from Lucasfilm Licensing, one of which was also used for Plo Koon's droid for awhile.

Here is a great shot of this droid line-up. You can see an additional R2 unit with a blue body and blue panels on a gray dome in the back left. An enlargement is to the right. (Note that even though The Clone Wars episodes are broadcast in "full screen" mode for tv, they are really filmed in the movie-like "wide screen." This results in much of the picture being cut-off for broadcast, which is a shame, as the composition of many of the shots is fantastic. Also of note is that the first episodes were filmed to a full 30 minutes in length, as the show was expected to air on a commercial-free cable network. This has resulted in 8 minutes of each episode being deleted for the Cartoon Network run, which is a shame, as much of this time was establishing shots of cool things like droids.)

At the top left you see an R2 unit with blue markings. This is not R2-D2, who is at the front of the briefing, but rather an astromech with a similar dome to R2-D2's, but different body markings. This droid's body is basically an inverse of R2-D2's, Where R2-D2 has a white body with some blue panels, this droid has a blue body with some white panels. Cool! You can see the orange R2 unit very clearly. It is a very sharp looking droid. Next to it is a green R5 unit that you can see bigger photos of further down the page. To the right of that, we can see a red domed R2 unit with a blue body. This is very similar to the droid that was released by Hasbro in 2007 in a multipack with some clone troopers. There are some distinct differences in appearance, however, and the ARC-170 droid served in ARC-170 fighters, not in Shadow Squadron's Y-Wings.

I originally thought that the 2007 ARC-170 Elite Squad battlepack R2 unit (picture from the excellent Rebelscum.com photo archive) was based on this droid, but after looking more carefully, it is clear they are very different. The ARC battlepack droid has a red dome with gray panels, while the Shadow Squadron droid has a red dome with white panels and a white stripe around the bottom. The Shadow Squadron droid has a blue body with gray panels on the front and on the sides, while the ARC droid only has white data ports on the front. The Shadow Squadron droid has white "shoulder" markings, while the ARC droid has brown & white feet. There are clearly enough physical differences to make it obvious that they are in fact two separate droids, but the fact that they serve in different squadrons in what is most certainly a huge army clinches it. We should recall all the very similar droids seen in the movies, and that it is only logical that in a universe of millions of droids, it is only probable that there will be some which are very similar in appearance. We hope to see this Clone Wars droid released soon!

According to "Star Wars, The Clone Wars Incredible Vehicles:" Veteran R2-J8 flew with Shadow 11, known as "Contrail". He was destroyed in the Kaliida Nebula when Shadow 11 bumped into a Neebray Manta. Thanks to Daniel for sending this in!

In the "Amazing Astromech" pages at the top of this page (released October 2011), you can see this droid is labeled as R4-T5. Good thing that you can spot at least two of these droids in the Republic Cruiser's hangar!

Below you can see other shots of the briefing scene that features these droids. In the first picture, you can see the orange one on the left, the green R5 and the red & blue R2 are in the center, and, if you look in the back, you can make out two more green R5 units passing by in the background. It looks like Shadow Squadron has multiples of that particular droid. Next to it is a shot where you can see the backs of the orange R2 and the red & blue R2 units. If you scroll further down, you can see where these droid reappear in the assault on the Malevolence!

Here's some more cool images of the hangar. If you look below the Y-Wing in the background, you can see 2 astromechs, our red-domed R2 unit with a blue body and red markings on its legs, and green R5 unit. A closeup is below. (Also note the weirdo 4 legged power droid! I just learned from the official site that it is called "Plunk" due to the sound it makes! Pretty cool!)

According to "Star Wars, The Clone Wars Incredible Vehicles:" A cautious droid, R5-U8 served as astromech for Shadow 6, known as "Flyby". Their Y-Wing was disabled by the Malevolence. (Thanks, Daniel!)

Separately, the official Clone Wars comic Amazing Astromech section shows this droid to be named R5-013. Considering how often this particular design has popped up in the Clone Wars universe, the names could really be for different, but identical droids!

These shots were taken from a great promotional clip for the new Star Wars: The Clone Wars series. It's awesome and hilarious and you can see it on youtube here (since it disappeared from starwars.com): Clone Wars! This is the same droid seen in the hangar photos above. I hope his starring turn in this commercial means that Hasbro produces a figure of this guy soon!

Below you will find all the shots I have so far of different astromechs I spotted in the droid sockets of starfighters. They are all in Y-Wings used by Shadow Squadron during ep.103 - Shadow of Malevolence. The first two are from combat shots, while the last four are from hangar shots. Kudos to Lucasfilm for taking the time draw each Y-Wing differently, and put each of the droids from the hangar scene into a different ship. The first one is of an R2 unit with a red dome and gray panels, and you can just make out blue & white shoulders. The second shows an R2 with a gray dome and orange panels. The third appears to be (if you squint) the green R5 unit pictured elsewhere on this page, and the fourth is a cool looking yellow domed R2 unit with gray panels. The last two Y-Wing R2 units are harder to make out, but the first has a similar greenish color to the third one, and the second has more of an orangish dome.

Below are some more shots of the astromechs that fought with Shadow Squadron. These are all droids that appeared in the hangar briefing scene discussed above. The first is a shot of the red domed R2 unit with a blue body right before his head is blown off. The second is of the famous green R5 unit. The third is possibly the blue-bodied droid with a dome like R2-D2 shown in the background of the briefing scene above. I have an enlargement of him next to the combat image, so you can see that the ship he is serving in is one not piloted by Anakin, so this droid is definitely not R2-D2. If he is not the droid in the fighter pictured, then he must be the droid Plo Koon used during the battle.

Below are all the shots I have so far of astromechs that appear in Jedi fighters in the new Clone Wars series.

Plo Koon's astromech first shows up in ep.103, Shadow of Malevolence, and has dark brown panels on a gray dome. It's name is given on the official site's episode guide as R7-F5. The first sequence of images below are from that episode. The droid is identified as R7-D4 in the 2010 Clone Wars Character Encyclopedia. A possible explanation is an identical droid to this ones shows up on Rodia in Season 2.

The second set of images show images of Plo's fighter that were pictured in various CW books. One is an astrodroid with a metallic blue or silver dome with orange markings, and is found in the visual guide, while the one with the hyperdrive ring shows a droid very similar to what we see in the Malevolence episode. Plo either may not be very attached to one particular droid, or perhaps needs to regularly replace them due to battle damage.

UPDATE: R7-F5 also appears in episode ep.221, R2 Come Home, in the second season of the Clone Wars. You can see clear pictures of him from this episode here.

Here you can see Kit Fisto's spunky astromech unit, R6-H5. It has a interesting gold colored R2-style dome with light blue colored wedge panels on top, and pinkish-orange colored panels around the bottom. It appears in ep.110 - Lair of Grievous, and plays an important role in helping Kit escape from the General's secret fortress. Below are some images from the episode, and next to them you can see a clearer image taken from a guide to the Clone Wars.

Below are images from the ep.119 - Storm Over Ryloth, the first episode in the season ending Ryoth Trilogy. In this episode, Ahsoka Tano, alongside her trusty astrodroid R7-A7, leads Blue Squadron into battle against the evil Separatists! What's extra cool about this episode is that she and R7 are seen piloting both her Jedi Fighter and a Y-Wing! Check out the images below from the episode to take a look at her new droid!

R4-P17 is seen serving alongside Obi-Wan during Attack of the Clones and the Clone Wars before ultimately meeting his demise during the opening battle of Revenge of the Sith. Here are some images of him from the movie Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

As we have seen before, space f/x shots of astromechs sometimes do not match up with with the droid seen in close ups. This happened once again in the Clone Wars movie, when what appears to be Goldie is seen in Obi-Wan's fighter during wide perspective battle shots, even though in close up shots of the fighter show R4-P17 at his usual post.

- R3-S6 - Click the image to see a photo gallery of the figure at Rebelscum.com.

- R2-KT - Click the image to see a photo gallery of the figure at Rebelscum.com.

- R4-P17 - Click the image to see a photo gallery of the figure at Rebelscum.com.

- R7-A7 - Click to see the Rebelscum gallery. Don't you think the dome is too dark? Hasbro made the dome way too dark!!!

Why did Goldie betray Anakin and the Republic?
	Traitor! - Accepted a bribe or thought the Seps were right.
	Spy! - Was a Sep droid that snuck in.
	Victim! - Reprogrammed by the Seps agaist his will.
View Results

Should Hasbro make Clone Wars astromechs in an animated style?
	Yes - I want them to look as different as possible from the rest of my droids!
	No, I don't want to have to wait for them to make new animated molds for R4 & R5 units.
View Results

CLONE WARS ASTROMECH DROIDS SEASON 1

CLONE WARS ASTROMECH DROIDS
SEASON 1