CLONE WARS ASTROMECH DROIDS

SEASON 2: RISE OF THE BOUNTY HUNTERS

R7-F5/R7-D4: PLO KOON'S ASTROMECH

In the first episode, CW2:01, Holocron Heist, we see Plo Koon lead a squadron of Republic Gunships into battle over Felucia. He is seen flying his regular blue and white Jedi Starfighter, and you can just see the gray dome with dark colored panels of his astrodroid as he flies into battle.

In CW2:21, R2 Come Home, we finally get a good look at Plo's droid. We see R2-D2 put the smackdown on him while trying to get to the dataport so he can plug in and report to the Jedi the dire position Anakin Skywalker and Mace Windu are in. Check out these great pics of R2 and R7 in the biggest astrodroid showdown since R2-D2 went winner-take-all with R3-S6!

R7 was also seen in the first season of the Clone Wars and you can read about that here: R7-F5!

In 2010, he began to be referred to as R7-D4 in various publications.

SITH ASTROMECH!

Finally we see an astromech belonging to the Sith. And it's an R4 droid belonging to Darth Sidious himself! The very first "R4" type astromech seen in the Clone Wars, it is obviously greatly trusted by Darth Sidious. Its duties appear to be to monitor the technical components of the slavification of Force-sensitive babies in CW2:03, Children of the Force, as well as beam his hologram directly to the workers on Mustafar.

It is possible that this R4 was able to escape Mustafar before the mining facilities self-destructed on a Separatist shuttle. Preventing his capture by the Jedi would have been crucial to Darth Sidious, as he would contain many secrets!

RODIAN ASTROMECHS!

These two astromechs are seen on Rodia in CW2:03, Children of the Force. These are the first known Rodian astrodroids, a brown colored R2 unit on the left that seems to perfectly match Plo Koon's R7-F5, and our favorite green & white R5 unit (R5-013???) so familiar from season 1 of the Clone Wars, on the right.

OBI-WAN KENOBI'S R4-P17

R4-P17 is back in CW2:03, Children of the Force, and is seen co-piloting Obi-Wan's starfighter on his mission to Rodia. You can see plenty of white body and leg detail in this shot.

Oddly, in the approach shot of Obi-Wan's ship to Rodia, his R2 unit appears to have a grey dome with blue panels, just like R2-D2. This is probably just a silly error on the part of the artists and editor.

CORUSCANT GREEN R5

In CW2:04, The Senate Spy, we catch another glimpse of the ubiquitous green R5 unit that first rocketed to fame last year in the classic Skate Park promo.

Y-WING ASTROMECHS

In CW2:05, Landing at Point Rain, we are treated to a brutal full scale invasion of Geonosis by the Republic, who are attempting to destroy the secret armaments factories discovered by Padme. A squadron of red marked Y-Wing fighters attack Geonosian forces in support of the invasion, arriving just in time to keep Obi-Wan Kenobi's position from being overrun. Two astrodroids can be clearly identified in Y-Wings during this sequence. The first has orange panels on a gray dome, and what looks like a dark red body. The second has pink markings which are extremely similar to R2-KT, though we can't really be sure if it really is "Katie."

Y-WING & ARC ASTROMECHS!!!

In Clone Wars episode 2:19, we are introduced to two great new things - a giant Zillobeast, and a fresh new batch of astrodroids, including the first ARC-170 droids seen in the series!

I don't really have a lot of comments about the new droids. The green R2 unit seen in the lead (red) fighter of the Y-Wing squadron has bright green dome panels, and what looks to be a green torso to go along with it. The "shoulders" of its legs appear to be gray. I did my best to get a make on the droids carried in the yellow Y-Wings, but couldn't make out the panel colors on the gray domes.

Above are the first shots of an ARC fighter's droid from the Clone Wars. Unfortunately, I can't make out much beyond the common gray dome color. It looks like the dome on the droid in the nearest fighter had grayish-blue panels until I attempted to clean it up in photoshop, at which point the panels started looking a bit red! The furthest ARC in the last photo seems to have a grey dome with green panels.

R8-B7: MACE WINDU'S ASTRODROID

In the thrilling astro-rich finale to the second season of the Clone Wars, R2 Come Home, we get to meet an astrodroid partnered with Mace Windu for the very first time. This droid sports an excellent paint scheme with a very dark denim blue dome on top of a light grey body and legs, and all over yellow paneling. The legs also have a lighter shade of blue along the central side vertical column. A really great looking droid!

R8 also has a strong personality, moving very boldly and quickly in pursuit of his mission. Like all astromechs, he has a distinct "voice" when he beeps and whirs, and his personality is distinct enough to indicate a fun and comedic companionship with R2-D2 is in store. Unfortunately, a pair of gundarks lurking around the crash site make short work of R8, and our only hope of seeing him again is if R2-D2 makes an effort to lead the rescue team to his remains for salvaging. Let us hope!

As seen in CW2 ep.20, here's our first view of Mace Windu's droid, a navy blue domed R2 unit with yellow named "R8".

JEDI TEMPLE ASTRODROIDS

R5-S9

R4-M1

On R2's frantic return to the Temple in the same episode, he encounters two astrodroids in the halls of the Jedi Temple, a yellow-marked droid with an "R4" style dome, and a blue "R5" style astromech very similar to R5-S9, whom we saw get blasted by Cad Bane's thugs in their assault on the Senate during the first season of the Clone Wars. Has he been repaired and is back in action? Or did the Republic just buy a bunch of this type and get them painted up in a nice, uniform style for such a prestigious assignment?

Notice that the vertical striping on the front and the back of the yellow R4 (named R4-M1 in season 5) is of an orange color.

The episode finishes with a great little sequence of R2 getting into a shouting and shoving match with Plo Koon's droid, R7-F5, (also shown at the top of this page) over access to the data port on the holo-table. Unfortunately, R7 wasn't seen accompanying Plo in the final episode, CW2:22, as he tracked down the bounty hunters Aurra Sing and Boba Fett.

PIRATE ASTROMECH, AGAIN

With the return of the gang of weequay pirates in the final episode of the second season of the Clone Wars, we are also treated to a brief glimpse of the gunned-up R5 droid that serves with them as well.

You can see much clearer first season pics of this guy here!

ONLINE COMIC ATROMECHS!!!

For the first time in the popular online Clone Wars comic series, we see a number of astromech droid in the pages following the beginning here! Since this series is tied directly to the the Clone Wars television show, I will be covering any further astromech awesomeness as well!

In the image above we see a droid that is marked identically to our favorite R2-KT.

Above we see two different droids working on a Republic Gunship. The first is an R4 unit with black dome stripes extremely similar to the one which was working for Darth Sidious in CW2:03 Children of the Force. It's very interesting to see a nearly identical droid show up so soon afterwards working in the Republic Fleet. The second is a very sharp looking green R2 unit.

KIT FISTO'S R6-H5 & KEELYVINE'S R4

Showing some nice attention to detail, we see that Kit Fisto's astromech, R6-H5, from the season one episode Lair of Grievous, is still serving with him in season 2. Also pictured is the droid of an as-of-yet Web Comic only Jedi named Keelyvine, who seems mostly distinctive for her love of the color green. Her astrodroid, so far only known as "R4," has a white body with all its panels painted green.

R6-H5 and Kelyvine's R4 make one further appearance in the final pages of the second season's comic.

Above is a quick glimpse we see of an R5 unit that looks remarkably similar to one that appeared in the first episode of the 2003 Clone Wars microseries, pictured below.

White AV-6R7?

Not an astromech, but a really cool droid nonetheless. It appears that the artist and author of this portion of the comic really know their Star Wars, because not only do they fit the Mousedroid in the scene, but they also get what appears to be a white painted version of AV-6R7, the most obscure yet incredibly awesome droid originally seen on the bridge of a Star Destroyer in Return of the Jedi!

You like cool behind the scenes pix and so do I. So here'a a really cool pic of AV-6R7 sitting alongside (from left) CZ-3, RA-7, 8D8, and EV-9D9 in the Lucasfilm Archives. Notice he has arms in this picture!

"Binocular-Eyed" R5-D2?

In the latest installment of the fine Clone Wars online comic at the official site, we see a couple new astromechs pop up in the background on the planet Ukio, near an agricultural command center. The first, pictured above, appears to be one of the rare "2-eyed" versions of the standard R5 unit, as seen on my Imperial Droids page. Take note how closely the illustration matches the Star Tours toy version of R5-D2, which was produced as a Disneyland exclusive.

R5-A2 on Ukio?

Also seen in the background just outside the command center on Ukio is this droid that is startlingly similar to R5-A2, last seen cruising the streets of Mos Eisley. Maybe there is something to the notion of the "agromech" agricultural astromech after all?

2003 MICROSERIES ASTROMECHS!

The three droids above, an R2, R4, and R5 unit, are seen at the beginning of the first episode of the original 2003 Clone Wars mini-series preparing to board Republic fighters. They all have cool paint schemes and deserve to be made by Hasbro as action figures! (Note that the R5 unit seems to have the same "guns" projecting from its legs as the infamous Hasbro 1990's version of R5-D4 had. This is a detail we hope Hasbro will skip in making this figure. It also, interestingly enough, has the same color pattern with stripes that is seen in the online comic R5 unit, above.)

Got a cool idea for your own droid design? Then visit the cool Droid Designer!

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