Star Wars confirms what we always hoped about C-3PO

Expanding on the sweet and sentimental exchange between Artoo and Threepio toward the end of Rise of the Skywalker, Kogge weaves a version of events where C-3PO’s entire memory is reawakened (via ScreenRant). His storage now holds memories all the way back to the very first time Anakin switched him on, including all those long-forgotten prequel events. Kogge describes the exact moment R2-D2’s switch flip jogs Threepio’s entire memory rather poetically.

“This caused a memory file that R2-D2 had restored to be accessed and read,” Kogge wrote. “It was a record of the moment when C-3PO’s maker had fitted a photoreceptor into his eye socket, and he had experienced the visual spectrum for the first time. The initial image his photoreceptors had captured was of a blue-and-white astromech.”

The intimate droid exchange in the film was far from being one of Episode IX‘s most controversial or confusing moments, but it did cause some debate among fans who questioned just how much he should remember. Unlike other scenes that were considered outright plot holes, most of the conversation around C-3PO’s second hard reset was less about logic and more about dramatic impact. Some believed the sacrifice was beautiful and shouldn’t have been tampered with, while others favored the film’s outcome.

With the last chapter in the Skywalker Saga hitting Disney+ this May the Fourth, months earlier than expected, fans will have another chance to debate which outcome they would have preferred. In terms of the big-screen tale and its prose counterpart, the restoration is a mostly sentimental move as, at that point, the First Order has already been defeated. Still, just try not to get emotional about R2-D2 being the first thing C-3PO ever saw.