Sorry, Luke — but it looks like both your lightsaber and R2-D2 have new owners.
In an auction that I’d like to pretend took place in front of a Sandcrawler in the middle of a desert, someone reportedly just dropped over $2 million dollars on R2-D2.
“But wait — is it the R2? Like, the one used in the original trilogy?”
Alas, as far as anyone knows, the answer to that question can never really be “yes”. There were multiple R2s built for different situations across the original films — a few for when Kenny Baker was inside, a few for action scenes, etc. Meanwhile, most of them were gutted and re-purposed as necessary as the series continued.
This unit, then, is one that’s pieced together from bits and bobs across the many models across the films, with a final product thats said to be the most collectively “film used” known to exist. It’s made up of things like:
- The top dome and articulating eye lens as controlled by Kenny Baker in A New Hope
- Two legs used in Empire, and one created for Episode 1
- Accent/detail pieces on the body from A New Hope
Presumably not included: a hologram of a princess declaring you her only hope.
One could go all Ship of Theseus here and ask how many parts of an object can be swapped/replaced before something is no longer that object — but given that “that object” arguably never existed in a single permanent form, it’s all a bit moot. And in cases like this, beauty is in the eye of the person dropping the fat stack of cash.
Source: Someone just bought R2-D2 for over $2 million | TechCrunch
