A Keen Observation

Also, keep in mind that droids aren't really considered individuals by many in the series. If you took a taxi, would you necessarily know if you'd been in it before? If you go to a restaurant, would you recognize the same fork you used last time?

It's kind of a sad commentary on dehumanization of certain groups, but it's a little bit more lighthearted in that at least droids aren't organic lifeforms (their sentience is a topic of no small debate, though)

 

I've always wondered something: if droids are presumably mass produced across the galaxy, should there not be more than one of each? We should see identical R2 units like teal Proteges or red Caravans. So did Owen just assume that C3PO wasn't exactly the same one? Or was he just not attached? If you give away your toaster to Goodwill, then see it at your friends house 30 years later in a different color, will you make the connection if it has the same serial number?

And for OB saying he didn't remember owning a droid, I figured it was because he didn't own a droid as it belonged to the order.

 

Keep in mind also-
This is the droid Owen saw in AotC.


This is the one in ANH.


And the same could be said for Owen, too. Time changed them both.

 

Yup Yup. Good points caws trooper.
Time does indeed change ... Everything.

 

I've always felt that Artoo knows everything that is going on.

Of course, Lucas always toyed with the idea of Star Wars being a tale that was being recounted second-hand by someone or something.

"Originally, I was trying to have the story be told by somebody else; there was somebody watching this whole story and recording it, somebody probably wiser than the mortal players in the actual events. I eventually dropped this idea, and the concept behind the Whills turned into the Force. But the Whills became part of this massive amount of notes, quotes, background information that I used for the scripts; the stories were actually taken from the 'Journal of the Whills'." - The Annotated Screenplays, 1997

Kurtz and Hamill have both suggested Lucas at one point intended to frame the movie literally as a story that was being read to a child by its mother, which was sort of revisited when the Holiday Special came up.

"Lucas went to material from his first draft of Star Wars for the story, reviving an idea he once had for a wrap-around to the main action of the film. Kurtz recalled that the original opening for Star Wars featured a visit to the Wookiee homeworld where a mother prepared to tell her son a bedtime story - that story would be the film of Star Wars. Hamill remembered that it was 'an enchanted forest... you see a Wookiee mother trying to breastfeed this squealing baby Wookiee. He keeps gesturing toward the bookshelf, and there's all this Wookiee dialogue going on. She goes and points to one particular book and the baby gets all excited. She takes the book of the shelf and we see it is titled 'Star Wars'. She opens the book, and that's when the ship comes overhead and the film as we know it starts'." - I'm sure this account appeared somewhere else back in the day, can't seem to recall where though, but it was definitely included in Brian J Robb's 2012 Star Wars "Brief Guide to" book.

The "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." intro is the only obvious nod to this concept. But I'm pretty sure the idea of the saga being "recorded" and potentially later recounted is part of the reason Lucas wanted Artoo and Threepio to be present as "observers" across all six movies, even if it is nothing more than a token gesture than something explicit within the stories themselves.

"The story of Star Wars is actually recounted by R2-D2 to the Keeper of the Whills, one hundred years after Return of the Jedi [...] Artoo is the unsung hero of the two trilogies. He's the only one who knows the whole story." - The Making of Revenge of the Sith, 2005

It's part of the reason Artoo and Threepio work so well beyond being just simple robot sidekicks, IMHO - Threepio is academically smart (he can speak six million languages) and he constantly voices his opinion. Artoo, by contrast, is just supposed to be useful for manual tasks, and he may as well be mute - he only communicates in bleeps and whistles.
And yet, the reality is Threepio rarely comprehends what is going on around him - what he is actually involved in - while Artoo knows exactly what is going on and he acts with purpose.
In fact, Artoo not only knows, I reckon he even understands the importance of many of the things he has been involved in. Like, there's stuff he probably could tell Luke, but he also understands why he shouldn't, because Luke needs to find these things out for himself...

There's a kind of irony there somewhere - Threepio could actually tell the whole tale of Star Wars in six million languages, but he can't keep his mouth shut so he ends up getting half of the story erased... whereas Artoo, who doesn't even speak basic, gets to know the whole story...

 

Darth Vader was 203 cm tall and had stiffen upright posture, he could not see R2-D2 passing by anyway, nor he could (i think?) sense it since its a machine.
However, the little can knew which one character is most desirable to avoid in entire franchise.

 

I'VE SAID THIS SINCE I WAS SEVEN YEARS OLDDDDDDD!!!!!!!

 

Another litte observation I thought of a while ago, the only time the big 3 are in the Millenium Falcon together is when the escape the Death Star in ANH

 

I agree. But everytime one sees a (random-) Class-3 Protocol Droid, remember he is silver: in the opening scene of TPM (the protocol droid welcoming QuiGon and ObiWan abord the Neimoidian vessel), in ESB (on Cloud City we encounter a random silver C3P droid wandering around).
Speaking of C-3PO (the one and unique) : in Episode 1 he has no covering (Anakin built it from a ruin) ; in Episode II he is silver covered (like all the others C-3P droids). He starts to be golden since Episode III :


Perhaps there are others cases of (random-) protocol droids in the saga, but I may have forgotten them...


So I believe C3PO (the one and unique) is since Episode III the only gold-covered C-3P droid in the wole GFFA.
I think it's Padme who covered it with gold when he entered his service.
A gold-covered tool, be it a fork or a car, is always remarkable... and since one remarks it, one should start thinking about it.

 

Well, I mean, if he didn't notice it was C-3P0, then it was obviously unremarkable to him anyways, so it doesn't matter.

 

I think the 20 year gap and the different look helped Owen not recognize C-3PO. Also, Owen is the one that says, "You, I suppose you're programmed for etiquette and protocol." And C-3PO confirms it. Owen probably knows this because he owned a droid just like C-3PO 20 years earlier. Also, as far as Owen knows, C-3PO went off to work for Anakin and/or Padme in a likely fancy setting. Meeting a similar droid being sold by junk traders in the desert wouldn't scream "Same droid" to him.

Pure speculation here, but the jawas could have marched out a C-3PO type droid every couple years while stopping at the Lars ranch and C-3PO was the 10th one he'd seen over the years. Without being told the droid's name, I can certainly understand him not recognizing C-3PO.