Did Owen and Beru Know?

I'm going to withdraw from this conversation now due to this. I made it quite clear he would have been naturally curious about a partial message that appears to be a distress call. Particularly when it might be addressed to someone he knows. That doesn't cement his character as an enthusiastic do gooder.

In fact, judging by what he says, he's primarily impressed by how beautiful she is. Yet he baulks at going all the way to Alderann to deliver her droids and NOT to go rescue her.

Your frustration at me challenging your arguments is evident in your evasion of the fact that Luke sits down to dinner, starts using the droids as a bargaining tool to convince Owen to let him follow his piloting dream sooner rather than later, and doesn't mention that there's a distress call in the message that he supposedly feels so compelled to answer, because of his character, as you claim.

That and the descent into petulant sarcasm and condescension, calling a valid question "specious reasoning".

You're annoyed at me making connections between what people actually say and do and not placing more value on your conjecture that Owen is basically or inherently against helping other people. And Luke is the opposite of that.

 

There is some frustration on my part. But it’s a result of me obviously doing a poor job at articulating my thoughts to you. I’m frustrated at myself for not being a better writer.

The recording is the first thing he brings up and it’s specifically to follow the only lead he has: ‘Ben Kenobi’. It makes perfect sense he wouldn’t mention the recording is a distress message to his uncle. Distress = danger. Danger = bad.

It’s not a valid question though. It’s a false premise. The dilemma facing Luke, if he heard the full message, wouldn’t be whether he’d be willing to somehow cross a galaxy to bring this R2 unit to a whole other planet. It would be whether he’d be willing to cross his desert backyard to bring this R2 unit to an old man he already kind of knows. Pretty big difference.

If your question was: Would the Luke Skywalker character be willing to do THIS? That would be a valid question, because that’s the actual given scenario. And 100% yes. Of course he would. Why wouldn’t he?

I didn’t bother addressing it, because it isn’t relevant to the point. His responding to someone’s beg for help IS what sets him on his path. That’s the causal chain of events. And I made light of your assertion because the concept is legitimately funny to me. Luke, not concerned at all about this young woman in trouble, is instead just morbidly curious to find out more juicy details. That’s borderline sociopathic behavior and frankly hilarious when you play it out that way.

But you erroneously said Luke told R2 his last name (when he didn’t) and then used that misconception to bolster your interpretation. You made a provably wrong connection. I’ve provided you multiple transcriptions of verbatim dialogue in support of my interpretation. I respect it if you simply have a different opinion. But let’s not pretend you’re some fount of accuracy here and that I’m resentful of your shrewd powers of observation.

You can place value on whatever you like. That’s entirely up to you. I happen to have an opinion on what the story is trying to convey and I can support that opinion with the actual text and commentary from the author who wrote that text. You can take that or leave that.

That’s probably for the best.

 

I don’t believe so.