While watching ANH on my drive home to Texas from Indiana yesterday, I was struck with a thought during the scene on Tatooine when 3PO and R2 are being sold by the Jawas on the Lars farm.

As we all know, initially 3PO and R5-D4 are purchased. I wondered why R5's motivator blew at that particular moment. Would it have been that he just happened to have had some bad "luck" at that time (he certainly didn't sound good when he replied to Luke's "Come on, Red")? Could it be that fate was stepping in to ensure that R2 was where he needed to be at the right time and place for his destiny to be fulfilled? OR was it the Force acting upon those circumstances and making the motivator blow at that moment to make sure that R5-D4 didn't take R2-D2's place in the Lars' homestead? It's an interesting question.

R2-D2 obviously needed to be there. He needed C-3PO and Luke needed to meet Obi-Wan at that time to begin his journey to fulfill his destiny, so what force was acting on this situation to drive R5 out of the picture at this particular moment since Owen made the wrong choice in droids initially?

I'd like to think it was the Force. What about you?

Something else I noticed about the scene (I'd noticed this many times, but just thought I'd bring it up since I was on this topic) was that once R5-D4 has already rolled to Luke and his motivator has blown, the camera pans back to R2-D2 and you see R5 still sitting beside R2! Whoops! Blooper! I just always found that amusing and thought that I would point it out.

Anyway, tell me your thoughts concerning R2's ending up with Luke and company!! Oh, and yes, nob01, I KNOW how you think R2 ended up there!!