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Choice over programming
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Writers: Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy
Director: Gareth Edwards
Moments after failing to convince the leaders of the Rebel Alliance to take the fight to the Empire on Scarif, Jyn Erso is joined by a small band of rogue rebels for a daring mission to steal the Death Star plans. Everyone is choosing to defy orders and join the mission, believing in Jyn’s words that they have no choice but to fight. All but one that is. K-2SO, the straightforward, sardonic droid buddy of Cassian Andor, bluntly states that he is with Jyn as well…because Cassian made him. The droid didn’t want to be there, he was ordered. And that was particularly hard for him to accept because he and Jyn didn’t exactly get along. However, the death of K-2SO was perhaps the most emotionally tasking death in the movie. How it gets to that point is a lesson in choice over programming.
K-2SO was a KX-series security droid built to serve the Galactic Empire, until a chance meeting with Cassian on the planet Wecacoe forever changed him. While trying to arrest Cassian, he had most of his memory wiped clean. By the end of the encounter, Cassian and his cohorts have escaped with K-2SO at their side. K2 remained there and became the righthand droid for Andor and, like many droids, served in this war just as much as the organic lifeforms around him. However, also like many droids, their choice to fight is often assumed to be a given. What they do in the battle is what’s important.
Once on the surface of Scarif, Jyn, Cassian, and K-2SO infiltrated the highly fortified Citadel tower. It was there, deep within the Imperial research facility, that K-2SO made the most important choice of his existence. With the near-impossible mission on the brink of fatal failure, K-2SO stood his ground, fighting off stormtroopers and guiding Jyn and Cassian through the theft of the Death Star plans.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was always going to be about sacrifice. Yet, the theme of hope ran through the movie, so, as we got to know these new heroes, there was always the hope that they would survive. In the heat of the moment, though, we are caught up in the action and, perhaps, the false notion that everything in these stories works out just fine. It was not to be. The tide starts to turn for the worse with K-2SO.
As blast after blast from the stormtroopers’ weapons begin to tear him apart, we start to fear the worst. He falls to his knees, taking more damage. There is a frailty in his voice, something not usually heard in the voice of a droid, as he barks out the next steps for Cassian and Jyn. They can climb to the top of the tower and transmit the plans. It dawns on Cassian Andor just as it dawns on us: K-2SO is about to die. His final word is “goodbye.”
It’s a simple but vivid choice. We’re used to droids beeping and gonking. We’re accustomed to the stiffness of a protocol droid, the metallic distance of a service droid, or even the bumbling burbles of a battle droid. But, here now, K-2SO’s words are nothing short of pained and they strike a chord within us.
K2 knew what had to be done for the survival of the mission, the coming war, and, above all, his friends. He needed to lay down his life so the mission could go on. This action was not based on any programming or orders. Nothing predetermined played into the decision. It was his decision and his alone. K-2SO chose to sacrifice himself for the cause and his death was a signpost of what was about to come.
As the light in K-2SO’s eyes fades away and we leave him dying on the floor of a faraway facility that will soon be destroyed, he is no longer just a droid. K-2SO is a testament to the power of looking beyond your past, your upbringing, your environment, your expectations and seeing the truth of the moment you are in. K-2SO died because, perhaps for the first time in his existence, he chose to do something not expected of him for the benefit of others. One by one the other heroes of this story fall in a similar fashion. Each a lesson in choice over programming. Let’s give a salute to K-2SO. A droid first, a hero forever.