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C-3PO

robot character from the Star Wars universe

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 8, 2026
Entity authorityQ51787
Source-derived summary

C-3PO () or See-Threepio is a humanoid robot character in the Star Wars franchise. He is a protocol droid designed to assist in etiquette and translation, and is fluent in over six million forms of communication. He first appeared in the 1976 novelization of the original Star Wars film (1977), and he appears in all nine films of the Skywalker Saga, which includes the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy and the sequel trilogy. Anthony Daniels portrays C-3PO in all the Skywalker Saga films and the standalone film Rogue One, and he voices the droid in the animated series The Clone Wars. In addition to films, C-3PO appears in television series, novels, comics, and video games.

Creation and portrayal

Ralph McQuarrie, a concept artist for Star Wars, based the initial design for C-3PO on the female robot from the Fritz Lang film Metropolis (1927). When Anthony Daniels saw one of McQuarrie's paintings of C-3PO, he was struck by the vulnerability in the droid's face, and he wanted the role. George Lucas, who created the Star Wars franchise and directed Star Wars, selected Daniels for the physical performance. He was planning to hire another actor for the droid's voice, because he was hesitant to give the character Daniels's British accent. According to Daniels, Lucas wanted C-3PO to have a "sleazy New York second-hand car dealer" type of voice.

Editorial summary

“C-3PO” enters the record as robot character from the Star Wars universe. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what C-3PO, robot and character can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1976, 1977, 1927—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around C-3PO, robot and character.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“C-3PO” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, C-3PO, robot and character provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q51787. VIAF identifies the subject as 108145541820996600095. The Library of Congress control number is no2015165310. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1976, 1977 and 1927.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

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  2. Expand the search: follow C-3PO primary sources, C-3PO archive and C-3PO research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from C-3PO” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.