R1-series astromech droid

"Yeah, we'll take that red one. No, not that one."

- Owen Lars, rejecting an R1 astromech

R1-series astromech droids were a model of tall astromech droid that could be used as shopkeeping drones.

Characteristics
R1 units were astromech droids that stood 1.94 meters tall and moved about on a single foot. Known specimens had black or light gray shell plating.

History
At the time of the Invasion of Naboo, the Toydarian junk dealer Watto owned an R1 astromech, which he kept behind the counter in his shop situated in Mos Espa, on the planet of Tatooine. Said unit worked as a shopkeeping drone, handling most of Watto's daily business operations.

Over thirty years later, still on Tatooine, an R1 unit with blue and yellow markings fell into the hands of a group of diminutive Jawa scavengers traveling in a sandcrawler. Those Jawas attempted to sell the cleaned-up astromech to the moisture farmer Owen Lars and his nephew Luke Skywalker. Lars, however, rejected the tall droid in favor of an R2 unit and a 3PO protocol droid&mdash;both of which were in fact Rebel Alliance droids trying to carry out a secret mission at the behest of Princess Leia Organa. Around the same time, two other R1 units were known to be present in the Tatooinian spaceport of Mos Eisley.

Behind the scenes
R1-series astromech droids were first seen in the 1977 movie Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. One is seen among the droids the Jawas attempt to sell to Owen Lars. Another appears in the streets of Mos Eisley, during the scene in which a ronto gets startled by a passing swoop. A third, gray-painted R1 unit appears in the background when Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke are stopped and questioned by stormtroopers.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace
 * Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope
 * Star Wars Battlefront