The little droid R8-B7 was first seen in the R2 Come Home episode a couple of years ago, and then I decided to do it. R2 Come Home" was the twenty-first episode of Season Two of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series. It first aired on April 24, 2010 in the UK, and on April 30 in the US as the first part of a doubleheader on that night. Only after that some time later it was aired in Hungary, too. After seeing that episode I decided to handmake this cute R8 unit. More than six years ago, who would have thought it was so long ago. It is time therefore to publish the figure and the story of R8-B7 in a brief article form.

This part was not a separate episode, like so many, it was a mini-series in the season. That was one of the great inventions of the Clone Wars, not to carry out a theme in one episode, but we can get more involved in it, going deeper in a story, studying it better. In the earlier episode the little Boba Fett was always plotting plans, always want to have revenge for the death of his father, but his efforts always falter. First he tried to attempt a bomb attack against Windu in his bedroom in cadet disguise, then he sabotaged the vital parts of the cruiser.

The Venator-class Star Destroyer Endurance crash landed on the planet Vanqor. Hoping that Admiral Kilian and Commander Ponds, the other clones might still be alive, Windu and Anakin Skywalker went after them to examine the crash scene for possible survivors. Soon, they found the wreck, which was in a terrible shape, but the bridge seemed to have remained in one piece. The two Jedi starfighters landed behind the Republic Venator ship. In Anakin’s ship R2-D2 was the astrodroid, while in Windu’s sat R8-B7, protagonist of today’s material. The place was very unfriendly, it was a dark, scary area. The small droids were afraid, because alien life forms were detected. Gundarks. Windu, Skywalker, R2, and R8-B7 yet headed to the crashlanded ship, despite they were followed by the gundarks. Once inside, the Jedi found a lot of clones who did not die as a result of the collision, but someone killed them. Windu theorizes that those who tried to assassinate him, they come here after him to search his body, and when they did not find him, then they killed the survivors. The Jedi sent out the droids to search for possible survivors, while the Jedi continued toward the bridge. The two small robots rolled out to the dark night to scan the area with their gadgets, then they were attacked by the two Gundarks. They try to escape, but R8 was slower than R2, he was caught. R2 whistled desperately for his poor pal, he stopped to escape, thereby jeopardizing the integrity of his own, but he wanted to help his small friend. From his chest panel he chose a sharp instrument and like a bayonet, he summoned all his courage and stormed one of the huge Gundar creatures with his weapon. They were fighting for the still operating R8, trying to decide who can eat the poor droid. They did not know it was made of metal, the just saw its movement, they heared his voice, and maybe R8 also released some heat, as he struggled in the gundark’s mouth. R2 as a knight on a tournament ran toward the beats, and well pierced one of them into its butt. The gundark angrily turned around, and hit hardly the twenty times less droid so R2-D2 flew away. That was fortunate for him, so he got further into safety from the beasts. The other Gundar taking advantage of the moment to deal with R2’s companion, so poor R8-B7 was ripped apart. R8-B7’s head slipped on the ground to R2, so he realized it is time to run for his own life now and fled. R2 fled toward the downed wreckage Venator, in search of shelter.

Meanwhile, on the bridge, Windu and Skywalker found more dead clones, but they found neither the admiral, nor Ponds, neither alive nor dead. It seemed they were taken somewhere. Suddenly, they noticed a Mandalorian helmet on a rubble. As Skywalker went to the helmet, Windu remembered that it could be Jango Fett's helmet, who was the clone army’s alpha, sample, and template, and who was killed on Geonosis by Windu in front of his son, Boba, he was holding this helmet in his hands after seeing his father die by the hand Windu. Too late, Anakin touched the helmet, which exploded, severely damaging the bridge. It was a bit lucky thing for R2-D2, who was running into the Veator at this time, and the falling debris saved him as killing one of the gundarks in his tail, while the other escaped. However ont he other hand it was especially unfortunate for the two Jedi, because the bridge practically spilled the two Jedi, unable to move buried under the debries. It was feared that due to the slightest movement the whole bridge will collapse, because when they tried to use the Force to lift the debris it was shaking like a precarious house of cards, from which youtry to draw or remove a card. The two Jedi’s fate was in the hands of R2 now. Poor little astro was left alone, but faithfully and valiantly defended the Jedi masters from Aurra Sing, Bossk, Boba Fett and Castas when they arrived. R2 locked the hatches to prevent the bounty hunters to come up and kill the helpless Jedi. As they were climbing up in a flue to the bridge, the brave R2 throwing all kinds of large and heavy parts and debris on them, like the famous Hungarian fortress’ defenders, the heroes of Eger did against the upward climbing Turks some decades ago. He also defended the fort, err, I mean the bridge and bountyhunters retreated. But the Jedi were still in danger. Assistance was still needed. That's why ithis episode was called R2 go home, because that was the the last thing that Anakin told for R2. He made a recording of the scene, then he headed out to the dark night. How much courage is needed to do this! Outside, there is still one Gundark, not to mention the bountyhunters. The little robot still go out into the dark to get to the ships in order to request assistance with the starfighter’s radio. But a Gundar attacked him. It jumped on Anakin’ fighter and catched the little robot. R2 was struggling to free himself, and he tried to spray oil onthe gundark as he did against the SBD's in EP3, but he failed because the Gundark kept him away from its body, and oil dripped on the ground. He'll try to poke the beast with his small tools, but it does not work neither. Then he shot a harpoon into the Gundark, which made it to release R2 for a moment. R2 hurried to Anakin’s starfighter, attached the cable to the fighteer, and then started the engine. The Jedi starfighter started flying pulling the gundark with it as well, and uncontrolled crashlanded somewhere a few miles away and exploded, killing the gundark. R2 Gundarks 2:0. He jumped into the place of poor little R8-B7, borrowing Windu’s fighter to use its radio. After the four bounty hunters witnessed the explosion, they realized that this was one of the Jedi starfighters, so they believed that was Windu who survived somehow and now runs away for help, so as a first step, they jammed and blocked all outgoing transmissions. Poor R2 only heared a static noise, having the long-distance radio of no use, so he drove the remaining starfighter to exit into space to see if there the radio will work. But the Slave 1 noticed him and got in his tail. R2 received a very serious fire from the cannons of Slave 1, so dangerous fire that would easily killed any person. But R2D2 was a droid fortunately, and easily or luckily maneuvered in front of the more and more frustrated fool little Boba, who adheres to the fire button, but could not hit the Jedi starfighter while it countinued a perfect and excellent spinning in front of his eyes. Seeing this, Windu thought that the astromech let them in trouble and continued to disparage R2, thinking the robot is a stupid mech, stating he was absolutely not able to understand why Anakin likes him so much, and how could their lives put in the hands of such a small and useless droid. But this little useless droid is fighting for them at this moment, risking his own life navigating in Slave 1’s lethal hailfire. Avoiding the fire the astromech gets out into space, but the communications antenna was lost, because the young Boba somehow managed tohit it with his five thousandth shot. Hurray. Thus, without the radio, R2 remained only one solution now is to take the hyperdrive rings, and jump to Coruscant personally. So he moved that way that the little Boba cannot figure out which ring he will use for the jump. Artoo finally oriented slightly toward one hyperring dribbling the stupid Boba, who cannot be compared to his father, and with a now I gotcha shout he fired at the OTHER ring. While R2 with a fine move flips the ship to the selected one, and while the little Boba happily destroyed the other ring, R2 elegantly left with lightspeed. Thanks boy, and goodbye. At Coruscant R2-D2 speed to the Jedi Temple pushing away any oncoming droids, and then interrupted a meeting, pushingaway Plo Koon’s droid in order he could use the holoprojector to be able to play back Anakin’s message. Plo Koon and Ahsoka Tano dispatched immediately to Vanqor to rescue the injured Jedi fromthe slowly collapsing wreckage, which will be held by Ahsoka ang Koon with the Force, while the clones brought out Anakin and Mace just in time, because the bridge of Endurance permanently and totally collapsed now. Master Windu, who was not beleived in R2 so far, and were quite hostile against him, is not ashamed to apologize to the skillful, self-sacrificing and brave R2-D2. There are many great Clone Wars episodes, it is not my very favorite, but this is one of the best.

Take a look at my custom R8-B7 figure!