Star Wars: The Last Jedi: What does BB-9E sound like?

BB-9E is so evil that even his method of communication sounds more evil than BB-8’s in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and that’s perfectly okay.

The more droids, the merrier when it comes to Star Wars. At least, that’s how I feel about it. Over the years, Lucasfilm has done an amazing job of infusing personality into each of the major droids we’ve met — even the droid troopers of the prequel films managed to have some humor attached. We even have a sense of what BB-8’s like, and he’s only been in one movie so far! With The Last Jedi, though, there’s a new droid in town: BB-9E.

When a character doesn’t have a face as we think of it or even necessarily the ability to communicate in ways the audience understands, there’s something else that production can do: influence how the character sounds. BB-8 sounds different than R2-D2, who sounds different than other droids, because R2-D2 is the mouthiest character that doesn’t have a mouth in Star Wars.

So, given that BB-9E is a First Order version of BB-8, how do you think Lucasfilm chose to represent that in sound (and in color scheme, and even in “head” shape)?

If you guessed “lower in pitch, and somehow more menacing-sounding despite also just being the normal sound effects we expect from droids” … well, you’re right:

Look, if The Last Jedi or Episode IX do not contain a scene where BB-8 and BB-9E square off for whatever reason, even if Star Wars News Net reports that this isn’t actually from The Last Jedi, then the fans will know that Star Wars has lost its sense of humor entirely. That’s probably not going to happen, so relax.

It’s been speculated that BB-9E is Kylo Ren’s answer to BB-8 specifically, although it doesn’t appear that his snazzy new ship, the TIE Silencer, is actually equipped to handle a BB unit or an astromech of any kind, or at least we haven’t been able to catch sight of where a unit might go anyway.

Next: 15 things you need to know about The Last Jedi

Perhaps that’s part of what makes the Silencer fancy, though — it’s meant to be repaired on the fly and last longer than your standard TIE Fighter.