These Aren't The Droids You're Looking For

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Scene from the movie, captioned These Aren't The Droids You're Looking For.png
Scene from the movie, captioned

These aren't the droids you're looking for (also, These are not the droids you are looking for) is a quote from the 1977 Star Wars movie, said by Obi-Wan Kenobi when a Stormtrooper asked Obi-Wan about droids R2-D2 and C-3PO. [1] It has since become an internet meme.

Contents

The scene

In Star Wars (1977), when Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker traveled to Mos Eisley to seek passage to Alderaan, Kenobi gestures with his hand and immediately convinces a suspicious stormtrooper, both that he "[didn't] need to see [Skywalker's] identification" and that the droids (R2-D2 and C-3PO) that were accompanying them "[weren't] the droids [they were] looking for." After he and Skywalker were clear of the checkpoint, Luke expressed surprise at how easily they had escaped and Kenobi explained that "The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded." [1] [2]

Analysis

The scene has been called famous and iconic; [1] [3] [4] likewise, the quote "These aren't the droids you're looking for" itself has been called catchy, familiar, used in everyday conversations, and likewise, famous and iconic. [5] [6] [7]

The scene is as an example of The Force use as a mind controling psi power, [8] known in the Star Wars universe as a "Jedi mind trick". [1] [9] Mind tricks, as an aspect of controversial mind control, [1] are sometimes considered not ethical, and violating in-universe Jedi Code. [10] [11]

In 1998, the American rock and roll band Queens of the Stone Age recorded a song with the phrase as its title (in the The Split CD album), [12] while Neko Case and Kelly Hogan released a song titled "These Aren't the Droids" in 2014 (in the 2776 album). [13] It has been used by politicians (such as American politician Mitt Romney in 2008) [14] and appeared in other works of ficiton, such as the House TV series (episode "A Pox on Our House" [15] ). [16]

The meaning of the original sentence can be interpreted as "nothing of interest to you is here". [16] It has became a popular [17] [18] Internet meme, generally used in the form "These Aren't the X You're Looking For" to humorously or sarcastically assert that someone is wrong, as the relevant object or concept ("X") is not representing what it appears to represent; it has a number of grammar variations, including the version not using the contraction ("are not" instead of "aren't" and "you are" instead of "you're") that has been described as possibly more popular than the original variant. [19] [20] [17]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Noble, Krista (2024-11-19). One with the Force: 18 Universal Truths in Star Wars. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. p. 63. ISBN   978-1-5381-9872-8.
  2. ↑ published, Total Film Staff (2017-12-31). "The 20 greatest Jedi moments in Star Wars history (and yes, that includes the prequels)". GamesRadar+. Retrieved 2025-10-13.
  3. ↑ Hatten, J., & Christensen, L. (2013, October). These Aren't the Droids You're Looking For: Anticipating Participant Mind Tricks in Pilot Study Feedback Responses. In eLearn: World Conference on EdTech (pp. 1135-1136). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).
  4. ↑ Mullins, Anne E. (2016). "Jedi or Judge: How the Human Mind Redefines Judicial Opinions". Wyoming Law Review. 16: 325–342.
  5. ↑ Ward, Michael R. (2025-02-06). "Internet Meme Marketing over the Fad Cycle". Journal of Interactive Marketing. doi:10.1177/10949968251320612. ISSN   1094-9968.
  6. ↑ Byrne, Eleanor (2020-08-02). "Autumn, Winter, Never Spring: Ali Smith's Brexit Season". The Open Arts Journal (8). ISSN   2050-3679.
  7. ↑ Fagundes, David; Masur, Jonathan S. (2012). "Costly Intellectual Property". Vanderbilt Law Review. 65: 677–736.
  8. ↑ Langford, David; Nicholls, Peter; Brian M., Stableford (2025). "SFE: Psi Powers". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Retrieved 2025-10-13.
  9. ↑ "Male Supremacy : Rita Gross and Hsiao-Lan Hu's Buddhist Feminism". Taylor & Francis. 2023-10-26. doi:10.4324/9781003406181-7/male-supremacy-james-rowe. Archived from the original on 2025-04-16.
  10. ↑ Golby, Jim (2018-05-01). "The Jedi and the Senate". In Brooks, Max; Amble, John; Cavanaugh, ML; Gates, Jaym (eds.). Strategy Strikes Back: How Star Wars Explains Modern Military Conflict. U of Nebraska Press. ISBN   978-1-64012-081-5.
  11. ↑ Falat, Michael (2021-02-13). "Star Wars Revealed How Dangerous The Jedi Mind Trick Really Is". ScreenRant. Retrieved 2025-10-13.
  12. ↑ Hohenstatt, Ben (2024-07-16). "Queens of the Stone Age - "Queens of the Stone Age" (Reissue) | Album Review". POST-TRASH. Retrieved 2025-10-13.
  13. ↑ Studarus, Laura. "Watch: Neko Case and Kelly Hogan – "These Aren't the Droids" Video". Under the Radar Magazine. Retrieved 2025-10-13.
  14. ↑ "Meet the New Mitt Romney, the Anti-Insider Populist (Published 2008)". 2008-02-05. Retrieved 2025-10-13.
  15. ↑ "House" A Pox on Our House (TV Episode 2010) - Quotes - IMDb . Retrieved 2025-10-13– via www.imdb.com.
  16. 1 2 Lawler, Kelly. "5 famous 'Star Wars' references, explained". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2025-10-13.
  17. 1 2 Adelakun, Abimbola; Falola, Toyin (2018-07-26). Art, Creativity, and Politics in Africa and the Diaspora. Springer. p. 237. ISBN   978-3-319-91310-0.
  18. ↑ Yeku, James (2018), Adelakun, Abimbola; Falola, Toyin (eds.), "The Hashtag as Archive: Internet Memes and Nigeria's Social Media Election", Art, Creativity, and Politics in Africa and the Diaspora, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 217–245, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-91310-0_11, ISBN   978-3-319-91310-0 , retrieved 2025-10-13
  19. ↑ Handke, Tobias (2018-06-09). "Battle Of Star Wars: 25 Prequel Vs. Original Memes That Make Fans Choose". TheGamer. Retrieved 2025-10-13.
  20. ↑ "these are not the X you're looking for". The Snowclones Database. 2008-03-05. Retrieved 2025-10-13.
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