In Star Wars: The Force Awakens, was BB-8's flaming gesture to Finn a thumbs up or a flip off? Was he a white and gold droid or a blue and black droid? You decide.
BB-8's gesture to Finn
- Thread starter Matthew Raymond
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Wrong forum, dude. Try here: Star Wars Forum.
Do I just repost there then?
Ask a mod to move your thread.
Praise be to the thread moving gods! 
I assumed it to be a thumbs up. Disney's not going to have a hero character flip the bird to another hero.
It's all about plausible deniability, my friend. If they can say "The bird?!! No, that was...uh...a thumbs up!", then they got away with it.
BB-8 was returning Finn's thumbs-up.
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Yeah, there's no real question about it. Given BB-8's personality and the context of the scene after having backed up Finn, it was clearly a thumbs-up.
What reason would BB-8 have had to flip Finn off, anyway?
BB-8 secretly led the racist internet backlash against there being a black Stormtrooper.
Oh, that clips been doctored. Here's the whole seen, and it's not nearly as friendly:
That changes absolutely nothing. The clear implication is that BB-8 is returning Finn's thumbs-up in recognition of the agreement they just came to. It makes no sense for him to suddenly flip him the bird when they've just made a pact to help each other.
What pact? Finn put BB-8 on the spot and roped him into helping him deceive Rey. BB-8 is supposed to keep the location of the base secret, but he need Finn and Rey to get back, and the last thing he needs is for the two of them to be fighting while the First Order is on their tail. So he caves and gives up the location. But he sure as heck isn't happy about it. Hence the flame.
So what about that thumbs up moment? Unfortunately, the "real" BB-8 doesn't have a lighter stowed away inside of him -- but he was certainly there on set that day, and everything but the lighter is real.
"I think the reaction that BB-8 has to Finn would have been a practical effect that we shot on the Milennium Falcon, but the reaction to the thumbs up is something that definitely came later in the day," Scanlan said.
"That thumbs up moment is exactly that," confirmed Guyett. "I think it’s a real BB-8 and then we inserted a CG panel and its arm that came out. So all of his tools, if you like, when he fires his wires and he does that stuff, that’s sort of digital CG."
It was also a lot harder to design BB-8's lighter than you'd think.
"We did several different prototype ideas of what that could look like, and we had various amounts of metal and plastic on there," added Patrick Tubach, another ILM visual effects supervisor for the film. "One of the difficult things with animating something like that is you have to be very careful that it doesn’t look like he’s giving you some other sort of gesture! We moved all the pieces around to make sure it was very clearly a thumbs up over any other kind of 'salute.'"
http://www.mtv.com/news/2727582/bb-8-thumbs-up-star-wars/
"I think the reaction that BB-8 has to Finn would have been a practical effect that we shot on the Milennium Falcon, but the reaction to the thumbs up is something that definitely came later in the day," Scanlan said.
"That thumbs up moment is exactly that," confirmed Guyett. "I think it’s a real BB-8 and then we inserted a CG panel and its arm that came out. So all of his tools, if you like, when he fires his wires and he does that stuff, that’s sort of digital CG."
It was also a lot harder to design BB-8's lighter than you'd think.
"We did several different prototype ideas of what that could look like, and we had various amounts of metal and plastic on there," added Patrick Tubach, another ILM visual effects supervisor for the film. "One of the difficult things with animating something like that is you have to be very careful that it doesn’t look like he’s giving you some other sort of gesture! We moved all the pieces around to make sure it was very clearly a thumbs up over any other kind of 'salute.'"
http://www.mtv.com/news/2727582/bb-8-thumbs-up-star-wars/
Now had it been Chopper on the other hand...
Chopper just does the "I am crushing your head" gesture over and over again.
Being open to interpretation is the point. That's why it doesn't actually look like a hand. The gesture is so abstract that you can basically read into it whatever you want. Then, if someone who worked on the film is asked about it in an interview, they can just say "it's a thumbs up". Doesn't mean it is, just means that it's the only answer they can give as Disney employees.
No, the point was clearly demonstrated in the quote earlier in the thread. Misinterpretting it was exactly what they were trying to avoid. But it's easy to ignore that when you, you know, flat-out ignore it.
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