Deborah Chow Confirms 4-LOM Isn’t In 'Kenobi'

Yesterday Deborah Chow, Director of Obi-Wan Kenobi, the highly anticipated Disney+ series dropping later this month, spoke to Uproxx about the series. During the interview, she clarified the appearance of a droid that bears a striking resemblance to 4-LOM, the droid bounty hunter briefly featured in Empire. Sadly for fans of the droid bounty hunter, it appears that it isn't 4-LOM in the trailer, but instead a new droid; 1-JAC. In the trailer we see the droid taking shots at Obi-Wan on a rooftop in a city we have never seen before.

For the unaware, 4-LOM was a protocol droid turned bounty hunter by way of overriding his programming to allow him to overcome his lack of subroutines for combat. After he rewired himself, 4-LOM became a renowned galactic thief before becoming a bounty hunter. Since he had been a criminal prior, he was very adept at anticipating his prey's moves before the made them, a useful skill to bring in those big bounties. He was know to work with findsman Zuckuss and, fun fact, when 4-LOM got his own toy it was labelled as Zuckuss and vice-versa by Kenner Toys.

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Although in the films 4-LOM has a small part, he has more backstory in the Extended Universe. One of the most notable events in his story is that he once fought Boba Fett on the moon of Nar Shaddaa. After he was dispatched to hunt Han Solo, 4-LOM and Zuckuss planted a thermal detonator on Boba Fett's starship. Zuckuss walked up and confronted the bounty hunter, asking if he had stashed Solo on his ship, 4-LOM in the meantime was waiting behind Boba and forced Fett to drop his weapons at blaster point. However, Fett is always ready with a backup and remotely activated his ships blaster cannons and 4-LOM was blown in half and Boba fitted his head with a restraining bolt before taking it to Tatooine to dispose of.

Although fans of 4-LOM need not despair entirely. It appears that 1-JAC is the same sort of protocol droid as 4-LOM meaning that we may see more interesting stories revolving around a droid changing it's programming. An idea that was first presented in Disney's Canon by Kuill, an Ugnaught who reprogrammed an IG-series assassin droid to be nurturing. Kuill believes that any droid can be reprogramed and learn a different way. Fans see this first happen when the IG unit sacrifices itself to keep Grogu out of the hands of the Empire in the Season One finale of The Mandalorian.

Perhaps 1-JAC's story will be the opposite side of this coin. The thought that not only could an assassin droid be reprogramed to be nurturing but that a protocol droid could be violent would be an interesting idea to explore. Disney seems to be heading in the direction of recognizing that droids are more than workers, that they are in fact closer to human than we might like to admit. Droid's in the current era of Star Wars are capable of changing who they are, maybe even what they believe in. And it is in part due to 4-LOM the droid who broke his programming all those years ago.

For now, Chow says we will have to wait to find out more about 1-JAC and the part he plays in Kenobi. She was very sparse on the details around the show, keeping pace with the wait-and-see approach that Lucasfilm has taken in regards to divulging information on upcoming projects, although she did admit that the design is very similar to 4-LOM. It seems that for now we will have to wait another week for any chance at more details around 1-JAC and his role in Obi-Wan Kenobi premiering with two episodes on May 27th.

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Written by James E. Cockrum

Source(s): Uproxx

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