‘We Don’t Serve Their Kind Here’

Friday, 24 April 2026

George Lucas got so many nuances right in Star Wars. Little touches that said so much. One of the most overlooked is a moment that I vividly remember from first seeing it, on the big screen, as a kindergartener or thereabouts. It’s during the scene where Luke enters the Mos Eisley cantina. We still haven’t met Han Solo and Chewbacca. And while we’ve seen space ships and droids, stormtroopers and Darth Vader, Jawas and Tusken Raiders, every character we’ve seen in the flesh is a human. And then, boom, 45 minutes into the movie, we enter the cantina, and the joint is absolutely lousy with dozens of wild and wildly different aliens — including the band playing that iconic jaunty song. We suddenly learn just how diverse the galaxy really is. It’s one of the best and most memorable scenes in movie history.

The moment I’m talking about is when Luke enters with C-3PO and R2-D2, and the frighteningly gruff bartender barks at him:

                     BARTENDER
         We don't serve their kind here!

Luke, still recovering from the shock of seeing so many 
outlandish creatures, doesn't quite catch the bartender's 
drift.

                     LUKE
         What?

                     BARTENDER
         Your droids. They'll have to wait 
         outside. We don't want them here.

Luke looks at old Ben, who is busy talking to one of the 
Galactic pirates. He notices several of the gruesome
creatures along the bar are giving him a very unfriendly
glare.

Luke pats Threepio on the shoulder.

                     LUKE
         Listen, why don't you wait out by 
         the speeder. We don't want any 
         trouble.

                     THREEPIO
         I heartily agree with you sir.

As a kid, I didn’t get it. Why would you not want droids? Star Wars made robots seem so real, so fun. Why would you ban them? That scene has stuck with me for my entire life. I didn’t get why, but I understood what it meant about that galaxy: the underclass deeply resented droids. The bartender’s attitude wasn’t “Hey kid, I’m sorry, but rules are rules and they’re not permitted.” His attitude was “Get those fucking things out of here.”

I think about this scene more and more lately.