h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The C3PO robot, from Star Wars, is based on Marvin, the robot from h2g2!

Well, I just glanced at the copyright info in my copy of The Guide, and it seems that The Guide was copyrighted in 1980, whereas A New Hope was released in 1977, three years earlier. Unless there's some time-travel tomfoolery involved, I doubt that C3PO and Marvin bear any relation. C3PO is more whiny than depressed, anyway.

Oh well, I've just heared it from some newspaper article or something...

C-3PO was in fact based on George's own Mother and his name was derived from the post office California 3 Post Office.

Really?! How do you know that?

I know simply because one, I watched George's biography and two, I can't remember two. The particular biography was on A&E if you want to watch it.

Looking at early production materials, C3PO's appearance seems to have been inspired by the female robot in Metropolis.

As for his mannerisms and voice, various quotes attributed to Lucas and Anthony Daniels have stated that the original intention was to overdub Daniels' prissy and fussy characteristion in post production so that C3PO sounded like a used car salesman, but they found that nothing else fitted as well as Daniels' portrayal, so he was brought back in to re-record his lines.

I suspect this newspaper article might have got this the wrong way round - Marvin was a reaction to Star Wars, not an inspiration for it (especially as, back then, it's unlikely Lucas was listening to BBC Radio 4).