Chopper — unit designation C1-10P — is the astromech of the freighter Ghost and a founding member of the crew that becomes the Phoenix Cell of the Rebel Alliance. He debuts in Star Wars Rebels (2014) and is voiced by the series' co-creator Dave Filoni.
The anti-R2
The design brief is legible from the first shot: where R2-D2 is loyal, competent and heroic, Chopper is spiteful, lazy and held together with mismatched salvage. He shoves people down elevator shafts. He unplugs life support to win arguments. The show is explicit that the crew keep him because he is theirs, not because he is good.
Older than the Rebellion
Rebels establishes that Chopper served in the Clone Wars aboard a Republic Y-wing flown by Hera Syndulla's future crewmate, and that Hera found and rebuilt him on Ryloth. The salvage aesthetic is a biography: almost none of his parts are original, and neither is his temperament.
What he actually does
Slicing, mostly, and the flying the pilots cannot. Over four seasons he steals Imperial codes, hijacks a Star Destroyer's systems, survives being restrained and interrogated by AP-5's superiors, and is the one who gets the fleet its coordinates more than once. The series' comic timing depends on the gap between how much he helps and how little he wants to.
Chopper and AP-5
His friendship with the analyst droid AP-5 — a lugubrious, put-upon inventory unit with a beautiful speaking voice — is one of the best running relationships in the show, and the only one in which Chopper is the more agreeable party.
The cameo
A C1-series astromech matching Chopper appears on the Yavin 4 hangar floor in Rogue One (2016), which places him at the battle that immediately precedes A New Hope. He returns in Ahsoka (2023), still aboard the Ghost, still unimpressed.
Continuity
Canon. There is no Legends version — Chopper was created after the 2014 continuity reset.
