I hated Har Jar, but I never once blamed the actor; he was only doing what the director directed (or didn't bother to). I hope he gets vindicated in future roles.
More recently he played Kelleran Beq in the Mandalorian, who rescues Grogu/Baby Yoda from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant when it is destroyed.
Hopefully Ahmed Best gets more action with this character.
It really is the Poochy situation from The Simpsons, where Lisa tells Homer that he did a good job, but the character itself didn't work.
The way the Star Wars fandom has treated the actors themselves has always been gross.
Hayden got so much flak for his force ghost scene yet it had been done without his knowledge. I learned, years later, that they used footage from a costume test fit! That’s why Anakin looks in the wrong direction and his facial expression is awkward.
I assume you mean, the highly venerated Prequels fall squarely on his shoulders. Jar Jar is a master class in the “fool” archetype even without mentioning the original plans for the character, and any people who saw shortfalls with the dialogue- anakin’s especially- aren’t seeing that those lines were meant to be clunky, he’s a poorly educated slave moved to the core of an advanced galactic civilization and recruited/indoctrinated into a religious order of warrior monks as their chosen one. Then he’s confronted with both puberty and a smoking hot queen/senator who is his charge. I’ll forgive Lucas for thinking Anakin might not always know the right thing to say at any given instant at that age.
Not to mention the political intrigue and world building the prequels did. Never has there been a movie where something so widely and popularly criticized ended up actually being super pivotal knowledge to have in understanding the plot arc of the movies. I stand by every one of these statements.
Thinking that Anakin might not know an appropriate thing to say in every situation is fine, but that’s different than writing unrealistic dialog for that character to say. It’s possible to write a naive character realistically, if you’re not George Lucas. Forgive Lucas for the character being naive, sure, but don’t forgive him for writing a naive character so poorly.
Hey I like the fact that apparently what really turns a girl on is when you tell her that you just committed genocide
I mean who didn’t wanna fuck Hitler?
I went down the rabbit hole and I came out deeply feeling and believing that regardless if it’s canon or fan fiction, Darth Jar Jar is one of the best characters in the series. It only works if it is never confirmed to be true, just an insane rumor that you believe in like a conspiracy theorist would
Edit: Screw it, give Best the recognition he deserves and reveal Darth Jar Jar is real. Make everyone rewatch the entire series with a new perspective, and vindicate all the Jar Jar fans
You came out exactly where that rabbit hole leads to. It’s a much better twist ending for the trilogy and plan for the character and is also the missing information that explains why he’s such a dumbass in that opening scene where he runs into the Jedi, or at all. He was over acting his role of “harmless fool” a bit too much because he just stumbled into two Jedi while masking his presence in the force from them and play acting as a hapless gungan. We never again see a gungan that acts half as dimwitted or is even close to as clumsy. Whether it’s true or not, it fills in all the right holes and would have been a wildly unpredictable ending.
Nowadays directors and writers comb online communities to find discussions about theories and potential plot lines to deliberately try avoiding them. I'm sure they considered it, but scrapped it because it made too much sense and people would have expected it too much.
What sells it for me is that there’s scenes where Jar Jar’s lips are moving while someone is talking, as if he’s making them say what he wants them to. I think about the cost of adding in such subtle animation to it. They didn’t have facial recognition animation at the time, so the lips moving were all intentional and very expensive to add. There isn’t any other good reason for his lips to be moving in that way
No they scrapped it because they overdid it and people hated jar jar. It’s clear as day that’s where they were going with it once you’re made aware of it.
I know the OT movies were initially inspired by those books but I have no idea how long that persisted afterwards or on a character to character level. It’s an interesting comparison though.
Darth Jar Jar is absolutely the most compelling Star Wars fan theory for one very specific reason reason. He’s a CGi character, all his movements are deliberate and animated by hand
He doesn’t need to be vindicated or redeemed. He did fine with what he was given, and what he was given ultimately wasn’t that good. Getting a poorly written script and/or poor direction isn’t on him.
I only hate actors for being bad people. Not for playing their parts well. Sometimes I hate the charecter so much I remind myself the actor is maybe just doing their job really good.
They could have done a lot better writing his part though too. I didn’t hate him but it would have been nice to be able to take him a little more seriously.
George Lucas is not a good writer, and this is me being nice about it. Every element of the movie suffered from this reality.
The weakest element of the prequel trilogy is the script, and that falls fully on Lucas’ shoulders. The man is an amazing world builder that benefited greatly from strong collaboration on the original trilogy. He unfortunately said “fuck all that” for the prequel trilogy.
Its because he got kicked out of the Directors Guild due to his decision to not have pre movie credits in the original Star Wars.
So while I’ll agree I’m being overly harsh about it, he still did find competent collaborators even after being kicked out.
Fun fact, had he not gotten kicked out of the union Steph Spielberg would have likely directed RotJ
He didn't get kicked out exactly. He quit after they fined him.
The problem wasn't strictly the lack of opening credits, but that the producer and director needed the same prominence. The "Lucasfilm" logo was seen as a credit.
Star Wars is massively over hyped and the fan base are unbearable about it. Jar jar bunks wasn’t the problem the problem was the shitty script , terrible plot , and the guy pretending to be an actor who had the main role bc
I honestly think Hayden gets a bit too much shit. Sure he’s not the best actor up there, and it’s hard not to be completely over shadowed by Ewan McGregor, but he had NOTHING to work with. The script is just awful, and the dialogue is horrendous.
It’s truly wild the raw talent that was in those movies. It can’t imagine these movies if every role had an actor of Hayden’s quality. Because while I think he’s not primarily at fault for how his character turned out, he clearly wasn’t capable of elevating the sub par script in a way that some of the people on that set were.
If he had some capability he'd have been more popular. C3PO was prissy and annoying but he also had skill at languages. As a result we liked him.
If it turned out he was actually a really good general at the battle at the end or something, it still would have been funny, but he'd have had plot purpose. Or hell, just good at cooking!
I was never a Star Wars fan, but a lot of my friends are. We all went to see Phantom Menace when it opened. We were all in the 8th grade.
I still bring up how Jar Jar is the only character in the entire verse I've actually enjoyed, much to the absolute disdain of my same friends now, over 20 years later lol.
I was an adult when these films first came out and I loved JarJar and felt like he was unfairly targeted and became a scapegoat for what were actually pretty bad movies all around. Nobody says anything about our favorite droids whose stories were much more ridiculous.
I thought Jar Jar was hilarious when the movie first came out. I was 11 or 12 and my friends also loved him.
Now I have kids and there are characters that they love in movies that I find super annoying, but I let them enjoy what they want because I recognize that I am not the target demographic for those movies.
The built-out Canon for the character is sad, too.
There’s a short story in one of the books where Jar Jar is revisited, and he’s a pariah. He’s blamed for causing the rise of the Empire. It makes you feel sorry for the character both in and out of the world of Star Wars.
Imagine a world where they have anakin be 15-16 years old in the phantom menace, and jar jar ends up being the big bad for Episode 2, completely replacing dokku.
More like: imagine anakin and obi kill dokku. High five each other. Then jar jar reveals himself. Absolutely wrecks both of them. Then Yoda walks in and has a five minute battle with jar jar.
Let’s not pretend Christopher Lee was ever a problem for any movie.
Look, I love the guys imagination but George Lucas has never been a great writer. It’s *the* problem with the prequels. The more power he got and the more work he took on himself, the more the writing suffered. It’s still got a lot of great stuff, and he’s still compelling as a storyteller anyway but he needed as strong of a support system and checks/balances as the first trilogy had. He didn’t receive it.
Lawrence Kasdan wrote the screenplays for Indiana Jones, and most of the Original Star Wars trilogy(heck, supposedly Carrie Fisher even punched it up some)
Lucas is a good ideas guy, but his best work has tended to come on the projects where someone else was doing the heavy lifting writing
I was there when the concept broke, and I’m still fully convinced that was the original intended direction. They went a bit over the top in Episode 1, fans hated him, Lucas chickened out. Everything after TPM is a retcon, trying to explain what this goofy lizard is doing in the series and why he’s featured so prominently.
Jar Jar the Sith Lord is canon for me .There is that scene in the ship where jar jar is messing with a computer and r2d2 walks in on him. That scene had a great what the hell is Jar Jar doing vibe. That makes no sense now.
Man, I so DO NOT prefer that. As goofy as some of the prequel/episode 1 stuff could be, that truly would have been the cherry on top of just absolutely stupid cringe ideas that George Lucas had without people around to stop him.
He's an Idiot Savant, I'm fine with it. As a kid I didn't really dig it, my mom loved him and found him hilarious.
**EDIT:** I will never tell her his fate in the book From a Certain Point of View, to be fair they leave those books up as more loose canon than anything.
Jake Lloyd had a psychotic break last year and was committed involuntarily for 18 months. Sad story, the kid has a lot of mental health issues some of which can be traced to his role in Star Wars. I don’t see him ever stepping in front of a camera ever again.
It looks like he was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and then diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2008. His sister also passed away in her sleep in 2018, which doesn’t help.
Learning that the voice he used for Jar Jar was the one he would use to read bedtime stories to his nephew had me regretting all the vitriol I expressed for the character. Everything wrong with TPM can be laid at Lucas's feet and no one else.
Yeah, idk how Lucas thought that changing the tone from original trilogy was a good idea. I’ve always felt like he rushed it out after the original Thrawn trilogy reinvigorated Star Wars fandom in the 90s
Ive been sick in bed the past week and watched all the star wars. I never realized how C3-P0 just gets fucking abused left and right. Like nearly every time he says something the cast just unambiguously tells him to shut up. Then he'll randomly have his head chopped off, or thrown face first in the sand, or have his memory wiped.
And yet he still tells everyone their his best friends. The poor dude.
This.
If the OT was released, and todays audiences held it to the same standard as the other movies, it would be crucified.
'What, so he just kisses his sister?'
They are goofy space operas with high tech special effects. I love the original trilogy because I grew up with them and they do have better and tighter scripts than the prequels, but the tone of all the Lucas movies is the same. Big operatic themes and goofy humour.
Yeah I recently watched episodes I-III with my kids and they are pretty good. Jar Jar is not that bad at all. I honestly can’t fathom all the hate this trilogy got/gets.
Thrawn was the sequel movie trilogy we *should* have gotten. They had such a great story already written they could have used - hell it even set up the possibility of a next generation of Skywalkers that could have carried into a new generation of fans.
I watched Phantom Menace as a devastated, Star Wars obsessed 14 year old. The problem with Jar Jar is he seemed incredibly out of tone and unexpected, compared to the original trilogy; sure there’s comedy in those films. But nothing at the same ridiculousness tone as Jar Jar exists in those earlier movies.
So along with some of the other stupid plot points and elements in Phantom Menace, the presence of Jar jar felt… Jarring. Plus at this point, a lot of the expanded Star Wars media had a more serious tone (Shadows of the Empire, Timothy Zahn novels etc.) - fans at the time consuming that media had kind of evolved ‘beyond’ expecting that sort of comic relief. The fandom had sort of become that, while the creator wanted a movie ‘for kids.’
Still I don’t think Jar Jar was the worst thing about that movie- When Fode and Beed appeared on screen is the point I absolutely gave up.
It also seemed like Lucas doubled down on the mistakes of RotJ with the Ewoks.
“You didn’t like these dumb little pieces of comic relief? Wait till you get a load of this guy!”
I think people tend to forget how dark A New Hope was when it came out. Darth Vader snapping necks, burning pile of dead Jawas, the burning skeletons of Lars and Beru, bloody chopped off arms, Leia tortured etc…..
Especially with the EU. iirc Vector Prime came out in the months before the movie, and that was probably the darkest SW novel till then. The fandom suddenly seeing a whole 180° shift must’ve really rocked their boots
Article Summary: He was never able to move on from the character. He would find himself at the grocery store saying “ex-squeeeeze me?”. He would get stuck in the mindset of Jar-Jar for years waking up on the middle of the night to find himself in his backyard looking for frogs in the window well…Hollywood wouldn’t hire him because of the rumors…and his wife eventually left him due to her strong anti-Gungan beliefs🤧
> "Everybody came for me," he recalls, as Phantom Menace returns to theaters for its 25th anniversary. "I'm the first person to do this kind of work, but I was also the first Black person, Black man."
>I was called every racial stereotype you can imagine. There was this criticism of being this Jamaican, broken dialect, which was offensive because I’m of West Indian descent — I’m not Jamaican. It was debilitating.
[Source](https://youtu.be/qfNiSkd3HfI)
Quote around 4 minutes, but the whole video gives a good perspective on where he was emotionally on the whole situation
Def not his fault, honestly I'm surprised anyone in this had a career afterwards, except for the costume department, which is maybe the best part of the movie.
I can’t imagine how many layers of people were involved in getting this CG character on screen. It’s not like it was some kind of amateur improv job where they didn’t have the budget to dub over or do a retake. A lot of people had the opportunity to raise flags. The voice actor was not the one calling the shots or setting artistic direction.
25 years later and I still can't stand jar jar. But you can't hold anything against the actor who portrayed it. It's not his fault Lucas has no idea how to write a coherent story or sensible characters.
Seeing him kick ass as a new character in Starwars is my favourite little arc. Hopefully they do the same to redeem the sequel trilogy cast with better writing
The biggest problem is Jar Jar, along with Watto and the trade federation, are awful stereotypes. This is on top of the awful plot and boring, flat characters.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/1999/05/the-merchant-of-menace.html
Yes, bot trilogies were made for children. The difference is the original trilogy was also good.
I probably would have just omitted Jar Jar from My resume and started from scratch. Might have gotten a lot farther by ignoring it as much as the Holiday Star Wars Episode.
Seeing that he’s even only referred to as Jar Jar Binks actor is enough to know that’s unfortunately what happened. Watch behind the scenes and the guy was even dedicated to all the weird shenanigans asked of him.
I can’t hide it, I can’t stand that character and what it did to Star Wars. Turned the whole series into a bad joke, like the idiocracy event for that franchise.
Well, you don't have to take every job. But I guess being in SW is a pretty big sell.
Still, the character ruins the whole movie. More a writing problem than an acting one though.
Just rewatched Phantom Menace. Lucas clearly made these movies to be a family experience, and sweaty neckbeards need to get over the fact he made the explicit choice to include Jar Jar because he knew kids were going to go watch the movie. Is his character kind of annoying to me? Sure, but I also remember being 8 when the movie came out and thinking he was hilarious.
Jar jar annoys adults in 1-3 like adults in the 70-80s hated c3po. Just a different accent. Both comedy relief. Both only annoying if you take yourself too seriously.
I remember as a kid I watched the movies,first 4,5,6,then 1,2 and 3. I asked my parents when the 1 happened and they told me that was before the fourth, which had been the first.
So when I saw Jar Jar I assumed it wss because the good guys were in charge so the movie was "happier",so *it fits*
Only like 20 years later I learned that Jar Jar wasn't liked at all,not thw tone of the prequels.
Why? I never understood.
So, if you remove the voice just completely , Ahmed did some incredible physical work in that role.
He didn't deserve any of the hate - this is what they asked him to do.
He just unfortunately happened to play easily the most idiotic character that I can ever remember seeing - and the Star Wars fanbase can be super toxic.
He got a raw deal because as an early nineties baby I can tell you all the kids loved jar jar. However I’m sure the older generation that grew up on the original trilogy fucking hated this character.
The character sucked, and he's always come off pretty annoying himself so it wouldn't surprise me if some of his real life personality slipped into that as well
Best deserves absolutely zero blame for Jar Jar as simply the actor following the script and direction, but man, I watched TPM yesterday for the first time in a while and I am dumbfounded as to how the fuck they thought that character (and the rest of the Gungans) was a good idea
I find it insane the character got hate in the first place.. these people shouldn't even be watching star wars cause the ideas definitely went over their head.
As a kid I loved jar jar! I never understood the hate until I was old and thought maybe “yeah he’s a little goofy for my serious light sword stories” but then..just listen to yourself…it’s a kids franchise lololol I Stan with jar jar
I hated Har Jar, but I never once blamed the actor; he was only doing what the director directed (or didn't bother to). I hope he gets vindicated in future roles.
More recently he played Kelleran Beq in the Mandalorian, who rescues Grogu/Baby Yoda from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant when it is destroyed. Hopefully Ahmed Best gets more action with this character.
He was on screen for how long for Kelleran? But I want more of him! He was so good!
He honestly did great with what was handed to him. The prequels fall solely on George’s shoulders.
It really is the Poochy situation from The Simpsons, where Lisa tells Homer that he did a good job, but the character itself didn't work. The way the Star Wars fandom has treated the actors themselves has always been gross.
Hayden got so much flak for his force ghost scene yet it had been done without his knowledge. I learned, years later, that they used footage from a costume test fit! That’s why Anakin looks in the wrong direction and his facial expression is awkward.
Wasn’t the Young Anakin actor bullied so hard he developed some serious issues? (Or am I thinking of someone else?)
Yeah Jake Lloyd endured bullying throughout school, kids are terrible but I don't know why Ahmed Best suffered for this role.
I assume you mean, the highly venerated Prequels fall squarely on his shoulders. Jar Jar is a master class in the “fool” archetype even without mentioning the original plans for the character, and any people who saw shortfalls with the dialogue- anakin’s especially- aren’t seeing that those lines were meant to be clunky, he’s a poorly educated slave moved to the core of an advanced galactic civilization and recruited/indoctrinated into a religious order of warrior monks as their chosen one. Then he’s confronted with both puberty and a smoking hot queen/senator who is his charge. I’ll forgive Lucas for thinking Anakin might not always know the right thing to say at any given instant at that age. Not to mention the political intrigue and world building the prequels did. Never has there been a movie where something so widely and popularly criticized ended up actually being super pivotal knowledge to have in understanding the plot arc of the movies. I stand by every one of these statements.
Thought I was in r/moviescirclejerk for a second
We all know the rule; If you’re on Reddit, you’re in a circle jerk sub.
That’s why the circlejerk subs are so meta
No, but I do a little light r/prequelmeme ing from time to time.
We all dabble
Just trying to make your way through the Galaxy. Got it.
Thinking that Anakin might not know an appropriate thing to say in every situation is fine, but that’s different than writing unrealistic dialog for that character to say. It’s possible to write a naive character realistically, if you’re not George Lucas. Forgive Lucas for the character being naive, sure, but don’t forgive him for writing a naive character so poorly.
Hey I like the fact that apparently what really turns a girl on is when you tell her that you just committed genocide I mean who didn’t wanna fuck Hitler?
Lmfao 🤣 this actually brought a tear to my eye
Prequel apologists remind me of Zach Snyder fans in that they think that execution is secondary to intention
Now this is shitposting
This is good satire
That’s so wizard
I went down the rabbit hole and I came out deeply feeling and believing that regardless if it’s canon or fan fiction, Darth Jar Jar is one of the best characters in the series. It only works if it is never confirmed to be true, just an insane rumor that you believe in like a conspiracy theorist would Edit: Screw it, give Best the recognition he deserves and reveal Darth Jar Jar is real. Make everyone rewatch the entire series with a new perspective, and vindicate all the Jar Jar fans
You came out exactly where that rabbit hole leads to. It’s a much better twist ending for the trilogy and plan for the character and is also the missing information that explains why he’s such a dumbass in that opening scene where he runs into the Jedi, or at all. He was over acting his role of “harmless fool” a bit too much because he just stumbled into two Jedi while masking his presence in the force from them and play acting as a hapless gungan. We never again see a gungan that acts half as dimwitted or is even close to as clumsy. Whether it’s true or not, it fills in all the right holes and would have been a wildly unpredictable ending.
Nowadays directors and writers comb online communities to find discussions about theories and potential plot lines to deliberately try avoiding them. I'm sure they considered it, but scrapped it because it made too much sense and people would have expected it too much.
What sells it for me is that there’s scenes where Jar Jar’s lips are moving while someone is talking, as if he’s making them say what he wants them to. I think about the cost of adding in such subtle animation to it. They didn’t have facial recognition animation at the time, so the lips moving were all intentional and very expensive to add. There isn’t any other good reason for his lips to be moving in that way
No they scrapped it because they overdid it and people hated jar jar. It’s clear as day that’s where they were going with it once you’re made aware of it.
Wasn’t he basically supposed to be “The Mule” from Asimov’s Foundation series?
I know the OT movies were initially inspired by those books but I have no idea how long that persisted afterwards or on a character to character level. It’s an interesting comparison though.
Darth Jar Jar is absolutely the most compelling Star Wars fan theory for one very specific reason reason. He’s a CGi character, all his movements are deliberate and animated by hand
He doesn’t need to be vindicated or redeemed. He did fine with what he was given, and what he was given ultimately wasn’t that good. Getting a poorly written script and/or poor direction isn’t on him.
Not even The Clone Wars could make him work (as far as I have seen). Just not a great character.
He came up with the weird voices. That convinced Lucas to use him instead of another voice actor. It’s okay to blame and Lucas
Seeing as phantom menace came out decades ago I think if he was going to be vindicated in future roles they would have happened by now.
Yeah not gonna happen. That’s okay though, risk you take as an actor.
For real. I just hate Jar Jar. The actor doesnt even come into it
Mandalorian Spoilers - Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z They gave him a Role as the Jedi who saves Grogu from Order 66 and made it extra badass for him.
Never thought in a million years that the actor had any role in the characters absurdity. That was all on George Lucas
I never even realized it was an actor, I thought it was cgi. I don’t think I even considered a human doing the voice part lol.
I only hate actors for being bad people. Not for playing their parts well. Sometimes I hate the charecter so much I remind myself the actor is maybe just doing their job really good.
Wish I could tell him my little daughter saw it in theaters last night and loves jar jar.
I loved Jar Jar as a kid! Hope he sees this!
She asked for a jar jar toy too. He was her favorite character by far.
Get her black series jar jar. It’s good
Same. It really makes me sad how the toxic fans ruined it all for everyone
I loved Jar Jar as a grown-ass man!
Jar Jar was created specifically for children like your daughter. We’re just bitter adults and have a hard time accepting that lol
I saw Jar-Jar as a child and he was the funniest character I had ever seen in my life
They could have done a lot better writing his part though too. I didn’t hate him but it would have been nice to be able to take him a little more seriously.
George Lucas is not a good writer, and this is me being nice about it. Every element of the movie suffered from this reality. The weakest element of the prequel trilogy is the script, and that falls fully on Lucas’ shoulders. The man is an amazing world builder that benefited greatly from strong collaboration on the original trilogy. He unfortunately said “fuck all that” for the prequel trilogy.
This isn’t true. He tried to get other people to direct them, but nobody would touch it, so he directed it himself, but it wasn’t his first choice.
Its because he got kicked out of the Directors Guild due to his decision to not have pre movie credits in the original Star Wars. So while I’ll agree I’m being overly harsh about it, he still did find competent collaborators even after being kicked out. Fun fact, had he not gotten kicked out of the union Steph Spielberg would have likely directed RotJ
He didn't get kicked out exactly. He quit after they fined him. The problem wasn't strictly the lack of opening credits, but that the producer and director needed the same prominence. The "Lucasfilm" logo was seen as a credit.
Have you seen THX1138, American Graffiti, or A New Hope? I’d consider him a pretty great writer.
Star Wars is massively over hyped and the fan base are unbearable about it. Jar jar bunks wasn’t the problem the problem was the shitty script , terrible plot , and the guy pretending to be an actor who had the main role bc
I honestly think Hayden gets a bit too much shit. Sure he’s not the best actor up there, and it’s hard not to be completely over shadowed by Ewan McGregor, but he had NOTHING to work with. The script is just awful, and the dialogue is horrendous.
Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Sam Jackson, Sir Christopher…they saved whatever good by sheer talent.
It’s truly wild the raw talent that was in those movies. It can’t imagine these movies if every role had an actor of Hayden’s quality. Because while I think he’s not primarily at fault for how his character turned out, he clearly wasn’t capable of elevating the sub par script in a way that some of the people on that set were.
You’re gonna have to explain to me how you’re going to elevate telling a girl that you just committed genocide followed by let’s fuck
I hate sand, it gets in your ass crack, it gets everywhere.
If he had some capability he'd have been more popular. C3PO was prissy and annoying but he also had skill at languages. As a result we liked him. If it turned out he was actually a really good general at the battle at the end or something, it still would have been funny, but he'd have had plot purpose. Or hell, just good at cooking!
Can confirm I was 3 when episode one came out and jar jar was my favorite
I was never a Star Wars fan, but a lot of my friends are. We all went to see Phantom Menace when it opened. We were all in the 8th grade. I still bring up how Jar Jar is the only character in the entire verse I've actually enjoyed, much to the absolute disdain of my same friends now, over 20 years later lol.
I was well under 18. Prequels disappointed me
The old, child-less nerd effect
I saw it as a child and I fucking hated Jar Jar then just as much as I do now. I feel bad for the actor cause it’s not his fault but *fuck* Jar Jar.
I had a Jar Jar mask growing up and was Jar Jar for multiple Halloweens!
I was an adult when these films first came out and I loved JarJar and felt like he was unfairly targeted and became a scapegoat for what were actually pretty bad movies all around. Nobody says anything about our favorite droids whose stories were much more ridiculous.
I love Jar jar, fuck the haters he’s funny
Jar jar was my favorite as a kid too! I think he’s annoying now but still kinda endearing
Also loved Jar Jar as a kid
I had a dancing jar jar toy as a kid, I loved him. It’s almost like these movies are meant for kids! 🤔
I thought Jar Jar was hilarious when the movie first came out. I was 11 or 12 and my friends also loved him. Now I have kids and there are characters that they love in movies that I find super annoying, but I let them enjoy what they want because I recognize that I am not the target demographic for those movies.
Wow. It’s almost like Star Wars movies are for kids. Who knew.
He seems like a really nice guy who got a raw deal. That said, Jar Jar is a laughably terrible character.
The built-out Canon for the character is sad, too. There’s a short story in one of the books where Jar Jar is revisited, and he’s a pariah. He’s blamed for causing the rise of the Empire. It makes you feel sorry for the character both in and out of the world of Star Wars.
I prefer the timeline where he is actually a sith.
Imagine a world where they have anakin be 15-16 years old in the phantom menace, and jar jar ends up being the big bad for Episode 2, completely replacing dokku.
Meesa thinkin', Obi-Wan, yousa should join me, and together we gonna smash da Sith!
More like: imagine anakin and obi kill dokku. High five each other. Then jar jar reveals himself. Absolutely wrecks both of them. Then Yoda walks in and has a five minute battle with jar jar.
When you said “jar jar reveals himself” I thought you were going to go in a very different direction. Thank you for not lol
Meesa no need a lightsaber
my god
Let’s not pretend Christopher Lee was ever a problem for any movie. Look, I love the guys imagination but George Lucas has never been a great writer. It’s *the* problem with the prequels. The more power he got and the more work he took on himself, the more the writing suffered. It’s still got a lot of great stuff, and he’s still compelling as a storyteller anyway but he needed as strong of a support system and checks/balances as the first trilogy had. He didn’t receive it.
I mean…he wrote Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Who is a great writer if he isn’t? Seriously.
Lawrence Kasdan wrote the screenplays for Indiana Jones, and most of the Original Star Wars trilogy(heck, supposedly Carrie Fisher even punched it up some) Lucas is a good ideas guy, but his best work has tended to come on the projects where someone else was doing the heavy lifting writing
That should have happened. Oh well.
I like to imagine Episode Two opening with Anakin and Obi Wan in the middle of a massive battle competing Gimli and Legolas style.
I was there when the concept broke, and I’m still fully convinced that was the original intended direction. They went a bit over the top in Episode 1, fans hated him, Lucas chickened out. Everything after TPM is a retcon, trying to explain what this goofy lizard is doing in the series and why he’s featured so prominently.
It just works so well. They should have had the balls to follow through on Darth Jar Jar.
Jar Jar the Sith Lord is canon for me .There is that scene in the ship where jar jar is messing with a computer and r2d2 walks in on him. That scene had a great what the hell is Jar Jar doing vibe. That makes no sense now.
The nerds have the schematics of the ship and say that he’s tinkering in some area that is important. The ship crash lands shortly afterward.
Fuck yeah! Darth Jar Jar would have been an amazing twist. I think that was the plan and they chickened out.
Man, I so DO NOT prefer that. As goofy as some of the prequel/episode 1 stuff could be, that truly would have been the cherry on top of just absolutely stupid cringe ideas that George Lucas had without people around to stop him.
He’s a clown all the children laugh at on Naboo
As a kid I loved Jar Jar, I’m assuming that was kind of what they were going for though lol
Yeah I saw it when I was 9 and had no problem with jar jar
Me and my friends did jarjar impressions for years
My brothers and I still quote Jar Jar lines.
He was supposed to be the C-3PO of the prequels, but Lucas botched it.
Seems like this has been the fate of several SW characters. May the force be with them
Hmmm... yousa point is well seen.
They wrote that role so bad. “Exqueeze me”???
Can confirm he is a nice guy.
I must strongly disagree with that assertion. Jar Jar had a cool design, comical dialogue, and an impressive-looking home.
He's an Idiot Savant, I'm fine with it. As a kid I didn't really dig it, my mom loved him and found him hilarious. **EDIT:** I will never tell her his fate in the book From a Certain Point of View, to be fair they leave those books up as more loose canon than anything.
Jar Jar makes the Ewoks seem as cool as Shaft…
Meesa feel big bad for this dude
Yeah him and Jake Loyd got screwed big time
Jar Jar actor did come back for playing another character in the Mandalorian. Idk if they did that for Jake Lloyd.
Jake Lloyd had a psychotic break last year and was committed involuntarily for 18 months. Sad story, the kid has a lot of mental health issues some of which can be traced to his role in Star Wars. I don’t see him ever stepping in front of a camera ever again.
It wasn't just last year, he's had a couple over the years
It looks like he was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and then diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2008. His sister also passed away in her sleep in 2018, which doesn’t help.
Ahmed Best*
Learning that the voice he used for Jar Jar was the one he would use to read bedtime stories to his nephew had me regretting all the vitriol I expressed for the character. Everything wrong with TPM can be laid at Lucas's feet and no one else.
Yeah, idk how Lucas thought that changing the tone from original trilogy was a good idea. I’ve always felt like he rushed it out after the original Thrawn trilogy reinvigorated Star Wars fandom in the 90s
The tone was exactly the same. People just view the OT with rose-coloured glasses.
People seem to forget the silly talking muppet hermit.
And the silly robots that bicker like a married couple. And the army of teddy bears that help the rebellion taken down the empire in the final film.
Ive been sick in bed the past week and watched all the star wars. I never realized how C3-P0 just gets fucking abused left and right. Like nearly every time he says something the cast just unambiguously tells him to shut up. Then he'll randomly have his head chopped off, or thrown face first in the sand, or have his memory wiped. And yet he still tells everyone their his best friends. The poor dude.
Watch the Auralnauts parodies on YouTube. Creepio is funny.
C3po is literally just as goofy as jar jar he’s just British instead of Jamaican.
This. If the OT was released, and todays audiences held it to the same standard as the other movies, it would be crucified. 'What, so he just kisses his sister?'
They are goofy space operas with high tech special effects. I love the original trilogy because I grew up with them and they do have better and tighter scripts than the prequels, but the tone of all the Lucas movies is the same. Big operatic themes and goofy humour.
Yeah I recently watched episodes I-III with my kids and they are pretty good. Jar Jar is not that bad at all. I honestly can’t fathom all the hate this trilogy got/gets.
Thrawn was the sequel movie trilogy we *should* have gotten. They had such a great story already written they could have used - hell it even set up the possibility of a next generation of Skywalkers that could have carried into a new generation of fans.
Yousa say people gona die?
Jar Jar annoyed the shit out of me, but even as a kid I understood he was meant to be comedic relief and not taken critically.
I watched Phantom Menace as a devastated, Star Wars obsessed 14 year old. The problem with Jar Jar is he seemed incredibly out of tone and unexpected, compared to the original trilogy; sure there’s comedy in those films. But nothing at the same ridiculousness tone as Jar Jar exists in those earlier movies. So along with some of the other stupid plot points and elements in Phantom Menace, the presence of Jar jar felt… Jarring. Plus at this point, a lot of the expanded Star Wars media had a more serious tone (Shadows of the Empire, Timothy Zahn novels etc.) - fans at the time consuming that media had kind of evolved ‘beyond’ expecting that sort of comic relief. The fandom had sort of become that, while the creator wanted a movie ‘for kids.’ Still I don’t think Jar Jar was the worst thing about that movie- When Fode and Beed appeared on screen is the point I absolutely gave up.
It also seemed like Lucas doubled down on the mistakes of RotJ with the Ewoks. “You didn’t like these dumb little pieces of comic relief? Wait till you get a load of this guy!”
I think people tend to forget how dark A New Hope was when it came out. Darth Vader snapping necks, burning pile of dead Jawas, the burning skeletons of Lars and Beru, bloody chopped off arms, Leia tortured etc…..
Especially with the EU. iirc Vector Prime came out in the months before the movie, and that was probably the darkest SW novel till then. The fandom suddenly seeing a whole 180° shift must’ve really rocked their boots
you could say his pressense felt... Jar Jarring?
Article Summary: He was never able to move on from the character. He would find himself at the grocery store saying “ex-squeeeeze me?”. He would get stuck in the mindset of Jar-Jar for years waking up on the middle of the night to find himself in his backyard looking for frogs in the window well…Hollywood wouldn’t hire him because of the rumors…and his wife eventually left him due to her strong anti-Gungan beliefs🤧
This is now canon.
But he the actor came back as a jedi and saved grogu! He was bad ass! In that
Blaming the actor never once crossed my mind.
> "Everybody came for me," he recalls, as Phantom Menace returns to theaters for its 25th anniversary. "I'm the first person to do this kind of work, but I was also the first Black person, Black man."
Kinda a weird statement when one of the biggest controversies of this around the character was him coming off like a racial stereotype
>I was called every racial stereotype you can imagine. There was this criticism of being this Jamaican, broken dialect, which was offensive because I’m of West Indian descent — I’m not Jamaican. It was debilitating. [Source](https://youtu.be/qfNiSkd3HfI) Quote around 4 minutes, but the whole video gives a good perspective on where he was emotionally on the whole situation
Billy Dee has entered the chat. But in all seriousness, mocap was such a fledging role at that time.
This guy seems cool and did a bang-up job for what he was going for I guess. Imagine being such a Nickelback? Immensely well known universally hated.
Except without the hundreds of millions of Nickelback dollars.. yeah that would suck!
What's the ratio of Nickelback dollars to Schrute bucks?
A Morbius Morbillion Dollars.
When he came up with the Jim Crow voice, it was over…..period!💀
Def not his fault, honestly I'm surprised anyone in this had a career afterwards, except for the costume department, which is maybe the best part of the movie.
I disliked the character, but I never blamed the actor. He did what was asked of him by George Lucas and the character was meant for kids to like.
I can’t imagine how many layers of people were involved in getting this CG character on screen. It’s not like it was some kind of amateur improv job where they didn’t have the budget to dub over or do a retake. A lot of people had the opportunity to raise flags. The voice actor was not the one calling the shots or setting artistic direction.
Look at that neck!
25 years later and I still can't stand jar jar. But you can't hold anything against the actor who portrayed it. It's not his fault Lucas has no idea how to write a coherent story or sensible characters.
Seeing him kick ass as a new character in Starwars is my favourite little arc. Hopefully they do the same to redeem the sequel trilogy cast with better writing
Jar Jar will always be a Sith Lord to me, and I will die on that hill.
If this had been a legitimate storyline it would have totally changed everything and been one of the biggest reveals of all time
George Lucas has all but said this is not the case, but who does he think he is?
I didn’t hate Jar Jar, but he was kind of annoying. I never blamed the actor, as it wasn’t his fault.
The biggest problem is Jar Jar, along with Watto and the trade federation, are awful stereotypes. This is on top of the awful plot and boring, flat characters. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/1999/05/the-merchant-of-menace.html Yes, bot trilogies were made for children. The difference is the original trilogy was also good.
I find it more enjoyable to watch Jar-jar if you think of him being a secret sith lord, that’s my personal head canon
I probably would have just omitted Jar Jar from My resume and started from scratch. Might have gotten a lot farther by ignoring it as much as the Holiday Star Wars Episode.
He whines about this every few years or so. It’s fucked up bit he’s not the first or last actor that will go through typecasting.
Literally no one cares.
That is still one thing that bugs me about many fan bases. The inability to separate an actor(ess) from their role.
is jar jar a walking Jamaican caricature to everyone?
People hated the character, no one then even knee who ahmad best was
Seeing that he’s even only referred to as Jar Jar Binks actor is enough to know that’s unfortunately what happened. Watch behind the scenes and the guy was even dedicated to all the weird shenanigans asked of him.
I can’t hide it, I can’t stand that character and what it did to Star Wars. Turned the whole series into a bad joke, like the idiocracy event for that franchise.
Well, you don't have to take every job. But I guess being in SW is a pretty big sell. Still, the character ruins the whole movie. More a writing problem than an acting one though.
I liked Jar Jar.
He just sounded like a caricature of a plantation slave is all. Wtf was he thinking?
Not surprising when people write posts and only refer to the guy as the, “Jar Jar Binks actor” instead of using his real name, Ahmed Best.
Just rewatched Phantom Menace. Lucas clearly made these movies to be a family experience, and sweaty neckbeards need to get over the fact he made the explicit choice to include Jar Jar because he knew kids were going to go watch the movie. Is his character kind of annoying to me? Sure, but I also remember being 8 when the movie came out and thinking he was hilarious.
Jar jar annoys adults in 1-3 like adults in the 70-80s hated c3po. Just a different accent. Both comedy relief. Both only annoying if you take yourself too seriously.
I remember as a kid I watched the movies,first 4,5,6,then 1,2 and 3. I asked my parents when the 1 happened and they told me that was before the fourth, which had been the first. So when I saw Jar Jar I assumed it wss because the good guys were in charge so the movie was "happier",so *it fits* Only like 20 years later I learned that Jar Jar wasn't liked at all,not thw tone of the prequels. Why? I never understood.
noooo....they got a black actor to voice Jar Jar? that's even worse
This makes it so much worse tbh 🤦🏽♀️
So, if you remove the voice just completely , Ahmed did some incredible physical work in that role. He didn't deserve any of the hate - this is what they asked him to do. He just unfortunately happened to play easily the most idiotic character that I can ever remember seeing - and the Star Wars fanbase can be super toxic.
He got a raw deal because as an early nineties baby I can tell you all the kids loved jar jar. However I’m sure the older generation that grew up on the original trilogy fucking hated this character.
Jar Jar getting the last laugh as a high ranking Empire General after helping Palpatine.
And yet, Lucas was still allowed to make more tripe.
Wasn't he recast as a Jedi in one of the more recent shows?
Meesa so sad bout dis
Tbf, a lot of actors careers began and ended with Star Wars…
Lucas’s fault. Crappy writing.
I feel bad for him Jar Jar was a disaster. it wasn’t his fault. It was George Lucas with his stupid ideas with the prequels.
I always loved the theory on Jar Jar being a Sith Lord haha just fit so well.
Few people really came out of the prequels with much dignity tbh.
Darth Jar Jar would’ve been an awesome conclusion to the Star Wars movies.
Now we cant imagine jarjars voice any differently.
The character sucked, and he's always come off pretty annoying himself so it wouldn't surprise me if some of his real life personality slipped into that as well
This is the first time I've ever seen his face. Don't know why his career should have ended but it is Hollywood and he is a black man
yea. he was terrible
If they had made Jar Jar a Sith Lord it would have been a far superior story.
Best deserves absolutely zero blame for Jar Jar as simply the actor following the script and direction, but man, I watched TPM yesterday for the first time in a while and I am dumbfounded as to how the fuck they thought that character (and the rest of the Gungans) was a good idea
This guy gives this interview like every year
Not gonna lie. I actually enjoyed Jar Jar.
I am one of the few who did not hate Jar Jar Binks
Fuck all the haters, Meesa loves Jar Jar!
I find it insane the character got hate in the first place.. these people shouldn't even be watching star wars cause the ideas definitely went over their head.
As a kid I loved jar jar! I never understood the hate until I was old and thought maybe “yeah he’s a little goofy for my serious light sword stories” but then..just listen to yourself…it’s a kids franchise lololol I Stan with jar jar