Jar Jar Binks

Yoda said:

Long before galactic strife enveloped his native Naboo, Jar Jar Binks was exiled from the underwater city of Otoh Gunga. His main sin: being clumsy in front of the head of his clan. To hear Jar Jar tell it in his Gungan/Basic pidgin, he "boomed da gasser, and crashed de boss's heyblibber, den banished."

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After reading this, for some reason I pictured him as a Malazan sapper tossing a cusser in one of Steven Erikson's novels.
Jar Jar Binks: Bridgeburner

I'm a big fan of Star Wars and rented all three of the original movies on VHS back in the early 90s when all my friends said they were childish movies. One look at the cover was all it took for them. Then the movies weree re-released with updated special effects, and suddenly 'everyone' loved them and had done so for years. Idiots. Naturally, I was first in line. Which was easy enough, as no one slept outside to get a ticket. There were seats left, come to think of it.

Skip to Episode 1. I really looked forward to it, but then we got "For lenge, lenge siden..." Yeah, that's right. "A long time agg..." in norwegian. Sure I live in Norway, but still. It ruined the mood for me. I still gave the movie a go, but the kid was so annoying I couldn't take it. And Jar Jar? *groan* In the end, I watched Episode 2 on DVD when it was out and borrowed Episode 3 from my brother six months after it was out. Fortunately there was no Jar-Jar, but the movies were horrible.

I could say a lot about those movies, but let's stick to Jar Jar. He was horrible. C3PO was fun, but not too fun. He had his uses. The ewoks were fun, but in a "they could be dangerous" kinda fun. You want to laugh if you get surrounded by ewoks, but not sure if you dare. They took down an AT-ST, for Christ sake. But Jar Jar? The most annoying character in any sci-fi move ever. Or at least close to. So yeah, I hate him with a passion.

It could end there, but then I watched the The Clone Wars-movie. Well, to be precise, I watched twenty minutes, then turned it off. But I gave it another try and really started enjoying it. In fact, I loved it so much that when the credits rolled at the end, I went online and ordered The Clone Wars Season 1 on DVD. And later season 2.

The fun thing is there was an episode with Darth Jar Jar. (don't ask...) As soon as he showed up, I got close to skipping to the next episode. But I kept watching, and for some weird reason I didn't hate him. I didn't like him much, but I didn't hate him either. He was... ok. With some improvements, he could be an interesting character. He's very toned down from Episode 1 and much more likeable, but it's still him. If this version had been in Episode 1, I might have liked him there too.

Dave said:

The reason for the tongue was shown, it helps him steal food. The ears seem good for nothing. As they seem to be an amphibious species, I would think that they would actually get in the way of swimming.

I have a question: The fans of the original trilogy, like me, generally don't think much of the character of Jar Jar Binks. Newer younger fans, like Yoda, don't have such a problem with him, and I have already begun to accept him as a part of the Star Wars mythology.

So, do you think that, with time, everyone will mellow to Jar Jar?

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Never. Somehow I fully expected that the Star Wars story would have grown up with me. I was ready for an adult Star Wars... and no I don't mean porn... I mean I wanted sin, mistakes, redemption, agony, exultation, sacrifice, fidelity... I did not want, "Meesa thinksa yousa so silly." Yes, I was silly to expect that.

There are only THREE Star Wars films.

I believe there was also a lightsaber fight which was filmed in the late 90's with Euan McGregor Liam Neeson and Ray Park. It's quite exciting, but it's only about 15 minutes long so I don't understand how it could be referred to as a feature length film....

Doctor Crankenstein said:

I like Jar Jar. I don't understand why everyone think's he is so annoying.

When it comes down to it he's just this trilogy's version of C3P0. What's the difference? A British accent?

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Because, he's an annoying and otherwise useless character.

Another Jar Jar fan here although the scatalogical humour didn't me laugh. What did was his openness and I still smile when he says 'Helloooo boyos' to the astromechs, along with what I have decided is a rude response from them, and when Anakin and Obi Wan arrive via the lift to Senator Amidala's apartment and he says something like 'looky looky, desen Jedi arriven.'

pH

Everything that character says, and even the way he walks, just evokes shameful thoughts of murder in my mind. If I ever get time I might just write some Star Wars fan fiction of how I think the prequels should have been done. Jar Jar will be in the first one. In the background. Being eaten alive.

Once again: "Now, I don't care if you've saved up all your 50ps...."

I myself have never understood the hate for Jar Jar. I'd actually love to see a standalone Gorgan film! It could help save his image. I think without Jar Jar everyone would be saying they hate the prequel films in general because they would have been too boring with all the political talk (which I actually enjoyed). Since I have yet to hear exactly why, most people hate him. They just seem to be repeating a popular opinion. "He's useless and has no point." "He's CGI." Despite the fact that he was a major part in the Gungan Peace Treaty, winning the war on the ground, rescuing the Queen, and later being some type of adviser...

There are characters in Star Wars that actually have no point and many more that have less of a role in the grand scheme of things than Jar Jar. So if it really does boil down to, you don't like his voice. Give me a break. It's Star Wars and your concerned about the way some alien talks?

But you can understand that he does evoke such hate surely?

As to why, the only explanation I can offer is that for those of us raised on the OT where the comic relief came firstly from Han's clever quips and C3PO's bewilderment who generally performed the role of sarcastic butler which added a highly amusing element of British class comedy. Then along came TPM and the 'comedy' coming from a clown using baby talk and a silly walk for laughs. His dialogue may as well have consisted entirely of the words 'poo' and 'wee'. His brand of comedy being infantile brought in to attract and amuse the under 5s was completely unnecessary and just a giant kick in the belly to true Star Wars fans.

Rodders said:

In fairness to Jar Jar, the Original trilogy had the Ewoks. If i remember rightly, they too suffered their fair share of scorn.

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"What about the Ewoks, Tim? They were rubbish! You never complain about them!"

"Yeah, well... Jar Jar makes the Ewoks look like f*€<¡*g... Shaft!"

Narkalui said:

But you can understand that he does evoke such hate surely?

As to why, the only explanation I can offer is that for those of us raised on the OT where the comic relief came firstly from Han's clever quips and C3PO's bewilderment who generally performed the role of sarcastic butler which added a highly amusing element of British class comedy. Then along came TPM and the 'comedy' coming from a clown using baby talk and a silly walk for laughs. His dialogue may as well have consisted entirely of the words 'poo' and 'wee'. His brand of comedy being infantile brought in to attract and amuse the under 5s was completely unnecessary and just a giant kick in the belly to true Star Wars fans.

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No that doesn't bother me, and you just highlighted my point for me. This whole paragraph can basically be summed up as "I don't like the way this particular alien talks." But why single out Jar Jar? Why not R2-D2 or the Jawas or even Jaba the Hut. Or any other alien that seems to have no point to the actual story/plot. Now, while I do agree with you that either one of Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan or Annakin should have been the comic relief in contrast to Han Solo from the Original Series. I don't really think they could have fit that into the story without drastically changing the characters, but Qui-Gon at least tried to be sarcastically funny. So they had to input Jar Jar. .

"This alien talks funny..." No. Read my post again. What we hate is NOT the fact that he talks funny. It is the fact that ALL the humour and jokes from him are "listen to my silly voice and the funny sounding nonsense words I say." That's it, no actual attempt to construct a proper gag just 'meesa weesa woodum bum bum' etc. Gags for four year olds ie children born after 1994.

The fans who grew up on the original films (who made Lucas rich in the first place) went to the cinema in '99 (making Lucas even more rich) bringing their four year olds with them and saw a film made purely to sell toys to the aforementioned four year olds.

Hang on George (we thought)... Twenty two years ago you gave us a great film, it inspired us, we felt like we were a part of it. It felt IMPORTANT. And we loved you for it George. You gave us toys so we could re enact that film in our bedrooms, and act out new adventures for the characters. And we loved you for it. And you got rich. REALLY rich.
And then you made another film. We were excited. We expected more of the same. But it wasn't was it? Poor plotting, poor dialogue and fake looking effects. Everything that was so amazing at the beginning was now just so wrong.

And do you know what really spelled it out to us that George Lucas didn't care about us, the people who put him on the map? What drove home the message that George Lucas was only interested in flogging cheap plastic to pre-schoolers? Jar Jar Binks. That's why Jar Jar isn't funny. Because George Lucas wanted the film to appeal to little kids. To hell with you, original trilogy fans, I'm making some new fans, said George.

Then it emerges that George Lucas doesn't even like the original trilogy, doesn't like how they turned out apparently and he can't watch them. George Lucas may not be a Star Wars fan, but I know who is: JJ Abrams. Oh yes. He's one of us! (A new hope...?)

Narkalui said:

"This alien talks funny..." No. Read my post again. What we hate is NOT the fact that he talks funny. It is the fact that ALL the humour and jokes from him are "listen to my silly voice and the funny sounding nonsense words I say." That's it, no actual attempt to construct a proper gag just 'meesa weesa woodum bum bum' etc. Gags for four year olds ie children born after 1994.

The fans who grew up on the original films (who made Lucas rich in the first place) went to the cinema in '99 (making Lucas even more rich) bringing their four year olds with them and saw a film made purely to sell toys to the aforementioned four year olds.

Hang on George (we thought)... Twenty two years ago you gave us a great film, it inspired us, we felt like we were a part of it. It felt IMPORTANT. And we loved you for it George. You gave us toys so we could re enact that film in our bedrooms, and act out new adventures for the characters. And we loved you for it. And you got rich. REALLY rich.
And then you made another film. We were excited. We expected more of the same. But it wasn't was it? Poor plotting, poor dialogue and fake looking effects. Everything that was so amazing at the beginning was now just so wrong.

And do you know what really spelled it out to us that George Lucas didn't care about us, the people who put him on the map? What drove home the message that George Lucas was only interested in flogging cheap plastic to pre-schoolers? Jar Jar Binks. That's why Jar Jar isn't funny. Because George Lucas wanted the film to appeal to little kids. To hell with you, original trilogy fans, I'm making some new fans, said George.

Then it emerges that George Lucas doesn't even like the original trilogy, doesn't like how they turned out apparently and he can't watch them. George Lucas may not be a Star Wars fan, but I know who is: JJ Abrams. Oh yes. He's one of us! (A new hope...?)

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Wow, what an amazing rant. However, the logic falls apart when you add in the political talk with the story. If Lucas truly wanted the story to JUST appeal to little kids (which I highly doubt without any evidence). He would have left out all the peace treaty/ political talk. Little kids wouldn't be able to understand all of the senate goings-on. The second and third movies certainly did not appeal to little kids. Yes, Jar Jar did have limited roles, but the only reason the movie might have appealed to a younger crowd was because Phantom Menace had in it, what else... a little boy!!!!

Your logic further fails when this Jar Jar hate ended up all over the internet after people saw the movie. If Jar Jar was as hated as the internets would have us believe, then it would have stopped making money and there would have been huge Star Wars protests begging people not to see it because Lucas has insulted the fans intelligence, or whatever it is that you are trying to say. No one thought. HEY! Let me take my four year old kid to go see the movie because it has an alien that talks like them in it...So I've heard. Yet it still continues to make money to this day.

No, people saw it for the star wars brand and if there were people that wanted to take their kids to go see it, but they never heard of Star Wars before. There is a little boy on the freaking cover of the movie poster!!! Kids were probably dragging there parents towards it anyway. Jar Jar is nowhere in sight but just an added and at times annoying character. No more or less than any others.

Yes you're right that Jake Lloyd's presence is further indication that Lucas aimed the film at little kids but that's another debate, this thread regards someone else. As to the political scenes, that's just more evidence of Lucas' folly. He has been quoted as saying that (I paraphrase) one of the boxes he wanted to tick before he started writing was that he desperately wanted to show the Senate, so it got clumsily shoe-horned in there (like I said - poor plotting) and it proved, like you said, confusing to his target audience and boring and pointless to the true fans.

The thing is, I think the real question here should be over your anger at the true fans' rejection of the prequels. Why does this make you so angry? Is that you want some kind of validation from us? If that's the case then I'm sorry but you just can't have it. I'm guessing you weren't there at the beginning, that you don't know how good it was, how important; and I don't think you'll ever be able understand our anger. I've tried to explain it to you, the way that I see it (and as yet I've not been contradicted by any other prequel haters so I can only assume I'm hitting the nail on the head), and you're trying to angrily tell me I'm wrong? Bizarre.

You can like the prequels if you want but you'll not convince us to acknowledge them.

Narkalui said:

Yes you're right that Jake Lloyd's presence is further indication that Lucas aimed the film at little kids but that's another debate, this thread regards someone else. As to the political scenes, that's just more evidence of Lucas' folly. He has been quoted as saying that (I paraphrase) one of the boxes he wanted to tick before he started writing was that he desperately wanted to show the Senate, so it got clumsily shoe-horned in there (like I said - poor plotting) and it proved, like you said, confusing to his target audience and boring and pointless to the true fans.

The thing is, I think the real question here should be over your anger at the true fans' rejection of the prequels. Why does this make you so angry? Is that you want some kind of validation from us? If that's the case then I'm sorry but you just can't have it. I'm guessing you weren't there at the beginning, that you don't know how good it was, how important; and I don't think you'll ever be able understand our anger. I've tried to explain it to you, the way that I see it (and as yet I've not been contradicted by any other prequel haters so I can only assume I'm hitting the nail on the head), and you're trying to angrily tell me I'm wrong? Bizarre.

You can like the prequels if you want but you'll not convince us to acknowledge them.

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What do you mean by true fans? Just because I wasn't born in the 70s I can't be a true fan? How ridiculous! I guess you meant original fans... Still that distinction is kinda pointless. Even before the prequels came out, Lucas did changes to the original series and it still made a boatload of money. Sure, fans were angry with those little changes as well, but people still bought the things.

Well, at least I got you to admit that you'd have hate the films with or without Jar Jar Binks. I wonder how you'll like the new ones... He (Jar Jar) was never advertised (at least in a large way to kids) before the movie came out. No one knew he was in there before or if they did, they didn't know he had such a big role. So what do you think is more likely? Little kids scoured the internets for rumors about some aliens that might talk like them? Or little boys dragged their parents to see the movie because there was a little boy (like them) in it?

I'm not being angry, I'm just pointing out what is more probable than your Jar Jar Binks conspiracy theory. Which again, you have provided no evidence for. Besides for the fact that "other people who hate the prequels agree with me." I think if Jar Jar was supposed to be a major character, it would have been a movie primarily about him! Star Wars: The Gungan War or something like that. Yet it was not a standalone Gungan movie.

I can't find any fault with anything you've said there. Just a couple of small items though, I never said I hated TPM purely because of Jar Jar, he just seems to embody the reasons for my intense disapproval.

And no, I'm not saying you can't be, as I put it, a true Star Wars fan because of the year of your birth; you just need to acknowledge the prequels as inferior to the original trilogy.

And buy a tee shirt that says "Han Shot First."

Narkalui said:

I can't find any fault with anything you've said there. Just a couple of small items though, I never said I hated TPM purely because of Jar Jar, he just seems to embody the reasons for my intense disapproval.

And no, I'm not saying you can't be, as I put it, a true Star Wars fan because of the year of your birth; you just need to acknowledge the prequels as inferior to the original trilogy.

And buy a tee shirt that says "Han Shot First."

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Why do I have to acknowledge that the prequels are inferior? We started this conversation debating over the Jar Jar Binks character. Not the whole trilogy. I'm not going to get caught up in that debate. Since it's a different topic. I don't know about you, but when I was a child I played with all of the star wars action figures. This was before the prequels came out and by that time I had no interest in playing with toys anymore. Still, I went to see them and I appreciate them for what they are as a continuation of the story. I don't have an emotional unhealthy relationship with any particular set of the movies. Nor do I hate upon any of the characters. Since almost all of the puppets in the original series could be seen as childish or at the very least outdated. It's not my place to pick and choose. Only George Lucas has that power.

I don't get why people hate Jar Jar so much!
He was created to replace the C3PO, to be with R2D2. Thus he had personality like C3PO: Clumsy, funny, and a side kick.
I thought he was okay. If fans loved C3PO and hated Jar Jar, I don't know why.

I can clearly see why people don't share my love of Jar Jar; everything ain't for everyone... what does baffle me is when 'true fans' start talking about divisions between the OT and PT, and what Lucas owes them. No fan is responsible for making Lucas rich. None of us. He is responsible for creating and delivering his own world; he can do what he wants without any committee or referendum via the 'true' fans. Those who don't like the PT seem to find liking it a failing of one's 'fandom' when that's clearly a pathological response to their own fandom .

Love him, hate him, whatever; it's your right - art always has its crititcs

pH

I'd like to apologise for branding those who like the prequels as not true fans. Conversations about the prequels make me angry and I posted out of turn.

On the subject of Lucas 'owing' something to older fans, it's not really that strong a sentiment (I may have used that exact word but I can't remember, if so, once again: anger lending vehemence to my words). Yes Lucas created the story and yes, ethically (if not legally any more) the story belongs to him and yes, he was within his rights to do whatever he liked with it.

But at the same time I believe that I am within my rights to feel angry at the sense of loss, abandonment and betrayal(?) that I felt leaving the cinema sixteen years ago.

Lastly, for those who still, in spite of all my comments so far, cannot grasp why I and others like me detest Jar Jar so much I shall try one last time in the simplest possible terms:

We (prequel haters) felt Pantom Menace was awful and Jar Jar Binks was the most awful aspect. Now (for me at least) he is the symbol, the embodied personification, of the Day That Star Wars Died.