"The Radicalization of Jar Jar Binks" Topic

"Jar Jar Binks is perhaps the most hated character in cinema history. A grating Rastafarian stereotype who only exists as bumbling comic relief in the Star Wars prequels, he's the biggest offender in one of the most controversial cinematic letdowns in history—with dumbfounding product licensing ploys to boot.

So when it came time for Ian Doescher, author of William Shakespeare's Star Wars and its corresponding sequels The Empire Striketh Back and The Jedi Doth Return, to tackle the prequel trilogy in Shakespearean verse, there was a Gungan-sized stumbling block. "I had people asking me if I could kill him off in the first scene," he says.

To a certain extent Doescher's books amount to Shakespearean fan fiction, but there's an expectation of verisimilitude: the expected events of the Star Wars series—even the hated ones—must show up. Doescher says that when writing The Phantom Of Menace, out this week, there were two options: "turn him around 180 degrees and make him know exactly what's going on, or kill him."…"
Full article here
link

Kill him!! (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

He was truly offensive in crapisodes one, two, and three. He was less offensive in Clone Wars -- but only a little.

Throw him down into the Sarlacc and then have Boba Fett shoot him.

So yes kill him off in the very first minute of the new movie.

surdu2005 Jar Jar Binks wasn't that offensive in Episodes One,Two and Three IMHO if anyone is offensive it has to be that Gold Butler.

Jar Jar Binks is my FAVORITE Star Wars character and I'm getting quite tired of these threads that put him down or killing him off.

I'll defend Jar Jar Binks to the best of my ability.

Tango01 you think Jar Jar Binks is the most hated character in cinema history,I really doubt that I mean is you're talking about all cinema history there are others you are worst take Hitler for example.

Give it a rest why don't you.

Meesa love Jar Jar! Binks Number one! All others are number two! Hee-hee-hee!

Honestly, I do love Jar Jar exactly because he is so excrutiatingly idiotic. He keeps all those Star wars groupies honest. He exposes the rotten core at the center of the Lucas hubris. This is what happens when "geniuses" go too far. Binks is a lesson for us all.

Don't take that so seriously my friend.

It's only a cartoon for God sake! (smile)

He was not favored in Star Wars history in general.

But if you read the article, he is going to redemption! (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

kill him

I don't hate the Gungan. I hate the movies. Most SW fans use Jar Jar as the "reason" why the movies were so terrible. I have to tell you, the movies were terrible on there own. You can put lipstick on a pig, but underneath it all, it is still a pig.

I am looking forward to the first installment.

Tango01 I have alt of passion for Jar Jar Binks and for myself I can relate to what Jar Jar went thru and I'll leave it at that.

It's true I have my emotion on my sleave and when this subject comes up I go into the defending mode.

Tango01 I have read the article and I can agree with it(more or less).

Kill him. Quickly, cleanly but kill him nonetheless.

There are no episodes one through three. Never was, never will be.

Any harm here my friend.
Long live to Jar Jar!! (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

There are no episodes one through three. Never was, never will be.

Much better! I like that just fine! That and no Gungans are harmed. They just don't exist!

SPOILER ALERT!

Sick DB Draft just sick do you pull wings off birds too?

Another great result to see a dead jar of binks.

Marc the plastics fan what's your biff with JAR JAR BINKS?

[STAR WARS Episode VII Narrator]

"…and sadly at that moment, the CGI workstation suffered a fatal runtime error, and Jar Jar Binks was no more…"

Ghostrunner what is your problem with JAR JAR BINKS???

Assuming that's a legitimate question, and not just a Devil's Advocate / attempt at humor:

1. He was an attempt at comic relief that just went too far. He seemed to single-handedly inflict more damage on the Trade Federation Army by accident than the rest of the Gungan Army? Sorry – it was just too much.

2. His only REAL contribution to the story was in the SECOND movie, which was him being goaded into giving Palpatine the power he was after. If anything, the fact that this dupe was a bumbling idiot UNDERMINED the point Lucas said he was making – that democracies crumble when smart people do dumb things for the right reasons.

3. I'm not a total TPM hater, but really that movie could have been about 20 minutes long and covered anything that was essential to the over-arching story. Despite the fact that it might have invalidated a lot of the novels (which I never read), they could have done a lot more with the Sith or even the Mandalorians that might have given it a much better feel. I got the point – a bureaucracy that had grown too large to do anything other than keep itself (barely) alive. But it didn't make for the most exciting of movie. Even the political intrigue could have been done better, instead of focusing on Jar Jar.

Apparently Lucas got that Jar Jar wasn't that popular – he had a couple of scenes in 2, and a cameo in 3.

Ghostrunner to answer you yes it was a legitimate question since I'm a big fan of JAR JAR Binks I want to know why people hate him so much.

I don't think his comic relief went too far and with regards to him single-handedly inflicting more damage to the droid army than the rest of the Gungan army is not true.

Yes he helped take out 2 Droid tanks and several droids including a Destroyer Droid but the Gungan army did much damage to the Droid army more than JAR JAR ever did by accident.

And if the former Queen had been where she was supposed to be(in the Senate)then Palatine couldn't have used JAR JAR as he did so I blame Amedala(excuse the spelling)for much of this.

I also don't think JAR JAR BINKS was a bunbling idiot as you called him as I said before JAR JAR BINKS is my favorite Star Wars character.

I do thank you for answering my question eventhough I strongly disagree with what you had to say.

I agree with Who asked this joker and Ghostrunner. It wasn't just that Jar Jar was an excruiating, misjudged stereotype: episodes 1-3 are pretty much dreadful cinema in every way:
1) rambling, labyrinthine stories that, when analysed, could have been run at under half the time and made more sense
2) stilted dialogue that seems to be delivered by actors (or characters) who are half-asleep (yes, Padme and Anakin, I'm talking about you…and almost everyone else in the films)
3) badly misjudged, embarassing relationships that border on paedophilia (Padme and Anakin again) that really destroy any possibility of suspension of disbelief
4) continuity goofs that alos strain credulity beyond breaking point (so Anakin grew up on Tattoine, and Kenobi thinks the best place to hide Vader's son is…in his childhood home? etc etc…)

The really sad part is that watching these awful 'prequels' made me rewatch and reassess the original trilogy and realise that, while they were better, they were nowhere near as good as I remember them from my childhood. The kid in me still has an affectionate place for them; the adult me has moved on to better stuff.

By the way, Captain Gideon, what is it you actually like about Jar Jar Binks? And, why do you often write his name in CAPS?
I am actually interested to hear your reasoning on both points.

TwinMirror first off what I like about JAR JAR BINKS is none of your business so I will not tell you.

As to why I write JAR JAR's name in CAPS I have respect for him and that's all you need to know.

You have 'respect' for a horribly written and even worse voice-acted fictional CGI character.

……..

OK, I was giving Captain Gideon the benefit of the doubt.

Guess that was an error…

…stay on the path, and please don't feed the trolls.

Ghostrunner why did you say it was an error clarify if you would.

Let's look at the play by play.

-People offer their opinion.
-You ask for a justification.
-They provide their reasons.
-you tell them they are wrong
-they ask your reasons
-you reply it's none of their business
-you still tell people they are wrong

if you log onto a DISCUSSION, it seems you might want to be willing to DISCUSS the topic at hand.

Hey Ghostrunner, I just checked and Captain Gideon has been a TMP member since 2005!
Until then, I also thought he was probably around 12 to 13 years old, given by his 'style' of argumentation, and had begun to feel somewhat queasy about us challenging his, shall we say, unusual, unsupported assertions. But apparently he's not a kid, chronologically speaking. Best of luck to him;

Cheers and all the best to all you fine gentlemen!

Jaime I have one question for you which is serious and I would like a serious answer.

Before I ask this question I want to clear something up with respect to my age in 1977 I waited in line to see Star Wars which was 38 years ago so I'm at least that old if not older that should answer the age question.

Now the question since I'm a Star Wars fan what makes my like/admiration for Jar Jar Binks any different than anyone else who likes Vader,Leia,Luke for example I mean what makes me different than any other Star Wars fan?

Yeah, I saw star wars back in '77 too. Amazing experience.

You're entitled to like Binks, of course; what I think has surprised everyone on this thread is your high degree of attachment to a character otherwise universally reviled, and that you haven't wanted to share any of the reasons for liking him or identifying with him so much.
I think many star wars fans love characters like Han, Luke or Leia because they are strongly moral heroes who face tough choices and battle with their own darker sides; that interior battle itself is as interesting as their final decision.

Jar jar seems like a typical Disney comic goofball, such as the wise-cracking donkey in Shrekk, placed as a silly foil for the main character's actions, and to provide some light relief. However, binks takes up a lot more time (in the 1st film) than such characters usually do, and the ill-judged decision to give him a comedy jamaican/deep south black accent and persona, combined with his clearly slapstick, goofish role and his slip-ups, seemed pretty insulting and outdated to most fans and commentators.

Of course you're entitled to like that sort of thing if you want, but there does seem to be some difference between identifying with that and with a hero like Luke or Leia. However, in your defence I'd say that identifying with a comedy goofball character still seems healthier to me than an adult identifying with a villain like Vader. I'm pretty sure that most Vader fans only relish him as a character, not as a role model, however: that really would be messed up.

How in the world did a thread on a fictional character in a science fantasy film turn into a juvenile series of personal attacks and cliched insults? The teenagers I work with have more class than that (not to mention more imagination).
Absolutely pathetic behavior. Are we so feeble in our daily lives that we have to turn to Internet anonymity to tear down another person in order to feel better about ourselves? If that's adult behavior on a hobby website, this world will never be a better place. Everyone involved in this travesty should be ashamed of themselves.
While I have no love for the horrible mess that are the prequels, much less the return of Stepin Fetchit in Jar Jar, what a man likes is what he likes, and he has no more obligation to explain his reasons to me (or anyone else, much less Internet bullies), any more than he has to explain his love for his wife.
Captain Gideon, on behalf of the rest of TMP, I apologize for the treatment you have received here. It was contemptible. I only hope the perpetrators have the maturity to apologize for their childish behavior.

On a side note, if you are an adult and you think another poster is indeed a child, exactly how does that justify insulting and bullying that individual? In fact, is not such an attack on a minor a crime? If you jumped all over a kid in public in such a manner, how long do you think it would be before you were led off in handcuffs? Congratulations, fellas; if you actually thought your target was a minor, that makes you guilty of deliberate and sadistic child abuse in my book. Talk about scum and villainy…

Parzival I would like to thank you for your words and I do feel better about things you have a great day Sir.

Jar Jar is evil because he resulted in the DHing of people I never heard of before.
He is annoying. Isn't that enough?
Just like every single movie role of Jerry Lewis or Adam Sandler.
Or every song by Bonnie Tyler or Madonna.

Personally I have always felt the whole franchise from 1977 onwards was drivel, that pandered to the lowest common denominator and ripped off ideas from other far better stories and films….

Winston Smith aren't you going a little too extreme with what you said?

Bonnie Tyler isn't that evil. After all, she gave us Total Eclipse of the Heart.

Winston Smith I don't think Jar Jar is annoying IMHO but I can tell you another SW character who's very annoying and that's a certain gold plated droid.

Nerds. When a discussion about Star Wars has more deleted posts than a discussion about ISIS :)

Weasel,

Some of the posts in this thread are actually quite worrying; "nerds" may be a trifle mild.

Episodes 4-6 were written for preteens and teens, and were a hit with a wider audience by accident (much like Harry Potter). 6 was not as well liked not because of the Ewoks, but because the audience that saw the original 2 in the theaters had aged out of the preteen, toy sales market. 1-3 are now disliked because that same audience that loved the first 3 were too old for the same style movie. Kids don't want more than a surface love story (no kissing!) and that is what Lucas did. So they hated 1-3 and focused on the kid friendly stuff in particular to hate because they wanted a violent action movie, not a goofy, kid friendly one. Disney now owning Star Wars may continue 7-9 down that same path. Older folks who remember 4-6 in theaters will probably be disappointed, kids who saw 1-3 in theaters and liked them (yes, kids did like them) will be disappointed because they did not make grown up movies for them, and the new batch of preteens will have 7-9 as their gold standard for Star Wars.

For myself flicking wargamer I liked all 6 films.

A good friend told me once after I watched Independence Day that you have to check your brain at the door and just enjoy the ride.

Maybe that's what you have to do when you see Science Fiction films like Star Wars at least that's what I think.

evilmike I would like an apology.

I would like an apology Captain Gideon for the derogatory remark you made about me and for being overly sensitive to other people's opinions about a fictional character.

All you have shown is that you cannot "take it" but you seem to have no problem "giving it".

And unless I get a sincere apology I am afraid I will have to leave this discussion…

PS: I would love to see your artistic impression of Jar Jar.

OH NOOOO-SA…

JAR-JAR go SQUISHA!

Proof that old style Special Effects models crush CGI every time… (well at least in this case).

DB Draft first off I can take it as you say but in the case of evilmike he crossed the line so I deserve an apology from him.

And eventhough I don't believe my remark to you was derogatory but you have my apology.

P.S. I don't have an artistic impression of Jar Jar Binks because I can't draw.

I wandered in here by accident and don't want to be hit by a pie. Cf. The Great Race pie fight scene.
I do concur with the sentiment that Jar-Jar's true and unique evil lies in the fact that he even caused people to go back and re-watch and lower their opinion of Episodes 4-6, which he tainted merely via time warp. (Did that make sense? Hmm, maybe not.)

Servo3000 when you say I do concur with the sentiment that Jar-Jar's true and unique evil lies in the fact that he even caused people to go back and re-watch and lower their opinion of Episodes 4-6, which he tainted merely via time warp this is something I've never heard but I don't agree with it might I ask where did you see this?

Mon cher ami Le Captain Gideon, please, can you inform me/us why Jar Jar is a so important personaje in the Star War Saga?

I really want to know your points of view.

Thanks in advance for your guidance.

Amicalement
Armand