Once upon♛ a time, Michael Jackson want🐻ed to play Jar Jar Binks.
Think about that for a second.
The King Of Pop, friend to all the world’♌s children, playing the voice an𒊎d mo-cap moves behind one of cinema’s most loathed characters?
It could have generated eno🐠ugh spluttering internet forum anger to 🍃power a small nation like Switzerland for at least week, if not longer.
Aꦉt least if Jackson had been involved, I’d understand why fansꦅ hate Jar Jar so much.
As it stands, though, I&rsqওuo;m confused. Why does this clumsy-but-kindly Gungan from the planet Naboo stir th🌠e haters?
True his Caribbean accent, straight off a Lilt advert circa 1986, was in totally ꧙tropical poor taste. But did Jar Jar real🍎ly deserve to become the lightning rod for all ’s racism?
Why not Watto the money-grabbing, faux-Jewish merchant? Or 🧔the inscrutable, could-be-Japanese Neimoidians with their dastardly trade blockades?
Ahmed Best, the African-American♒ actor cast as Jar Jar’s body and voice, never saw him as a Rastafarian Stepin Fetchit stereotype: “I just thought I was doing a funny role,” he lamented. “I didn’t know that the Jedi were a metaphor for the Man...”
Poor bugger. By rights, Best’s name should be mentioned alongside Andy Serkis and Doug Jones as one of the pioneering motion-capture actors. His turn in the gimp suit brought Jar Jar to life as a laid-back, somewhat cowardly amphibious clown with flapping fin ears and comic relief poten𓆏tial.
W🀅ithout him there’d be no Gollum or Na🌃’vi.
Jar Jar was a visual effects milestone.
Everyone bought him as a peꦏrson, they just didn’t like his silly voice or slapstick farti🐽ng.
When you consider it, that’s quite an achievement: a CG ch♌aracter so believable he mad🎐e people want to punch his lights out.
The problem wasn’t Jar Jar. It was us. We’d waited 16 years for a new Star Wars movie and The Phantom Menace was pants.
Instead of blaming Lucas, we picked like bullies on the weakest, ꦜmost harmless character around and turned him into the fall guy.
One fan snipped Jar Jar out in ‘The Phantom Edit’. Even a post-backlash Lucas bottled it and reduced his role in and .
As Jar Jar would say: “How wude!”
Here’s the bottom line: Jar Jar Binks didn’t ruin Star Wars .
I know that for a fact because I was t♚here when Star Wars was ruined. It was 1983, when I first laid eyes on an Ewok.
had been glorious, dark and adult. Hell, they even froze H🍎an.
went off the rails the moment Leia changed out of her slave outfit and headed to E𝓀ndor.
Damn those stunted, toy-store-friendly furballs. They shat all over my Star Wars love like a pack of rabid badgers who’d been force-fed warm m🔯ilk and Lactulose for a fortnight.
Come back Jar Jar, you harmless fool and glorious VFX triumph. It wasn’t all your fault... Or is it just me?
VOICES OF REASON
Matthew Leyland
Jar Jar’s a technical miracle, but then so was the atom bomb. There are worse problems with The Phantom Menace , but he’s still a grating mis🐼calculation. You know that somewhere in the Lucas archives there are plans for a TV spin-off / board game / cookery book.
Jamie Graham
No one puts all the blame on Jaဣr Jar’s frail shoulders, but he’s the straw that broke th🐷e CG-camel’s back: a racial stereotype, a squeaky-voiced distraction and an all-round bloody pillock.
Sam Ashurst
The Ewoks had a cool song and an awesome spin-off cartoon. What’s Jar Jar got? A disturbing lollypop. Allay loo ta nuv, my friend. Allay loo ta nuv.
