Le_Sammler posted:

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I think that George Lucas could have kept everything the same with Jar Jar, but just change his voice, and the character would have worked.

I think he would have worked better if he had a voice like Captain Tarpals, but perhaps a little bit deeper, like Boss Nass. Perhaps reduce the 'jamaican' style of vocabulary, and you would have had a fan favorite.

Lucas originally wanted C-3PO to sound like a used car salesman, he should have taken this approach with Jar Jar, and mix in a bit of rogue and charm, he could have been the alien Han Solo of the prequel trilogy.

What do you think?

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r8hitman posted:

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Hell no.

If Jar Jar had been in the old trilogy none of us would be here right now.

StarWars would have been dead after ANH and would be on the VHS shelf of an antique store right next to Time Bandits and DragonSlayer.

Jar Jar is the biggest mistake in movie history outside of Gigli.


You can tie me up in a 110 degree room, scratch nails across a chalkboard for hours, while simultaneously replaying a tape of Pee Wee Hermans laugh with Roseanne and Carl Lewis singing the national anthem in the background and it would be nothing compared to the horror of having to watch that creature known as.......

*gasp* *gasp*



JAR JAR BINKS!!!!!




Absolutely horrible.

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OBIWAN-JR posted:

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>>>> JAR JAR BINKS!!!!! Absolutely horrible.

In answer to the above, R8, I am re-posting below, one of my old posts about the loveable Gungan. To those who have read it before, I apologise.

The post also includes the original comment to which I responded:



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>>>> I almost feel as though he was created to be disliked. Foolish, awkward, irritating. Who would want to be submitted to a character like this? I have come to accept Jar-Jar and his place in the SW universe but I still don't like him.

Bingo!

What you have pointed out here, is exactly what I believe Lucas was doing with Jar Jar.

Firstly, let me just preface this by saying that I love Jar Jar, and always have. If I had been on these boards back in the days of TPM, then I would have defended the loveable Gungan to the hilt.

Jar Jar's character is based on a character from one of Akira Kurosawa's films. As many fans know, Kurosawa has been a large influence on Lucas' telling of the SW story. The Kurosawa film which Jar Jar's character is influenced by, was the cinematic telling of an old reverred Japanese Kabuki play. Kurosawa, however, decided to add a character to his film that was never in the orignal Kabuki play.

This character was 'the fool'. And this is the character whom Jar Jar was based on.

At the time of Kurosawa's movie release, his film received a critical mauling, and guess which character took most of the flak....? The paying audience, who historically had always loved the Kabuki play through the years, were very disenchanted with Kurosawa's addition to their beloved piece of theatre.

Sound familiar, at all?

Lucas would have known all of this. And yet he went ahead with Binks anyway.

So the question you have to ask is: WHY?


For me, Jar Jar is an allegorical figure.

All of the adults in TPM seem to dislike Jar Jar (even Qui-Gon at first, but I'll come back to him), either immediately or built up over time (in the case of the Gungans), so is it any wonder that the adult movie-viewing audience would feel the same?

However, the children in TPM - Anakin and Padme - are the ones who form a bond with Jar Jar and accept him for who he is, and in the case of the Queen, realise that he could be of great help to the planetary citizens of Naboo.

Unsurprisingly, the children in the audience seem to love him too. Jar Jar captures the vulnerability, awkwardness and naivete that children feel and try to hide for fear of being ridiculed. Lucas has commented on his being frog-like in appearance; Jung remarked that the frog is animal symbolism for the child. Jar Jar represents the clumsy child inside all of us. The part of us that we fear showing to the cynical adult world we now inhabit.

Pschologically, when we deny these aspects of our character, we usually project them onto others in a negative way. Jar Jar, whose whose bumbling qualities drew ridicule from his own society, evoked similar responses from members of ours as well. And this is exactly what we fear will happen when we expose the 'Binks' inside of ourselves.

Qui-Gon's part in this should not be overlooked, either. His initial response to Jar Jar is one of annoyance, and he puts the Gungan down. However, Jinn is a practitioner of the Living Force, and lives in the moment. His understanding that the Will of the Force is trying to talk to him with regard to Binks is what enables him to see past the 'fool' and accept that the Gungan may be of importance in the order of things.

Whilst he does not see the ulitimate importance of Jar Jar, he sees that the Force maybe has a plan with regard to him, and he listens.

He says to Kenobi that they may need a guide to get them through the planet core, and yet once underwater he states that the Force will guide them. So the Jedi Masters motives for bringing the Gungan along clearly run deeper than appearances would have us believe.

When we get to the crucial moment in the story of TPM, Jar Jar's having been around the Queen forms a vital symbiotic link in her being able to forge an alliance that wins the day.

Were it not for Qui-Gon's use of the Living Force, there would have been no Gungan army at Padme's disposal.

In light of the way in which ROTS is shaping up, with regard to the Living Force and it's affect on the Jedi in the OT, you may well look back on Jar Jar and his symbolic influence on the saga with a different eye. Jar Jar shows us that people aren't always what they may seem at first glance. That things aren't necesarily just black and white, a theme that is very prevalent in the saga.


On a side note, with regard to Jar Jar in AOTC, I would just like to say that his being manipulated by Palpatine perfectly parallels that of Anakin.

In TPM, both characters are found by Qui-Gon, taken out of their relatively simple societies, and arrive at the Capital planet for the first time as naive youngsters. In fact, they are both shown together - symbolically sat closer to, but still outside of, the political arena - happily chatting as friends behind the glass wall of Palpatine's office, whilst the Senator is having a weighty discussion with Padme.

By the time of AOTC, both Anakin and Jar Jar have been drawn into the corrupt world of Republic politics, and by movie's end it is clear that both characters have had their innocence abused by Palpatine.

I always thought all this was quite clever of Lucas.

But that's just me.


-JR
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r8hitman posted:

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OBIWAN-JR posted:

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>>>> JAR JAR BINKS!!!!! Absolutely horrible.

In answer to the above, R8, I am re-posting below, one of my old posts about the loveable Gungan. To those who have read it before, I apologise.

The post also includes the original comment to which I responded:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> I almost feel as though he was created to be disliked. Foolish, awkward, irritating. Who would want to be submitted to a character like this? I have come to accept Jar-Jar and his place in the SW universe but I still don't like him.

Bingo!

What you have pointed out here, is exactly what I believe Lucas was doing with Jar Jar.

Firstly, let me just preface this by saying that I love Jar Jar, and always have. If I had been on these boards back in the days of TPM, then I would have defended the loveable Gungan to the hilt.

Jar Jar's character is based on a character from one of Akira Kurosawa's films. As many fans know, Kurosawa has been a large influence on Lucas' telling of the SW story. The Kurosawa film which Jar Jar's character is influenced by, was the cinematic telling of an old reverred Japanese Kabuki play. Kurosawa, however, decided to add a character to his film that was never in the orignal Kabuki play.

This character was 'the fool'. And this is the character whom Jar Jar was based on.

At the time of Kurosawa's movie release, his film received a critical mauling, and guess which character took most of the flak....? The paying audience, who historically had always loved the Kabuki play through the years, were very disenchanted with Kurosawa's addition to their beloved piece of theatre.

Sound familiar, at all?

Lucas would have known all of this. And yet he went ahead with Binks anyway.

So the question you have to ask is: WHY?


For me, Jar Jar is an allegorical figure.

All of the adults in TPM seem to dislike Jar Jar (even Qui-Gon at first, but I'll come back to him), either immediately or built up over time (in the case of the Gungans), so is it any wonder that the adult movie-viewing audience would feel the same?

However, the children in TPM - Anakin and Padme - are the ones who form a bond with Jar Jar and accept him for who he is, and in the case of the Queen, realise that he could be of great help to the planetary citizens of Naboo.

Unsurprisingly, the children in the audience seem to love him too. Jar Jar captures the vulnerability, awkwardness and naivete that children feel and try to hide for fear of being ridiculed. Lucas has commented on his being frog-like in appearance; Jung remarked that the frog is animal symbolism for the child. Jar Jar represents the clumsy child inside all of us. The part of us that we fear showing to the cynical adult world we now inhabit.

Pschologically, when we deny these aspects of our character, we usually project them onto others in a negative way. Jar Jar, whose whose bumbling qualities drew ridicule from his own society, evoked similar responses from members of ours as well. And this is exactly what we fear will happen when we expose the 'Binks' inside of ourselves.

Qui-Gon's part in this should not be overlooked, either. His initial response to Jar Jar is one of annoyance, and he puts the Gungan down. However, Jinn is a practitioner of the Living Force, and lives in the moment. His understanding that the Will of the Force is trying to talk to him with regard to Binks is what enables him to see past the 'fool' and accept that the Gungan may be of importance in the order of things.

Whilst he does not see the ulitimate importance of Jar Jar, he sees that the Force maybe has a plan with regard to him, and he listens.

He says to Kenobi that they may need a guide to get them through the planet core, and yet once underwater he states that the Force will guide them. So the Jedi Masters motives for bringing the Gungan along clearly run deeper than appearances would have us believe.

When we get to the crucial moment in the story of TPM, Jar Jar's having been around the Queen forms a vital symbiotic link in her being able to forge an alliance that wins the day.

Were it not for Qui-Gon's use of the Living Force, there would have been no Gungan army at Padme's disposal.

In light of the way in which ROTS is shaping up, with regard to the Living Force and it's affect on the Jedi in the OT, you may well look back on Jar Jar and his symbolic influence on the saga with a different eye. Jar Jar shows us that people aren't always what they may seem at first glance. That things aren't necesarily just black and white, a theme that is very prevalent in the saga.


On a side note, with regard to Jar Jar in AOTC, I would just like to say that his being manipulated by Palpatine perfectly parallels that of Anakin.

In TPM, both characters are found by Qui-Gon, taken out of their relatively simple societies, and arrive at the Capital planet for the first time as naive youngsters. In fact, they are both shown together - symbolically sat closer to, but still outside of, the political arena - happily chatting as friends behind the glass wall of Palpatine's office, whilst the Senator is having a weighty discussion with Padme.

By the time of AOTC, both Anakin and Jar Jar have been drawn into the corrupt world of Republic politics, and by movie's end it is clear that both characters have had their innocence abused by Palpatine.

I always thought all this was quite clever of Lucas.

But that's just me.


-JR
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