PT Controversial thread: Was Jar Jar the prequels HanSolo?

I read somewhere that Han Sols was supposed to be a green skinned alien in the rough drafts of Star Wars. I look at the first Star wars and Han fills an important role for the audience. He is the non-believer. He represents the audience members who think the force is silly. He also brings some much needed to levity with his sarcasm and one-liners. He also gets his hero moment at the end when he rescues Luke at. the end. I think the basic idea with JJB was the same. A funny character who represents the audience who think the force and the jedi are silly. He also proves his character at the end effectively going into battle when the odds are heavily stacked against him. I just mthink when you break them down, they have similar personalities and journeys. What do you guys think?

 

Similar, yes, but Gungans weren't unbelievers strictly speaking simply that they believed in something not connected to or called 'Force'.

 

I think if Jar Jar and the Gungans were deleted from the film, it would be a watchable kids flick. If Jake Lloyd going into space were also taken out of the film, it would be an OK film altogether. I've always thought TPM had the potential to be -- by far -- the best of the three prequels. It's unfortunate that a character walking around with a baby-babble accent and saying lines like "stepped in the pooey" had to be included in the film.

On the other hand, Han Solo could never be deleted out of the Star Wars and have it be a better film. He's the skeptic and actually funny at times, whereas Jar Jar just panders to very, very young children.

 

Jar Jar serves an important story purpose in my opinion. He helps bring the gungans and the Naboo together. It would be odd to take him out altogether . However I was wondering if they had NOT pandered so young with Jar Jar, such as with the fart jokes would he have been as liked as Han Solo? If they had given him a bit more respectability could he have improved the film?

 

Was Jar Jar the prequels' Han Solo?

Let's think about this for all of a second....

*strains.... thinking hard.... one second becoming two, becoming three....... oh, it's so difficult............*

No.

 

I absolutely agree with that assessment- and I don't think it's even necessary to like Jar Jar to recognize that the role he plays in TPM is remarkably similar to the role Han plays in ANH.

That being said, concept is one thing, execution is another. Jar Jar and Han are two vastly different executions of a similar concept. Han Solo is the cowboy, and the dandy, and the smooth criminal. He's Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne and Errol Flynn rolled into one. He's the Tony Stark to Luke's Steve Rogers. Simply put, he's freaking cool, and that's why he's a crowd pleaser.

Jar Jar is a Tex Avery cartoon character. He's Buster Keaton with the aesthetics of a lost member of the Barney gang. In every way that Han is cool, Jar Jar is goofy. His walk, his talk, his panicking and his clumsy antics. Little bits of Han's cynicism slip through in the dialogue, but they're buried under a mountain of goofy. Whereas Han's mannerisms and word phrasing are constant attempts to make the Star Wars universe feel more palatably earth-like (They have hell in space?), Jar Jar seems determined to remind you that this is an alien world, with his laws-of-physics-defying jumps into water, his elastic toungue, his rather toddler-esque dialect, and even the mere fact that he is a CGI creation imposed on to a largely photographed world. So for a lot of people (obviously not all) Jar Jar is a much tougher pill to swallow. Personally, I'm not totally nuts about him, but I think he has his merits.

 

Some excellent points here. You have put me in my place sir.

 

Yes, they're quite alike on some levels -- one obvious, and actually rather deft, piece of visual linkage is a waistcoat -----------> Anakin takes over the waistcoat and "Han" role in the following film.

Is Jar Jar Han Solo? Does he get frozen in carbonite, shoot a rival bounty hunter dead in a cantina, fly a cool ship, shoot Darth Vader in the face, or snag a princess?

Obviously, they're quite different, and very much intended to be. One of the most purposeful differences, in my opinion, is that Jar Jar plays something of a tag-along role in the first movie, then slinks away in the other two. This is quite different to Han, who does a lot of stuff, and maintains a visible presence in all three films. They're not fulfilling the same role in terms of levity or companionship or anything like that.

One senses a slightly disingenuous style of questioning at the open of this thread. That said, it is fine and fair to make comparisons, provided they're reasonable and made in multiple directions. For instance, Jar Jar's introduction evokes Yoda harassing Luke on Dagobah -- another strange-skinned, frog-like "fool" character who a human protagonist initially tries to get rid of, only to realize he needs to follow him to meaningfully advance on his quest.

Jar Jar is a rather nuanced condensation of various energies, various themes, various motifs -- as if they've all been stuffed in a jar. "My forgotten!" Banishment, memory, excitability, elasticity, bio vs. mechanical...... things like that. And yes, he's a bit improbable, a bit silly, something like a court jester, a suitably-jarring guide on an epic mythological adventure stacked high with geisha queens, Jedi Knights, slug-like sultan gangsters, pirates, gamblers, Sith Lords, grey clone aliens, four-armed moustache-twirling cyborgs, furry Ewoks with a penchant for cook-ups, squabbling robots, and such.

Jar Jar, nothing but Jar Jar...

 

Characters can have similarities amid vast differences. So do people.

 

I don't think differences between people, or things, are all that vast, at the end of the day................

And deep down, I think that's the central thing that Star Wars is trying to teach.

 

Nor do I, that's why I said similarities can be found amid difference. As many display here just because some can't see the correlation doesn't always mean it isn't there.

 

Sorry, CA! I read that too fast -- I saw the word "and", not "amid"!

Jar Jar moment number 1,555,678.

Yes, indeed. Though my objection would be, it's somewhat fallacious to compare Jar Jar to any one character, at the exclusion of others.

Interlinking, interlinking...

 

This is something I've pondered before whenever someone says the much repeated line "the prequels lacked a cynic"

Beneath it all Jar Jar is probably the biggest cynic going and his view of the force is very much in the vein of Han Solo (this was played upon a bit more in TCW The Dissapeared when he's paired with Mace Windu )

 

Jar Jar is too naive to be a cynic! A cynic is someone who has been around the block and seen enough to make them doubt a lot of things.

 

Had Lucas written Jar Jar as a legitimate character and not a ham-fisted attempt at comedy, it would have been great. The character could have been the everyman witnessing the power of the Jedi and the machinations of a larger galaxy. Part of the problem was the abundance of technology at Lucas' disposal at the time.

Had Ahmed Best been allowed to play the part as an actor, I think we would have gotten a much different character and movie. Lucas probably would not have written him as a Warner Brothers ripoff, certainly would not have given him such a stupid name, and probably would have given him dignity. It would have been poignant to have human Gungans feuding with the Naboo, coming together and resolving their differences, with Amidala being the one to end their conflict.

But alas, this was not to be. Instead we had Rick McCallum standing over his shoulder saying "That's great, boss. That's brilliant, George, I love it!"

 

I can see Jar Jar as the intended everyman of the PT in the same way that Han was in the OT. Neither of them were royalty or possessing political clout. Neither of them were supernaturally gifted. They both demonstrated very human traits. In Jar Jar's case clumsiness, tactlessness, cowardice, stupidity. In Han's case pride, materialism, impatience, cynicism.

 

George Lucas is the one who loved Jar Jar. I'm not sure how Rick felt. George Lucas said Jar Jar was the funniest character that had ever been in Star Wars

 

It was in one of the documentaries, probably The Beginning. George Lucas said Jar Jar was the key to the whole movie, and that he was the funniest character Star Wars had ever had.

 

Yeah, I remember that. Something about Jar jar being funnier than anything before seen in SW. GL really rated Jar jar.

 

He doesn't bother me anymore either. Funniest characters? Han and 3PO in concert.