PT Controversial thread: Was Jar Jar the prequels HanSolo?

There's a video game called Chrono Trigger, it was an RPG for Super Nintendo. There is a very minor character, a mayor in the one of the towns. If you talk to him, he tells you he's so rich he doesn't know what to do with his money, then asks you if you will dance like a chicken for him in exchange for a few bucks. If you select yes, he laughs and says it's hilarious and pays you the money. Seems like a good time to bring up that random piece of information.

Hurry up Goldenrod, you're gonna be a permanent resident!

 

It's worth repeating.

LOL wut?

 

After recent experiences in this forum...




I don't even have an opinion...

 

Rick wasn't paid to have an opinion, he seemed to be George's cheerleader.

 

He does that very well. But that is not what you want in a good producer, you want someone to tell it like it is. Marcia Lucas would have called a spade a spade and it sucks that he didn't have someone who did that to him anymore.

 

Am I missing something?

 

I see those traits, certainly. On the other hand, they do possess their ennobling opposites, too.

Nice! That does actually illustrate something important about Han.

I have little doubt -- Lucas seems to like that lighter humour. Also, when you're doing a trilogy with the serious themes of the PT, I'm sure Jar Jar offers some relief, if you're the one putting it all together. You get to dig him that little bit more.

Of course, George could also have meant funnier as in stranger, sillier, weirder, and slightly crazy. Jar Jar is funnier, in part, by being a bit improbable, not your everyday, graspable patsy or Mary Sue character. He's deliberately odd.

I rate Jar Jar. But I also rate all of those characters for their humour.

They're a wonderful duo.

I'm sure Lucas could have hired some Hooters girls for that occupation.

 

If Lucas told him to dress up like one, he'd have done it. *shudders*

 

Yes, your post unfortunately gave me that mental image.

 

I think it was more a combination of Lucas always having a childish sense of humor, that spiraled further out of control with the more power he obtained. Imagine an emperor sitting on his throne eating and drinking anything he wants all day, surrounded by people who are all too eager to praise and flatter him in hopes of gaining favor, all while the court jesters come in and entertain him with 100 fart jokes in a row and he can't stop laughing. That's pretty much the image I have of someone who reached a place in life where they lost all touch with reality.

 

I think his own children kept him pretty grounded.

And I don't think the situation when making the films was anywhere near as extreme as you're painting it.

Mind you, if someone can laugh at 100 fart jokes in a row, they must truly be some kind of god-emperor.

 

Half an hour later ... the sound of a penny dropping...

 

I'm sure he thought it was the highlight of movie when Jar Jar said "ooo mesa stepped in the pooey" with a cheap sound effect in the background. Imagine Ben Burtt thinking to himself he wishes he could be fired and just mailing in that one or passing it off to some untalented subordinate.

I will always wonder what the original films would have been like had George Lucas been able to tell the story he wanted to tell in 1977.

 

Actually, though, Jar Jar simply remarks, "icky, icky goo", and what people miss is that Qui-Gon only just manages to clear a similar deposit moments earlier -- the same deposit that Artoo then ambles straight through. Lucas is testing your reactions.

I don't know. It's a non-sequitur, really.

 

I have a feeling Luke would have accidentally destroyed the Death Star, looked into the camera and said "Did I do that?" before an iris close and Vader pops in saying "That's All, Folks!"

 

They actually had to push the envelope a lot in order to achieve what they did with Jar Jar. It wasn't a matter of simply being able to. Jar Jar was the result of a lot of hard work and innovation.

Ahmed Best did play him as an actor. They just made the actual character CGI, because a costume wouldn't be able to move and emote the way a CGI Jar Jar can. There was supposed to be a rubbery, flexible quality to his movements that woudn't be replicable by a human being in a suit. And while the character owes a lot to the cartoon characters of old, I fail to see how he qualifes as a "ripoff." Jar Jar is something very unique. He wouldn't have inspired such an unprecedented wave of unmitigated hate if he was just more of the same old same old.

Oh, a Rick McCallum jab. Now there's something original.

 

No, he was the prequels' Jar Jar Binks

 

Certainly, a lot of time and dedication from the talented people at Industrial Light and Magic went into realizing the character on screen, but Lucas had the resources not many filmmakers did at the time. If he didn't have the capability to have it done, I doubt he would have made the character as he did.

That is if the character HAD to be a leathery platypus. He could have used his own emotive face if he were a mariner-type character with some makeup and prosthetics. The effort to have the character CG was just as troublesome, it wasn't a case of making the process easier. It was just different.

He was a leathery Roger Rabbit. I suppose that's "unique" in that it took place in space, but there was nothing special about the character in the way he was written. It was a technical achievement, but a failure in storytelling,

It's not my fault he was a yesman.

 

Jar Jar was not a technical achievement. The CGI looked terrible then and it looks worse now.

 

Probably something like this:

 

People may go on and on about hating Jar Jar, but it just seems to solidify him as a very memorable character. No matter what reasons he is brought up in conversations, he is becoming more memorable by the moment. But there are no memorable characters in the PT, right?

 

Memorable for the better or for the worse?

 

Doesn't really matter if it is for like or dislike. Point is he is still being remembered to this day for whatever reasons. I mean I can't take a poll of every one on the planet to see if Jar Jar is remembered for worse or better reasons.