Embracing your inner-Jar Jar!

With special thanks to StampidHD280pro and others here for opening the door...

I used to be a "basher", then I realized that my problem was that I forgot what I loved about Star Wars back in 1977: the fun of it all. For some reason, I took all of the overly serious discussion and analysis of the movies at face value and didn't critically watch the old films anymore. I never liked Star Wars in the first place because of "hero's journeys" or "modern mythologies" or because Joseph Campbell or some other celebrity scholar said something about them, I liked them because they were fun! They were really exciting to a young kid, they had great explosions, they were really imaginative and they took you to a great fictional universe. That is exactly what summer blockbusters are for, and Star Wars was the greatest of them all. Sure Empire Strikes Back was great too, and I loved it. Return of the Jedi is still my least favorite of all six, but even it is fun when you drop all of the hoping that it will turn an adventure story into the answer to the meaning of life.

When the PT came out, I had forgotten why I loved the old movies and tried to convince myself that they really were more than just great, fun, adventure flicks which borrowed certain themes from history and religion to make for a better story and began to drink the Kool-Aid about them being some amazing modern mythos, etc. Because of that, the fun, kiddie tone of TPM bothered me, or the video game feel of AotC. I even pretended that Revenge of the Sith was trying to be a dark tragedy; recently I tried to look at these films without the baggage--through the eyes of Jar Jar Binks, and guess what, they are all what they always were--great fun films with a positive message. That is what Lucas tried to do in 1977 and has been doing ever since. Of course he let people get carried away with all kinds of high blown academic debate, it was good for marketing and, yes, he was giving the films a moral message; but that was always ancillary to the fun factor, and still is. It just an adult doesn't get as excited about children's films as children. No one will react at age 30 how they did at age 6 to the shear excitement of fantasy cinema.

So, to enjoy the PT and the saga fully, I suggest embracing your inner Jar Jar. It works for me. Sure I don't love these films or any films for that matter the way a 6 year old can, but I realize they are all in the same vein, and many of the issues we have with them are really issues with our own cynicism and denial of the fact that we liked the first films we saw the best because of our own innocence and lack of cynicism and skepticism, not because they were intrinsically better.

 

wow

 

I had no problem with Jar-Jar. Granted I don't watch it JUST to for him like my mother does, but he didn't bother me, and still doesn't.

 

I came to a similar epiphany when I wrote my Ep. VI screenplay once upon a time, realizing that overemphasizing the Wagnerian qualities dilutes the unique flavor to the movies. Yes, there is a certain humanity, an integrity even, to George Lucas's sensibilities. (Isn't it kinda wonderful that he had the inspiration to pass his own cough over to his droid general's character, as if clutching our collective shoulders while children are struck down, pregnant women strangled, and prodigies burned alive?)

This delicate tragicomic dance is what will ensure the series' immortality.

 

George Lucas in "The Beginning":

"Jar Jar is the key to all this..."

 

Well thank you for making my day.

I suggest that every basher read the above statement very carefully.

Yep, it's all in our heads.

I'll never forget watching all six movies with my friends when ROTS came out on DVD (some of which had never seen the movies). I was the guy in the room pointing out every inconsistency, every gripe, every blooper, every change made in the Special Editions, and I feel totally lame about it now. That's not what watching movies is about.

I don't know what it means to embrace one's inner Jar-Jar (inner child?), but what DarthPoppy has demonstrated publicly is the perfect example of UNLEARNING WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED. Don't like disliking something? Stop disliking it.

 

As somebody who does enjoy all of the mythic stuff in the saga, I like the fun and goofy side of it too. I know that underneath it all, Star Wars is first and foremost great entertainment and even a "dark" movie like ROTS or TESB never takes itself too seriously.

--MissPadme

 

right on poppy!

While i might disagree with you about the depth of star wars, I think it has plenty, it is first and foremost about fun. Swashbuckling, edge of your seat, FUN. what I think makes star wars so amazing is that it is able to be two things at once (the amount of dualism in star wars is just kind of silly) that seem counter-intuitive: the ultimate silver age comic meets b-movie extravaganza of simple twee/child-like wonder and bliss; as well as the ultimate read between the lines epic of gargantuan philosophical, historical, psychological, dramatic, and so on depth. Never before or after has a movie series been so undeniably human.

Not many movies can on first view be the silliest, funnest time you've ever had and on the second viewing be like digging into watchmen and discovering it's insight into the darkness of humanity and the world around us. how GL does it i'll never understand, but star wars has such a uniquely wonderful style. I doubt anyone will be able to pull of again a work of art that is visceral and to the point yet has so much detail in every inch of it that it begs for the viewer to go digging for deeper meaning. I think a fitting metaphor would be taking the purely for kids fun that is the Schumacher batman movies, and combining it with the intensely mature fun for adults only drama that are the nolan movies and combining both aesthetics while in the process strengthening both contrary aesthetics and seamlessly threading them together into a masterpiece of a movie. I don't see anyone but george pulling off something so seemingly improbably and impossible.

Let us all find our inner jar jar and enjoy the mindless yet thoughtful, endless fun that is star wars!