Is the character of Jar-Jar-Binks really neccessary to the story?

Is that really the best the opposition can offer? Can we finally agree that Jar-Jar was essential to the story?

Nope. Nothing you've said has convinced, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual.

Just for the record, I shall reiterate what I was saying before.

In the first movie, Jar Jar's role, which was ONLY needed to get the Naboo and the Gungans together could have been completely done away with a little exposition from Amidala--something to the effect of, "When I was a little girl, I ran away from home, and I found this strange place where the Gungans were meeting, it seemed to be their secret place. I know where they are..." or just simply, "We must meet with the Gungans for a truce." No explanation is necessary to show how when they communicated, they just meet.

She goes to the secret place, the Gungans are surprised to see her there, but she makes her proposal for a truce, and voila! No Jar Jar needed.

In AOTC. This is even easier to push Jar Jar out of the picture. Amidala's vote was the last, and crucial vote needed to support the "military creation act." One senator opposing could've been killed already, and then Amidala is chased off to Naboo with another assassination attempt, and Chancellor Palpatine gets what he wants because there is not enough support to vote down the measure, and put Palpatine in full power.

Voila. No Jar Jar needed.

 

Jar Jar Binks is in the film. You cannot change it.

 

Well, Holy_Ben_Kenobi, by your logic, the Gungans would just pop up suddenly at the end of TPM with no prior mention or appearences. That would have been just flat-out bad story-telling, as the Gungans would end up serving a deus ex machina role-something that is almost always bad storytelling. Plus without Jar-Jar, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon could not have gotten to Theed in time. So Jar-Jar was needed for the earler part of the story as well. He served a few functions on Tatooine, most importantly the scene where he tries to grab the fruit and Qui-Gon grabs his tongue-confirming to Anakin that Qui-Gon was a Jedi.

Another character could have served his role or proposing the emergency powers in AOTC, but it would either be a throwaway character, which again would be bad storytelling, or an established character like Bail. If Bail proposes the amendment that gives Palpatine emergency powers, he looks like a fool. Jar-Jar already IS a fool by design. Plus the PT is essentially a tragedy along the lines of Othello. Most tragedies have a fool character in them to balance off the weight of the drama. He also works to reflect the happer, carefree times of the Old Republic. Not every character in Star Wars has to be completely serious to work.

 

Lucas says he thinks Jar-Jar was a huge success in TPM, and that the "Jar-Jar Backlash" had nothing to do with his reduced screentime in AOTC (compared to TPM). According to Lucas, he was a hit with his intended audience, and dismisses the anti Jar-Jar sentiment as an unavoidable outcome.

Here is a blurb from this page.

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[b]VOICE OVER TAPE:[/b] It's hard to call a film that sold close to a billion dollars worth of tickets around the world a disappointment, but fans say they were disappointed with Star Wars: Episode I ? The Phantom Menace. Lucas says he's heard this before.

[b]LUCAS:[/b] What happens is the older people that see the movie get very upset with this sort of younger ? you know, I won't say we're on the Barney level, but on the younger aspects of the movies, and they're in all the movies. And in Empire Strikes Back, the same thing happened to 3PO. They hated 3PO. They said that that jabbering ? if that robot talked any more, it's so irritating. And then I did the next film, which had Ewoks in it, and these older fans, and the older adults, all went berserk. And then in Phantom it was about (the character) Jar Jar.

[b]SIEGEL:[/b] An interesting quote I read in Time where you said, "I can't make a movie for fans."

[b]LUCAS:[/b] Well, I can't. The audience wants all different things. I definitely am not a guy who markets my ? that's market testing on my movies and says, oh, this is what the audience wants, so I'm going to give it to them. In the end, it really has to do more with storytelling than anything else.[hr]

Another from [link=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/394542.stm]this[/link] page.[hr][b]STAR WARS: Lucas Strikes Back[/b]

Star Wars creator George Lucas has defended his latest film The Phantom Menace against allegations of racism - and told BBC Two's Newsnight he blames the Internet for helping to create such stories.

Criticism has been levelled at the movie - a prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy which started in 1977 - in the US, particularly over the character Jar Jar Binks. Reviewers have attacked Binks' Carribean accent - and have also complained about other supposed stereotypes in the film. But Lucas hit back in an interview with Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark - and blamed fans on the Internet who took an instant dislike to the new character.

He said: "Those criticisms are made by people who've obviously never met a Jamaican, because it's definitely not Jamaican and if you were to say those lines in Jamaican they wouldn't be anything like the way Jar Jar Binks says them. "They're basing a whole issue of racism on an accent, an accent that they don't understand. Therefore if they don't understand it, it must be bad. "How in the world you could take an orange amphibian and say that he's a Jamaican? It's completely absurd. Believe me, Jar Jar was not drawn from a Jamaican, from any stretch of the imagination." He said the allegations said more about the people making the claims than they did about his film. "There is a group of fans for the films that doesn't like comic sidekicks. They want the films to be tough like Terminator, and they get very upset and opinionated about anything that has anything to do with being childlike. "The movies are for children but they don't want to admit that. In the first film they absolutely hated R2 and C3-PO. In the second film they didn't like Yoda and in the third one they hated the Ewoks... and now Jar Jar is getting accused of the same thing."

[b]Internet Fascination[/b]

He believes the US media's fascination with the Internet created the controversy. "The American press uses the internet as their source for everything, so when people were creating Websites saying, 'Let's get rid of Jar Jar Binks, he's terrible' and some of the critics were describing him as a comic sidekick, they came in and they started calling the film racist." He added: "It started out as a way of just selling newspapers and then oth

 

Very good points made in those articles, Go-Mer. Especially interesting is the comment Lucas made about the older audiences's reaction to Yoda after ESB. I personally remember how many older fans at the time felt it was absurd that the great Jedi master turned out to be a muppet. Several people I knew didn't even bother to see ROTJ because they felt ESB was so stupid.

Things never change it seems.

 

"As you can see while there are things some people read into these films that Lucas never intended, there are some interpretations are "very profound" and "very accurate"."

And, of course, you pretend yours are some of them.

"He created a mythological frog/fool archetype that happened to step in poop and get farted on. It seemed like well thought out characterization to me."



"I honestly didn't think you were being serious when you started to contend that Jar-Jar wasn't an archetype."

Actually, I hadn't said that, simply that you hadn't shown this to be intentionally true on Lucas' part.

Guess what, you still haven't.

"If that was all you noticed Jar-Jar doing then sure. But if you gave him half a chance you would see that Jar-Jar is the outcast at the beginning of the film, and by the end he proves to be integral to the victory of the heroes. He is also the only one who can see past the Gungan/Naboo animosity to come up with a solution. So while he is a funny character (ha ha) he is also providing a lesson in tolerance, and symbiotic relationships. As an aside, another thing Lucas said Jar-Jar was supposed to be a commentary on, was the way we tend to raise out youth here on Earth. He says we tend to ignore them until they reach some kind of coming of age milestone (such as turning 18) at which point we expect them to suddenly be able to handle all the responsibilities of being an adult. That's why he had Boss Nass promote him to Bombad General, and that's also why he ended up becoming a senatorial aide."

Yadda-yadda-yadda. Your opinion is predictable, but I'm still waiting for a Lucas quote from you that supports your position (and not a quote with a rosy interpretation, a la the "very profound interpretation" What does Lucas have to say about all this?

"I really expected more than that, and I still expect more from your arguments."

Well if you are going to continue using twisted and biased conjecture, with nothing to support it, then there's really no point to all this. You are simply going to give Jar Jar the greatest benefit of a doubt possible, which again is fine, but is supported only by your personal opinion of him. Heaven forbid you should find any fault whatsoever with him or his characterization.

I'd rather you didn't even try - such an event on your part would like cause cataclysmic events, and Heaven knows I don't want that to happen.

"Yes, but once we determine that this doesn't mean these mythological underpinnings are meaningless, we can throw this out as evidence against Lucas using mythological underpinnings. When you then take a look at all the times Lucas explains that the SW saga is intended to be a mythology, you don't need this other statement to prove that is what he is doing with SW."

How convenient. Now you've created a scenario where you don't have to bother looking for any Lucas quote that supports your opinion. I coulda saved you the effort - there is none.

"If he says that he took everything out that wasn't essential for the story, then it would stand to reason that the stuff he left in were things he considered important to the story as a whole."

Too bad there's absolutely nothing to indicate this referred specifically to an archetypical representation of Jar Jar. Again, you assume so much, but there's nothing of substance to follow.

"If you look a little closer at what he said, he says that in the instances where a scene was dropped that contained important information, he would come up with new versions of other scenes to include this important information."

If I look even closer, I notice there's no mention of Jar Jar. How many times are you going to use various quotes and pretend that their ambiguity proves a direct or causal link to Jar Jar?

"It's an accepted truth that the SW movies are supposed to be mythological stories. Jar-Jar fits perfectly into a mythological archetype of the frog/fool. Seems pretty obvious t

 

Then why did Palps try so hard to get rid of her?

Well it still wasn't even clear after her life was threatened for the second time, that the Separatists were dirty, until Obi Wan went on his investigation.

If Padme stayed on Coruscant, she would have voted against it, but instead was told to keep safe somewhere else, when she didn't want protection but to get on with business.

Everything that Padme said and did was in opposition to the Army Act., so I don't know where you are getting this from.

I believe its the same reason she decided that "aggressive negotiations" was the only way. Even Anakin was questioning her

 

Funny how that wasn't decided until it was absolutely clear that they were going to kill her.

Seems she only had suspicions as to Dooku's involvement in her attempted assassination, and didn't consider that enough evidence. But hey, read into her line what you wish. That appears to be par for the course in this thread.

 

Funny how that wasn't decided until it was absolutely clear that they were going to kill her.

Yeah, those pesky disgruntled miners . Obi Wan had to go on investigation before pointing fingers.

Seems she only had suspicions as to Dooku's involvement in her attempted assassination, and didn't consider that enough evidence. But hey, read into her line what you wish.

I believe she's only targeting him as the true problem. Stop him, and the Separatists just might back off. Later to find Obi Wan said "if get Dooku, we can end this war right now". No one listens to Padme

 

Is Jar Jar necessary? No.

Would TPM have been better without him? Depends on what changes are made, how GL puts all the time that he saves by getting rid of Jar Jar into use.

Personally, I like him. Overall, he's a funny character. I just think that GL should have spent more time with other characters who are more important and need the character development.

-Aunecah

 

Considering the fact that Lucas has gone on record numerous times to explain that SW is meant to be a mythology, the burden would be on you to explain how Jar-Jar wasn't intentionally created as an archtypical mythological character.

Lucas talks about how the characters he uses are archetypes, and Jar-Jar is a character. I for one don't need Lucas to list the names of all the characters he intended as archetypes to see that Jar-Jar, a character that perfectly fits the "frog/fool" archetype, was intentionally made that way on purpose.

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[b]Go-Mer (before):[/b] If he says that he took everything out that wasn't essential for the story, then it would stand to reason that the stuff he left in were things he considered important to the story as a whole. If you look a little closer at what he said, he says that in the instances where a scene was dropped that contained important information, he would come up with new versions of other scenes to include this important information.

[b]MeBeJedi:[/b] If I look even closer, I notice there's no mention of Jar Jar. How many times are you going to use various quotes and pretend that their ambiguity proves a direct or causal link to Jar Jar?[hr][/blockquote]This only proves that Lucas felt Jar-Jar was essential to the story, which is the topic of this thread.[blockquote][hr][b]Go-Mer (before):[/b] Lucas says he thinks Jar-Jar was a huge success in TPM, and that the "Jar-Jar Backlash" had nothing to do with his reduced screentime in AOTC (compared to TPM). According to Lucas, he was a hit with his intended audience, and dismisses the anti Jar-Jar sentiment as an unavoidable outcome.

[b]MeBeJedi:[/b] Wow! A real-live Lucas quote. Too bad it states nothing about the mytholigcal underpinnings of his specific character. The only thing he does say in regards to it is in your second quote...
"There is a group of fans for the films that doesn't like comic sidekicks." As was said, Curly, not Campbell.[hr][/blockquote]That would be your unsubtantiated assumption now wouldn't it?[blockquote][hr][b]MeBeJedi:[/b] Of course, there's also this..

[b]Lucas:[/b] The movies are for children but they don't want to admit that.

[b]MeBeJedi:[/b] How many kids do you know that have read Campbell? I'll bet many, many more of them have seen the 3 Stooges.[hr][/blockquote]What does that have to do with anything? Kids don't have to read cempbell to enjoy myth.

Can you agree that Star Wars is intended as a mythology? Or do you want a Quote from Lucas saying that?

 

"Wonderful. Your "proof" has nothing to do with the actual argument, and basically boils down to "He may be unnecessary, but he's still in the film!"

I grew tired of arguing so I didn't bother. Think what you like friend.

 

"Considering the fact that Lucas has gone on record numerous times to explain that SW is meant to be a mythology, the burden would be on you to explain how Jar-Jar wasn't intentionally created as an archtypical mythological character. "

More of the "I'm not going to do it" mentality. Some proof.

"This only proves that Lucas felt Jar-Jar was essential to the story, which is the topic of this thread."

Too bad it wasn't the topic of your quote.

"That would be your unsubtantiated assumption now wouldn't it?"

Pot, meet kettle. Maybe now you see the limitations of your reasoning?

"Can you agree that Star Wars is intended as a mythology?"

I believe I said this before - yes.

"Or do you want a Quote from Lucas saying that?"

About the films, no. About Jar Jar, yes. Not everything in the films has a mythological basis. If you'd read the Annotated Screenplays, you would know that. My quote has Lucas referring to him specifically as comic relief, and nothing more, which means I did "explain how Jar Jar wasn't intentionally created as an archtypical mythological character". You've not come up with one single quote to contradict that. In lieu of this, it seems the issue is settled.

 

Considering the fact that Lucas has gone on record numerous times to explain that SW is meant to be a mythology, the burden would be on you to explain how Jar-Jar wasn't intentionally created as an archtypical mythological character

But good writers don't create characters and put them in a story just because they want a certain archetype in there. I've always been interested in frogs, too. I love Frog Prince, in fact, but does that mean that I can just put a minor character with a quasi-major role in the movie who's a frog, who goes around getting into a dozen accidents, and doesn't serve any purpose?

Personally, I like Jar Jar. I like his antics. But he isn't necessary to the story and TPM might probably have been better without. Same goes for Qui-Gon Jinn too. We haven't spent anywhere near enough time with Obi-Wan. Most of TPM is about Qui-Gon, followed by Amidala, followed by Anakin. Most of AOTC is about Anakin and Amidala, followed by (in no particular order) Obi-Wan, Palpatine, the Jedi Order, the Seperatists, Mace Windu, Coutn Dooku, and Yoda.

It's all good and well to have new and interesting characters in the movies, but not at the expense of the major characters.



-Aunecah

 

Once again Jar-Jar serves many purposes. You can't just close your eyes and act like he has none.

1) Brings the heros to Untah Gunga at the risk of his own life, which allows the Jedi to arrive just in time to rescue the Queen and co.

2) He is the one who looks past the Gungan and Naboo aminosity to find the best solution to their problem at the end of TPM.

3) He starts out as an outcast from his own society and then through sheer perserverance, he ends up becoming one of his society's top political figures.

4) In AOTC he acts as the well meaning optimist who is manipulated by Palpatine into doing something that will ultimately be the downfall of the Galaxy, by tricking him into thinking it's in the Galaxy's best interests.

And those are just the surface purposes.

Bail Organa is supposed to be against the Clone Army as much as Padme was. He does want to stop the separatists before they can attack, but he isn't for using a clone army. This is an important stance for Bail, as it sets him up as one of the more vocal opponents of Palpatine's methods. This is integral to the setup in ANH where Leia, who had been adopted by Bail Organa, is now one of the major players in the opposition to Palpatine's Empire.

If SW is intended as a mythology, wouldn't it stand to reason that the mythological archetypes found within were intentional?

Lucas said that when he originally sat down to write SW, he was trying to put these components of myth into place, but he would always get stuck and have to start over. It was only when he just focussed on the story without worrying about the mythological underpinnings that he was able to complete the story, and when he looked it over, he discuvered that the mythological components were just there naturally.

It is not neccesarily a concsious choice to add a "frog/fool" archetype, but that doesn't alter the fact that Jar-Jar is a mythological "frog/fool" arhetype.

 

"Once again Jar-Jar serves many purposes. You can't just close your eyes and act like he has none.
1) Brings the heros to Untah Gunga at the risk of his own life, which allows the Jedi to arrive just in time to rescue the Queen and co.
2) He is the one who looks past the Gungan and Naboo aminosity to find the best solution to their problem at the end of TPM.
3) He starts out as an outcast from his own society and then through sheer perserverance, he ends up becoming one of his society's top political figures.
4) In AOTC he acts as the well meaning optimist who is manipulated by Palpatine into doing something that will ultimately be the downfall of the Galaxy, by tricking him into thinking it's in the Galaxy's best interests.
And those are just the surface purposes."

On the surface, he was given purposes - but this does not mean he has "purpose" other than comedy relief. Let's not confuse the issue here.

BTW, unless you can find any evidence to the contrary, all he has are surface features.

"If SW is intended as a mythology, wouldn't it stand to reason that the mythological archetypes found within were intentional?"

To an extent, yes. To an extreme biased extent, one would hope. That being said, I'm not taking your "reasoning" for granted. For all your talk of having "proof", your standards for the burden of proof have dropped sharply.

For example...

"It is not neccesarily a concsious choice to add a "frog/fool" archetype, but that doesn't alter the fact that Jar-Jar is a mythological "frog/fool" arhetype."

The other shoe drops. Not only was your position not proven, but you've just admitted the possibility that it could never be proven.

For what it's worth, I agree with this last statement, which goes to show that your evidence is circumstantial at best. In the future, however, try to be a little more conservative about what you think you have or haven't "proven".

 

I'm not saying TPM wouldn't be different without Jar Jar Binks. But so much time got wasted showing Jar Jar and it could have been put to better use on other things, and here are some for the starters:

1) Obi-Wan
2) The Sith (why were the Jedi so shocked? What's so horrible about the Sith?)
3) The Jedi (what does a Jedi training broadly encompass? - You'd think they'd at least show Anakin around and ask him whether he thinks he can handle it...)

-Aunecah

 

Adam Bertocci edits you!

Is that your new mod line? lol.

 

If Jar-Jar was the catalyst for the Jedi to get to Theed in time to save the Queen, and he was also the only one who could look past the Gungan/Naboo animosity to see the solution to their problems, and he also acted as the well meaning optimist who is taken advantage of by Palpatine, then wouldn't that also be his purpose?

Lucas did intentionally set out to make a mythology. He did come up with Jar-Jar who does end up fitting the Frog/Fool archetype, then he goes on and on about how he cuts out everything that isn't important to the story, and we can at least conclude that he was intending to end up with these kinds of mythological archetypes, even if he wasn't neccesarily conscious about the mythological underpinnings while he was initially coming up with Jar-Jar.

So we can probablly agree on these things.

1) Lucas is trying to make a mythology with the SW saga.

2) Jar-Jar does fit the mold of a Frog/Fool archetype, which has been noticed as a component of many mythologies since man first existed, whether Lucas specifically intedned that while he was intitially writing the story or not.

3) Jar-Jar does serve specific storytelling purposes beyond being a silly character.

4) Lucas felt Jar-Jar was integral to the story.

Can we agree on these points?

 

Yes, but Go-Mer Lucas backed off his character in AOTC based on his large amount of screentime in TPM.

It now makes TPM seem unbalanced because so much time is spent on setting up Jar Jar, yet no resolution to his character arc.

I like Jar Jar, but Lucas backed down and it's neither here nor there as a result........just like midichlorians.

Either go all the way with it, or don't bother.

He could've remedied this by spreading out Jar Jar's antics thoughout the PT instead of crowding them into one episode.

AOTC needed some of his lightness, and some growth in his character.......but no, we get 3PO spouting lines from the "How to Speak like C-3PO in 10 days" manual.

 

According to Lucas, Jar-Jar's reduced screentime in AOTC was done to serve the story, not to appease the people who didn't like Jar-Jar.

Jar-Jar completes an arc by the end of TPM. He starts out an outcast, and ends up redeeming himself to his people, enough so that they entrust him with positions of power within their society.

In AOTC, his only real purpose was to be the nice guy Palpatine can manipulate.

He will also be in Episode III, and I am sure he will get his closure.

Contrast this with someone like Chewbacca, and Jar-Jar has boat loads of character arc.

 

"Jarjar Binks is in the film. You cannot change it"

Already did. Truly wonderful todays technology.

"Jar-Jar Backlash" had nothing to do with his reduced screentime in AOTC (compared to TPM)"

Yeeeaahhh, riiiiiight. Thats the ticket.

 

I am just telling you what he said.

Believe whatever suits your own ego.

 

Go-Mer that is poor storytelling then. Jar Jar serves the PLOT just fine in AOTC, but not the story at all.

In fact, all the characters run around and spout their lines and end up at the end of each scene right where they began!

Bad storytelling subservient to the plot.

I don't just want to know "HOW" Palps did it, but "Who he was" and "who the people were" he did it to.

I don't know these people nor care. The dialogue is interchangeable and the fact you could give Jar Jar's lines to practically anyone else in AOTC and it would work proves it.

 

How does Jar-Jar serve the plot but not the story?

The characters' dialogue is there to move the story forward. I don't understand why you would say they get nowhere.

In what way are we not being shown how Palps did it? If you don't know the people he is doing "it" to, it isn't because Lucas is presenting them.

Jar-Jar is the only one who could be manipulated like he was. Bail wouldn't have been that gullible, Padme wouldn't have been that gullible.

Who else could have done it?