PT Whats up with Jar Jar Binks?

Big difference between hate and dislike. In my opinion, disliking something doesn't create a bandwagon effect. Hating, as in investing/wasting time to bash something or someone whenever the chance appears, does.

 

in my experience when people say hate they really mean "dislike", it just adds dramatic effect to say hate, it's just like saying "I love Obi-Wan" i'm sure people don't mean that in a literal sense.

Also I don't see people wasting time to bash a character (especially jar jar)

look at the thread opening post, it's defending Jar Jar not bashing him.

 

That's great, indeed.

I know and I've never said anything else.

??? What ???
Confirmity is a fact and is espcially prevelant with young people who tend to be the target group of Star Wars. I've just said that - most likely - there is also a part of Jar Jar haters who matched their view accordings to socials norms and pressure. That's not an "attempted psychoanalysis" but simple thinking.
That doesn't invalidate people who genuinely disliked him. They are another business.

That's absolutely inaccurate, not even familiar with what I said and insulting, to be honest.

Is this a rhetorical question?

So I am not allowed to think about unassigned people's motivations and the origins of opinions yet you're allowed to condemn me, insinuate things I never said and all that publicly?
Fine. Absolutely noble.

 

"He's like if Roger Rabbit was created by Satan."

 

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Samnz & anakinfansince1983
If those fans who can't watch TPM because of Binks go grab their device and post something about it on a msg board, that pronouncement of hatred automatically becomes everyone's business. Getting personal about an individual's motivation isn't our business.

 

I disliked Jar Jar in TPM ever since I first saw it (I could tolerate him in AotC and RotS). Why? Well, I guess it basically comes down to the fact that I don’t think the character’s foolish antics fits with the general tone of the movies.

And frankly, it annoys me greatly that Jar Jar annoys me, because in the TPM he does have an important role and his character-arch is interesting, but all of that is overshadowed by Lucas essentially turning the character into a slip-in-the-banana-peel-and-fall-on-your-a**-clown, which I don’t find funny in the least. I understand that Lucas wanted to have a funny character (though I don’t think SW needed one in the first place), but in some ways, judging by the number of completely pointless, slapstick antics in the movie, I feel as if Lucas is more busy trying to force me to think Jar Jar is funny than telling me an interesting story (on Tatooine alone we have Jar Jar stepping in poo, fooling around with a droid, getting zapped and having his tongue go numb, getting his hand stuck, getting farted on, and fooling around with his food (twice) – it’s just too much!).

The two scenes in TPM in which Jar Jar is speaking with Padmé are the only scenes in which the character doesn’t get on my nerves because here we see the reason why the character is actually in the movie. I really wished Lucas had used the character better and focussed on Jar Jar's story rather than on him being comic relief.

 

quite--I don't see how taking facts from psychology and applying them to "real-world" observations is "offensive." I'm not sure conformity is more prevalent among young people, though.

Of course conformed opinions aren't any more or less "valid" than opinions that are conformed to a perceived standard--something that, after all, we all do to some degree.

Or, for that matter, take any other implicit form of attitude formation that has nothing to do with the thing in itself. For instance, disliking things that are popular makes one less socially distinctive--so there's an opposite drive to dislike stuff that's popular. Which one wins depends on the individual. Attitudes are shaped by lots of things, most of them implicit. Even the mere act of arguing something--something we do on these boards--is something that contributes to shaping someone's attitude.

Obviously, any opinion that's formed with the help of social drives, or any other factor for that matter, is not any less "genuine" than an opinion that, somehow, is not--but I doubt such a thing even exists. After all, it's not something that we start and stop at will, or are even aware of most of the time.

 

I don't hate Jar Jar by any means, but I think it's funny that people are still up in arms about him over a decade later.

 

I never said that no one genuinely disliked him. But it is not uncommon for what I said about bandwagon to be true. I've heard that many here who had once supported the PT, have since come out against it a few years later and the implication I was told, was that some of those insinuated that it was all bandwagon in the first place. Hell, Lucas put a fake title, "Jar Jar's Big Adventure" on the script and the internet flipped out. He got that some of the hatred was bandwagoning and messed with the fanbase, the same way he did a few years later with the "Han Shot First" shirt while making KOTCS and Ford was standing next to him.

 

This thread is just teeming with blasphemy. I'm a huge prequel fan, please believe me, but even I'm not going to say that Jar Jar was great. He was awful, annoying and unbelievably forced into a plot he had no business in. And I'm not saying that because it's "What the cool kids say"

It's just true.

 

All people are bandwagoners in one way or another. We don't exist in bubbles, we all soak up opinion and we're all swayed by convincing arguments. If that idea offends, please do your best to get over it.

Personally, I think some of the older fans who spit bile at Jar Jar grew up with Star Wars and assumed the films would grow up with them. I think anyone who claims that Lucas 'raped their childhood' easily falls into this category, also a section of neurotic EU canon obsessives.

And anyone else I don't like, obvs.

I understand the argument that he was superfluous to the story and tone, but I can also empathise with the decision to include him. Cut him out and the film is very dry and very straight, like a Star Trek TNG episode. However, I think he was a (cheap) fix to a script that was fairly lacking in humour and jovial banter. Without him, the cast is all straight (in comedy terms). All Cannon and no Ball. No Eric, all Ernie. I can empathise with poor George, it would have been too jarring to have Padme, Anakin or a Jedi taking on the comic relief, given how serious their situations were.

Other characters could be argued as superfluous to the plot - Qui Gon for example. Without him, we could have had Obi Wan as the protagonist, shown him disagreeing with Yoda over the training of Anakin, perhaps even sown some seeds for his and Anakin's character development in ep2...

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Regarding the racial stereotypes, I've always heard the Trade Federation accent as 'space Japanese' rather than generic south-east Asian or Chinese. I'm not surprised that some others don't, many people struggle to discriminate different accents. My better half genuinely struggles to hear any difference between Welsh, Irish, Scottish, and Geordie accents. I suppose to her, Scotty from Star Trek doesn't sound odd at all.

The Jawas sound like space Arabs, the Ewoks like space Pakistanis, the Gungans like space Uncle Remus... I'm not offended by it, I find it fits with the tone that Star Wars sets for itself. I laugh both at it and with it. I imagine there's a little cognitive dissonance going on on multiple levels, for everyone concerned (except the racists, maybe).

Jar Jar served one very interesting function - he exposed Qui Gon and Obi Wan's racism and arrogant superiority. They refer to him as an 'it' and deny he has intelligence until he proves himself of any use to them. Then they preach at his politically unrepresented, stateless people, and con them out of their possessions before using them as a suicide squad distraction in the final battle.

I'd never heard of the Jango clones being seen as space Mexicans... How tiny the worlds that some people inhabit...

 

Just how was he forced into a plot he had no business in......couldn't you say the same about 3PO in ANH? Jar Jar was a link between the Naboo and the Gungans and a major cog in the Droids being defeated

 

See, this is where I don't agree. I think where both trilogies tried too hard on the kiddie comic relief is where they hit their weakest points (the other being the Ewoks). Critics and fans alike generally rate those 2 the worst, and I think this has a lot to do with the reason. ROTJ was on the level of the other 2 OT movies if you could subtract the Ewoks and add something in their place that is of even quality to the rest of the scenes in the movie; the rest of it is really outstanding. The comic relief in ESB, ANH, and ROTS was present, but never as over the top, silly, and out of place as Jar Jar or the Ewoks. I think they could have not tried so hard to make Jar Jar funny, and it would have made for a better movie. Again, I am not a blind hater, and see the great pioneering involved in Jar Jar as a CGI character interacting with real actors, I just think they missed an opportunity for something better in that first movie. I just don't agree that without Jar Jar being a Disney/Looney Toons/Merry Melodies goofball, the movie would be too dry; I think it was good outside of Jar Jar.

 

Jar Jar is a fine character. I felt very sorry for him at Padme's funeral.

 

I'm sorry, but the Star Wars films weren't made for every demographic. They were, believe it or not, made for kids. By a big kid, no less. That's why they are what they are.
If you don't like it but the kids do, then for the love of all that is holy, please let the kids have it!

Most adult fans who love Artoo and Threepio, BTW, were kids when they became fans.

If everyone did that all the time, then nobody would ever do anything funny!
I still don't get these parallells with racist stereotypes. I mean, I understand what people are saying, but seriously, why can't we allow someone to behave a certain way in a movie just because some African American slaves used to behave similarly in old movies? It's not like it's bad behavior, it's just goofy. The behavior itself shouldn't be viewed as a problem because there's nothing wrong with it. The way it was used in old movies constitutes a problem, but that shouldn't be an issue here, because this character isn't even related to humans! He's an amphibian who behaves goofily and that is all.





- Wesa got a grand army.
- Then we'll do it real quiet-like.
/LM

 

I agree with OP. Jar Jar shouldn't be getting all the hate.

 

Welcome to the Boards, Thuro!

 

Thanks. I'm pretty active on the BMC cantina and the CCC.

 

I love it! LM, you're as wise as Master Yoda.

 

The reality has already been stated by some others in this thread. There is a very large group of extremely pernicious and venemous people who hate, and hate as a hobby and passion, the PT, and it's quite present even on these JC fourms. The group has become so vocal and so bitter to the PT that some of their objections to the PT are furiously made to look as if set in stone. Jar Jar is one of them, having become a scapegoat of their displeasure.

Now, there is another, equally saddening reality here, and that is that many people are like sheep who can be prodded into adopting an opinion out of hegemony/public opinion. Unfortunately, this is very true with many things: politics, culture, and especially Star Wars where I have seen many people who enjoyed Jar Jar Binks adopt the same vendetta, trying to smooth out their previous liking of the character as if it were a sin: "Well, I was young when TPM first came out so I kinda liked him but now I can see how [fill in some overstated critique about the character]."

Me? This type of nonsense and conformity never gets to me. I love Jar Jar Binks, think he's hilarious. Still remember mentally saying as he stepped into that pile of crap upon entering Tatooine, "Sucker!" . Loved all of his antics, each one made me: . And when I watch TPM, I even see Jar Jar as much more than just a comical character; I noticed how Jar Jar kindly tried to cheer up the Queen, offering sentences filled with sympathy, as the Queen wistfully looked out her window...

You say you have sincere problems with Jar Jar? Great, you're not part of the people I'm talking about. I'm talking about the blank slates that go around letting others color their opinions. I'm talking about the people who lack half a spine and remise their liking for Jar Jar, going along with the pro-bashing group. So sit down and take your agenda to someone else because you're dead wrong if you think your little Jar Jar-sucks/worst thing ever in SW is going to work on me.

Yes, @ the OP, many "bandwagon." It's just another ugly truth. It's quite sad because if many stayed firm to their liking of the PT, such animosity wouldn't be so permeating.

Celeris Nota: I Are The Internets always seems to have the most laid-back replies. Must be a pretty chill guy.

Cum multis magnis laudis Cryogenic for the support in that past thread.

 

I just go with the flow yo.

 

Jar Jar doesn't really sit well with me, but I can live with him. Just as I lived with C3P0 and ewoks when I was a kid. I didn't like them, but the SW saga was big enough that they didn't get in the way of my enjoyment (altho ewok victory on Endor is far more troublesome to me than anything Jar Jar or 3P0 could have ever done).

Reading over this thread, I definitely think that is valid to try to speculate over the growth of Jar Jar (and even PT) hate. The anti-PT/Lucas crowd has been very vocal over the last decade and has been influential in shaping opinions. Altho Im not convinced how many minds they change within hardcore SW fandom, they seem to have significant influence within the larger pop culture ("nerd chic") fan currents (which is a huge periphery of SW fandom nowadays).

An annoying thing that I've experienced on many occasions is when friends learn that im a hardcore SW fan, they assume by default that I hate the PT (and even Lucas) - because that's what pop culture led them to believe. But among the hardcore fans I know (even the ones pushing 4 decades like myself), PT/Lucas/Jar Jar hate is a minority position. That's not saying everybody loves every part of the saga, just that the vast majority of hardcore fans (that I know) would rather focus on enjoying what they enjoy rather than hating what they hate.

 

Well put, BBK! Very well put indeed! And welcome to the boards!

There are so many words of wisdom spoken in this thread that I can feel my intellect growing just from reading it.
What a nice place this is!

Thank you very much, Aegon





- You are unwise to lower your defenses!
- Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the wise?
/LM

 

I call them the Star Wars Tea Party.

Then again, other fandoms like Star Trek have their Tea Parties as well.

 

No, it's just your opinion.