PT Do you think Jar Jar Binks is as annoying as fans actually make him out to be?

I rewatched TPM and AOTC in the last week and I gotta say... Jar Jar still annoys me as much as he ever did. Which is to say, by and large he's annoying. My views on him haven't really changed since 1999. He's a decent character and a good design with an incredibly flawed execution.

 

He annoys the heck out of me in the movies, but in Clone Wars I am okay with him. My son feels the same way. Perhaps it is because he seems like a cartoon character to me, out of place in live action, too clownish and over the top.

 

I liked Jar Jar, and any flaws in the character are in the execution rather than the concept. I'm also of the opinion that Lucas haters had a feeding frenzy when the LA Times printed inflammatory stuff about Episode I. The denunciatory criticims (that Jar Jar and other characters were stereotypical insults by proxy) mostly offended me, because they took some very mild and measured commentary by academics and inflated it to sell papers and sensationalize the issue in a way that hurt the actors and the fans without sufficient reason. They made it cool to hate the prequels and especially Jar Jar, and I think they did it out of resentment for Lucas and to cash in on sensationalism. Had that not happened, people might have gotten over their irritation with his antics and maybe even found and appreciated the many nods to Buster Keaton films that occurred in multiple scenes.

I'm also of the opinion that Jar Jar had an unusual connection to the Force and we didn't get to see what Lucas was going to do with that because he dialed back the character. I still liked the Prequels we got, but would be really interested to learn about this possible expanded role for the much maligned Gungan.

 

I was disappointed I never saw him die yeah I'll be real lol

 

I don't have a problem with Jar-Jar.

 

I agree. He represents an innocent time. And honestly, especially after he was toned way down in AOTC and ROTS, I don’t have a big problem with the character.

 

He's nowhere near as bad as some say, but I do think he was over used in TPM and could have been toned down. My main issue with him is that he doesn't really serve a purpose or do anything until the end of TPM when he's just used to get the Gungan army. Imo, he just doesn't really fit into most of the movie and feels forced into the "not on Naboo" parts of the story.

 

I loved Jar Jar as a kid and much like midichlorians I was shocked and confused when I first discovered the opinion online that he had somehow ruined Star Wars. As I’ve gotten older I can at least understand why someone who had grown up with only the OT existing for 20+ years would find him unpalatable, and that’s ok, but the idea that there’s something objectively wrong with existence that could fuel the kind of hatred that lead to the bullying of his actor is just nonsense. As others have said he can be a tad obnoxious at times but it work because Obi-wan thinks so too. I’ve never been a fan of “scatological humor” but it lasts a combined like 7 seconds in the film so it’s really easy to ignore.

 

Jar Jar leads the Jedi to Otoh Gunga, enabling them to take a shortcut through the planet core that lets them reach the queen before she is sent to a prison camp.

Jar Jar attracts Anakin's attention by becoming embroiled with Sebulba, and defusing this conflict is Anakin's first heroic act in the films. This also attaches Anakin to the group, so that they end up taking shelter with him... which leads not only to the podracing plan to get them off the planet but also to Qui-Gon's interest in Anakin's Jedi potential.

Jar Jar suggests mentions the Gungan army to the Queen, saying they won't go down without a fight. This inspires her to go back to Naboo and try to capture the Viceroy.

It's subtle but Jar Jar drives the plot in many cases. He also seems to have been set up as a skeptic foil to the Jedi but that didn't go very far. "Oooooh, maxi-big the Force. Well that smells stinkowiff!"

 

Jar Jar's skepticism seems to disappear immediately upon seeing the Jedi actually go into action against the battle droids: "Yousa guys bombad!"

And, you know, fair enough.

 

I think it depends on who or which part of the fanbase you're talking about, or asking. I don't think a lot of kids or general audiences took particular issue with him (at least not like he was their arch nemesis or something), but were honest about either liking or disliking him. The passage of time and TCW certainly changed some folk's perspective of him. But it can't be denied that the particularly loud subset of hostile SW fans certainly dominated perception of the conversation surrounding him.

I've disliked him as much as disliked Bulk and Skull (Power Rangers) and C-3PO as a kid. Twentysome years really hasn't changed my feelings about him, but I'm not an obnoxious kid about it anymore. Now it's just, "Oh, a Jar Jar scene" and that's the reality of it.

I don't think there were enough moments like the one he shared with Padme or even his start with Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon to balance out his bouts of "point and laugh" buffoonery in TPM. Any time a scene seemed to be hitting a stride it got halted by Jar Jar's antics, which did nothing for the progression of the story or his character.

The script never really capitalized on engaging the xenophobia the human cast demonstrated with Jar Jar that wasn't offset by a punchline at his expense (like Qui-Gon's ever-present resignation), though I'm not sure how that wouldn't've ended up like bad morality tale out of AVATAR (James Cameron). I always wondered how the Gungans would've been received if Jar Jar wasn't the dominant representative.

Reading about the racial coding inherent in the character a little later in life was one of those moments where I ended up not watching TPM for a while because it frustrated me. I don't envy the position Ahmed Best was in as the actor, targeted by the otherwise tone deaf fan-base that typically pretended race didn't matter, but were content to twist talking points from critiques about the film handled coding to bolster their bashing of either Jar Jar or Best. It doesn't change my feelings about the character in retrospect, however.

There are ways to do comedic characters, but I really don't think Jar Jar is what I'd call exemplary execution.

 

Without a doubt the design work that went into the Gungans as a peoples is really amazing, and it does do the job of inferring of a very old and very lived-in civilization on Naboo. I wish Legends or Canon had explored the rift between them and the (human) Noobians (???) since that seemed to be a huge issue (implied) in TPM, to the point where Padme didn't think to ask for their help until Jar Jar mentioned their army.

But, yeah, there definitely needed to be a balance between the levity Lucas wanted to provide and the missed opportunities in making the Gungans more than just background/humor spectacle. Boss Nass feels like a reinterpretation of Jabba the Hutt's, I guess, sliminess, so there's no real sense you're meant to take him seriously beyond the threat he might pose to Jar Jar.

It's on my to-read list alongside Queen's Shadow. I'm slowly working my way through Legends and Canon books I either ignored or didn't get a chance to read. So, I hope I like it.

 

I also don't think there would have been a way to do that without making the human cast come across as too unlikable. Thus the story is more focused around the humans' ignorance and wariness of the Gungans than on any more focused form of intolerance. The Gungans are more openly contemptuous of the Naboo, but that's okay because they're in more of an underdog position. If the lofty Naboo were given the same attitude, it wouldn't come across as sympathetically.

But I don't think the human characters' annoyance at Jar Jar's clumsiness has much to do with the xenophobia subplot. Remember, the Gungans found Jar Jar's clumsiness annoying too, so much so that they had him banished. Jar Jar is an outcast; he doesn't fit in anywhere. He functions not so much as a representative of the Gungans but as someone who exists outside both worlds, and thus is capable of seeing the truth of the two societies' animosity more clearly.

e:

I don't know, I'd hate to lose that detail. It's so fun!

I think that's part of what defines the Gungans. They're more expressive, silly, and less refined than the Naboo. By contrast, the Naboo come across as more reserved, emotionless, even repressed.

A lot of people complain about Portman's monotone as the Queen, but the way I see it it was clearly intentional. It was meant to contrast against the bombastic personality of Boss Nass, as well as against the more open personality of the Padme persona.

It culminates with the scene in the Sacred Place clearing, where Padme finally reveals herself as the Queen and allows herself to be open and vulnerable in a way that connects with Boss Nass and the Gungans.

The Gungans dislike the Naboo because of how distant and intellectually preoccupied they come across. As Jar Jar points out, the Naboo don't like the Gungans because they have an army, which is perhaps connected to the Gungans' more instinctive and emotionally unreserved ways.

By humbling herself before the Gungans and making an emotional plea for the help of their army, Padme is admitting that the Gungan way of life is valid, even necessary. In the same way that the reserved Queen and the expressive Padme personas are finally being merged in this scene, the split psyche of the planet of Naboo is also being merged. Lofty Naboo intellect is being unified with submerged Gungan passion.

The planet becomes a symbiotic whole just as Padme comes into her own as a fully realized person and leader.

 

Boss Nass only slobbers twice, right? When he's considering the facts and making a decree. I always figured the jowl shaking and slobbering was a cultural display of authority.

And it's only fitting, as it would be something the sophisticated Naboo would see as primitive and untasteful.

 

Yes, Jar Jar is as annoying as people make him out to be. I agree with others that it's more a case of flawed execution, but he is still annoying. It's just too much of the slapstick, clumsy, oafish trope added to the cliched successful by accident story that ruins Jar Jar, and makes him annoying. I also think having too much comic relief hurt the likability of Jar Jar. That is Lucas for feeling the need to shoehorn C-3PO and R2 into every possible scene, and for how he portrays the battle droids. It becomes too much to make Jar Jar palatable, and ends up making him overly annoying.

 

sometimes less is more

 

I never really was that annoyed by him, I'm more annoyed by the over the top fan hate for him especially when it's directed at Ahmed Best. However, I do think they could have toned him down a bit as his slapstick moments haven't really aged as well for me.

 

yeah I like Jar Jar. But it's like that in almost every scene. Nice moment with Anakin and Padme. Cut to Jar Jar tripping and dropping things. They just did it too much.

 

Sometimes dead is beddah.

 

One thing I noticed re-watching The Phantom Menace today was that Jar Jar's gunganized English (presumably a rendering of Gungan-Basic pidgin, but let's not be pedantic) tends to take a little longer in certain instances than the words would take in proper English. This can make the lines come off a little belabored. It only happens a few times but it is noticeable. The thing is we never get that with Boss Nass or Captain Tarpals, and I assume that this has to do with Brian Blessed's level of experience as an actor compared to Ahmed Best. Of course Ahmed Best also had many more lines, but I think his inexperience and the unusually challenging role had something to do with it. It might not just come from the lines themselves. Tarpals is a smaller role, but I can't remember who played him.

Here is another question. Are gungans hermaphroditic, or do gungan females really keep to themselves like Tolkien's dwarves? I suppose the cartoon might have some female gungan characters (though I don't take TCW as canon) but in the films we never see a gungan character clearly demarcated as female. The impression given, to me at least, is that all of the visible gungans in every scene are male.

 

You could argue that this model shown in a Gungan crowd shot could be identified as female:


There are three who share the model, most obviously the one on the right behind the child. Of course, just having the ears in a ponytail is a little weak to go on, but it's close enough for me.

There's more in other shots, such as this one that appears to show a Gungan mother comforting her child (she's kneeling down on the left):

 

I suppose there are Gungan females, but as with most Militaries, it's mostly Males that do the fighting...

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk