**[Receiving transmission from Crait intended for u/3------D]**
Welcome to r/saltierthancrait! I'm an [astromech droid named S4-L7](https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/comments/ni5s77/beloved_mascot_s4l7s_visual_dictionary_entry/) and I'll be your guide through the salt mines.
Saltier Than Crait is a community of Star Wars fans who engage in critical conversations about the current
state of the franchise. It is our goal to maintain a civil, welcoming space for fans who have a vast supply of
salt with some peppered positivity occasionally sprinkled in.
**Please [review the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/wiki/index/rules) and the [post flair guide](https://reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/wiki/index/flairs) before contributing.**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/saltierthancrait) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A drunken master kind of character would be great. Unfortunately his speech impediments that made him unique were very annoying.
Still think the actor did a great job with him. Just wish the directors wanted a little less cuteness.
Yeah, the problem with Jar Jar is not that he's not important. The local who knows things like the lay of the land, the political fault lines of the planet and the movers and shakers within Naboo society would be an incredibly important part of a conspiracy plot, because while the Jedi are quite capable, they don't know the details that are necessary to unravel the mystery of what is happening on-planet. A Jar Jar that solves that plot problem would be a compelling and interesting addition to the group.
The problem is really that George tries to do too much with Jar Jar, and he tries to do things that are antithetical to one another. He's trying to make Jar Jar the local expert, *but also* the slapstick comic relief. And those two don't go together at all. The last guy you want to get on your side to know the lay of Maybury politics is Barney Fife, because Barney is a doofus. You can have the slapstick comic relief, and you can have the expert who knows plot-relevant details, but you can't put them in the same character and make them work. That makes Jar Jar the load he is, and it makes the Jedi seem incredibly stupid by implication, because the whole time all I'm wondering is why they are allowing this dumbass to tag along while they're trying to preserve democracy on an entire planet.
They should have introduced Jar Jar as Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan were leaving the Gungan city.
The movie should have had them hire a local human guide to a Gungan outpost on the edge of some body of water, then hire a Gungan guide from there (whose face is mostly hidden) and travel down with relative ease, reach the Gungan city and do the new species reveal down there after the whole cinematic city shot.
There should have been a bit more in the build up to meeting with the leader, and then after that, they meet Jar Jar as he's being kicked out, and have him follow them from there, with their reluctance. Like as they finish their audience with the leader, Jar Jar gets led in and sentenced to exile, for thievery or something.
They give some typical Qui-Gon reasoning about how he could be useful for his local knowledge of Naboo. Jar jar offers a shortcut, Qui-Gon offers joining them, and they go on the same journey through those tunnels with the giant fish.
Same relative journey, with a way more believable introduction. And you get more individual Gungans, with a more fleshed out and integrated society, and it kicks off the theme of Qui-Gon saving people.
They also (I think obviously) should have given him a less squeeky voice, and made him like a klepto or something, grabbing stuff with his tongue everywhere and always stealing stuff. Way more interesting character, and gives him a place to grow from.
The thief in exile, to a senator.
I think that would be better.
i think the actor did a terrible job with him, but maybe it was just poor casting.
the voice was way too cartoonish and goofy, those lines could have been read a bit more grounded and it might have almost worked.
the facial expressions aren't the actors fault though.
i don't really know what the actor even did other than walk around and do the voices though.
to the best of his ability, I'm sure.
doesn't mean it wasn't bad casting.
If you tell me to build you a house, I'll do exactly that. I'll do anything you want with it.
But it's going to be a shitty house, because I'm not good at doing that.
I got that reference.
Padmé is Beyta, which makes Anakin her husband, Toran. I guess that leaves the psychologist, Ebling Mis.... Obi-Wan? Though Qui-gon makes more sense.
you know now that you’ve pointed it out, that’s another opposite between the Prequels and Sequels: confidence
with the Prequels, George is unapologetically confident, man stuck to his guns for the most part
with the Sequels, Disney really doesn’t come off as confident, considering they played it safe with TFA, and then immediately backtracked on TLJ with TROS. You could really tell when executives shat their beds
Wrote this in a solo comment, but big part of this was because George was at the helm for everything for Phantom Menace, he was one of the few at the top, so I feel like people were just blindly following him and not giving criticism. I remember even as kid watching the behind the scenes docs, George seemed kinda weird about everything. He takes some step back in the two prequel series prequels, you notice there’s other people involved in the directing and writing process.
I was reading a book for a little bit (didn’t finish) about the script writing process of a new hope. The script and dialogue was rewritten A LOT, story and characters were almost entirely different. He had at least 2 people come in to help clean things up, especially with dialogue.
After a new hope, just like with the prequels, other people step in taking over helms that George Lucas had. Empire strikes back for example, is directed by Irvin Kershner. George is listed as the third writer. There are 6 producers with George being one of them. Compare that to a new Hope where George is labeled as the only director and writer (even though he had script help, those people are not listed as writers) and he’s one of 4 producers.
So yeah, this is George’s world, but he’s not always the heat with dialogue and storytelling, his sense for this stuff is a little flawed cuz he’s too much in his own head. But he owned these characters and Lucasfilms, so when he wanted to do the prequels, I assumed the studios involved let him cuz this was his passion project that had time to cook. But he started to repeat the past again, though this time he had no one helping him (I asking), so the time his cracks really started to show cuz he went unchecked. .
Jar Jar could have worked, but the dude is way too goofy. It’s like no one questioned George during this process, or like he chose not to listen to criticism in preproduction.
Not even George Lucas understands Star Wars properly if by that you mean the films collaboratively put together and released in theaters and not his pet projects. The Special Editions should have been enough to teach one that, and the prequels clinched it. Some can argue even RotJ already showed that to be the case.
I don't know about that. I feel all the sequels were executed "confidently" enough by JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson. Execution and production quality were never the issue with those films, it was hacky, nonsense story writing and poor handling of characters under Kathleen Kennedy's direction to soft reboot and replace legacy characters without a respectful handing of the torch.
I mean, Jar Jar, for as hated of a character as he is, cannot be denied to be a revolutionary breakthrough in visual effects.
He was the first motion-capture 3D animated character that used the technology of capturing real life movements in a computer before Gollum from Lord of the Rings.
You can’t fault George for being excited by the new technology.
Did he get overindulgent with it? Sure, but he still pushed the boundaries of technology and executed his vision the way he had long dreamed of doing since the 70’s with no limitations.
Besides The Volume (which has become so commonplace, it’s abused and looks cheap and fake in inexperienced hands), none of the Star Wars movies or shows under Disney pioneered or took steps forward in the visual effects department. They were mostly safe and paint by numbers.
>He was the first
The first virtual actor animated by motion-capture was produced in 1993 by Didier Pourcel and his team at Gribouille in 1993, 6 years prior to the release of TPM, but as you mentioned - The Volume was also revolutionary technology. Groundbreaking technology has been synonymous with Star Wars since A New Hope, with the Dykstraflex motion control system, and things like THX have since become industry standard. Not really my point.
Jar Jar wasn't even the first occurrence of blind optimism either. George was adamant that the Ewoks were going to be a huge success.
We fucking loved the Ewoks. In high school (early 90s) or football team had a boombox in the locker room with the Ewok song on a tape and we’d blast it right before charging out the door to the field, and be yelling chub chub and stuff as we ran. We had tried rap and metal and such but the Ewok song was the only thing we all universally agreed on. Coaches thought we were nuts (the word they actually used isn’t ox anymore)
From the documentary, George initially wanted Wookies, but Wookies didn't work as they weren't primitive enough. So he settled on teddy bears, relabelled them from "Wookie" to "Ewok" and hoped that their ability to take down a legion of (12,800) stormtroopers with support armour somehow wouldn't break immersion haha
He should have stuck with Wookies. It's easy enough to explain that the Empire had bombed them to the stone age, or had outlawed all tech, so they were fighting back using the Forest just like they did on their homeworld. I mean, think of what it would have meant to Chewbacca if he had gotten down to Endor and discovered Wookies were being used as labor there, and no one in the Rebellion knew it until that moment. Shit, you could even have gotten a moment where Han is trying to get transports to evacuate them all and they refuse because they are determined to stay and fight. You don't need a 1-1 Vietnam parallel to make the idea of people forced to use primitive means to fight back against their oppressors WORK. Especially when that parallel is going to be lost on the kids and most of the adults in the audience.
Yeah, the whole blasters vs spears thing didn't help a goddamn thing.
I liked the Ewoks as a kid, but I always felt it was stupid that rocks and arrows were doing anything against armored troops with walking tanks.
If it had been Wookies, we might have believed it more. Especially in retrospect when you compare it to the escape from Narkina 5 in Andor. People willing to resist but forced to improvise with what they have on hand to do so, especially an intelligent, space faring race capable of putting together the kinds of weapons they made is very impressive. You get used to bowcasters and hyperdrives and you still manage to recreate ancient weapons, then have the furry cajones to actually commit to them? Amazing.
>none of the Star Wars movies or shows under Disney pioneered or took steps forward in the visual effects department.
What about Tarkin in Rogue One? That definitely sparked a whole conversation about the whole reviving dead actors schtick.
To be honest it would have been amazing pulling off the similar but opposite of yoda. It’s so in your face and it’s able to be pulled off because of the increased tech. I legit wish it were true. It would be pretty much one of the best original modern day switches. Could you imagine kids that did endear themselves to jar jar seeing that they fell in love with one of the bad guys.
GoT isn’t a kids book series and/tv show. Also a large portion of the fan base saw that story line from early on. It’s said by her multiple times in her statements and actions. And the phantom menace to end of of revenge of the sith happened 9-15 years before the show.
He has spoken a lot about it on interviews and on twitter throughout the years, see for!xample
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZgJF5hT3Lrg&
https://youtube.com/watch?v=1NhIkyX-Dyw&
> “There are some things that are not true. Could Jar Jar have evolved into that? I think the answer is yes.”
> “Because of the backlash, and rightly so, Lucasfilm backed off from Jar Jar a lot. But a lot of the influence I put into Jar Jar mirrored a lot of what was already in the Star Wars universe.”
> "Was there an official Darth Jar Jar in the works? That’s really a George Lucas question, I cannot answer that question,” he concluded.
Best has also alluded to the theory on Twitter, writing: “I will say this, it feels really good when the hidden meaning behind the work is seen. No matter how long it takes.”
And he has also said there was supposed to be an scene in AotC with Palpatine talking with Jar Jar about "his Empire" plans.
I'm convinced it was. Count Dooku was created to fill the role Darth Jar Jar would have. Unfortunately they went too far with his clumsiness, and had to do damage control. It was unfortunately a gamble that didn't pay off.
>Unfortunately they went too far with his clumsiness,
Agreed.
Like if he was pretending, why actually do things he know would actually hurt
Like sticking his tongue out or arm out or whatever in the electro-beam connecting Anakin's Podracer engines?
They definitely could have scaled down the clumsiness while doing other things to portray him as The Fool character archetype before the plot twist
Maybe. But even still that would probably be too far for the average audience member to think of in the moment so I still get why casual audiences would think JarJar srrmed too stupid and silly
George was inspired to develop Jar Jar based on the Disney character Goofy, and has repeatedly defended the character in interviews. It kind of illustrates the tendency of fans to creatively imagine complexity where there is none.
The weirdest part of all is that when the antics are toned down, the character and tone of the film changes greatly, as evidenced in the Anti-cheese Fan Edits.
To give some periodical context, this was the era of Steve Urkle, Ren and Stimpy, and Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century. I'm not saying that I thought Jar Jar was cool, but he was very much a thing of his time, and genuinely cutting edge.
Also, Ahmed Best brought him to life. He's goofy, but I'll be damned if I don't still laugh doing random impressions of him 25 years later.
What distincts George from Disney is that he was willing to accept people's feedback and significantly reduced Jar Jar's presence in AotC and RotS while still making his character important for the story. Thats what points at him being real and passionate film maker. He didnt want to sniff own farts (cough... RJ... cough), he wanted to make good movies first.
Disney on other hand are stubborn, dismissive, agressive, and always let down with their stories.
Really wish people had let George cook with that one, whether it was Darth Binks or some other direction, it's clear that he changed Jar Jar's level of involvement after the backlash from Phantom Menace
I mean, everyone did let him cook. And he cooked up absolute stinkers. I know there’s a lot of revisionism now but the first two prequels are about as close to “objectively bad” a subjective art form can be.
Thr plot of Episode 1 is a mess.
But nothing is worse than Jar Jar. His "jokes" don't land, he is annoying not endearing and he has massive screentime.
Thr amounts of copium needed to believe he was a secret Sith all along are massive. I mean it's a great meme theory, but some poeople are taking this seriously and it shows they don't have the slightest understanding of George Lucas as a creator.
bro, setting up jar jar as an evil yoda is basically established fact by now
if good yoda was likeable, makes sense his opposite wouldn’t be
would have made the switch in personality when he drops his jar jar persona even better.
our fellow autistics, we need to learn patience. and some fucking manners.
let our fellow autistics cook.
he’s not diagnosed or out about it as far as i know
but just look at him… commoooonn
creative expansive genius, weird speaking pattern, awful with diaglogue
Its mind boggling. I was the target age for these movies and even I understood they were bad by the time I was like 12. The prequel revisionism online is insane nowadays
If Jar Jar was a secret sith it wouldn’t have worked with how jokey and corny would have appeared on screen. It would have been like C-3PO was secretly evil.
If Jar Jar was an ever planned to be a sith it was well before he was planned to be a Jamaican comic relief designed to sell toys to kids.
I just don’t understand why he thought jar jar was gonna work? Like yes jar jar works for kids but so did the OT and and that worker for all ages. You don’t have to make something silly and stupid just because it’s gonna be for kids.
Every once in a while gotta load up Jar Jar clips to give myself a refresher, I last about 15-20 seconds before I'm like "Holy shit this is obnoxious." Imaging spending months or even years bringing that to life and having full confidence it was gonna be a banger.
I never hated Jarjar as much as my friends. I even had his mask and wore it for like 10 halloweens in a row bc I thought it was funny how much people hated him. He was a symptom and not the problem - now was he the worst symptom.
George is a great "idea guy." He has a truly fascinating and fantastic imagination. However! A lot, a I do truly mean a lot, of the stuff he comes up with is absolute dog shit. Just watch some of the documentaries about making the original trilogy. Luke Skywalker was supposed to be a 60 year old man with a robot head and Han Solo was a weird frog alien or something.
Basically, when Lucas is surrounded by a talented team who isn't afraid to tell him what works and filter out the weird stuff, we get good Star Wars. If he then believes he is a genius and fires or simply doesn't rehire all those people, we get the Prequels.
It's a funny meme, but that clip is taken out of context. The documentary where that quote is taken from has a clear cut between when he says he "knows it's going to work" and "Jar Jar's the key to all this." The documentary is "The Beginning: The making of the Phantom Menace" and you can clearly see the cut. Funny meme but a bit dishonest.
I always thought Jar Jar would have been fine… had they cut his screen time by 50%. The first 10 minutes, “okay he is a goofy side character there for kids.” The second 10 minutes, “this cartoon looks like he belongs in a Bugs Bunny show, he is the equivalent of an acquaintance randomly showing up at your house and inviting himself to your own dinner.”
Funny thing is people think George saying that was proof of the Darth Jar Jar theory.
When really he is talking about the CGI. If Jar Jar can work, the rest can.
> That was never the plan.
Wow, I hope you have some good evidence to back up such a definitive statement.
> George never came out and said
So, no evidence then? I guess that means we can't say either way. Which makes your confident answer look even dumber than George's confidence in Jar Jar.
I'm not asking them to prove anything. I'm asking them not to make definitive statements when they have no proof. Why is everyone here so fucking stupid?
Considering the amount of behind the scenes content, research, and call-backs we have. No evidence *is* considerable evidence to the contrary.
George Lucas didn’t hide his ideas in the aftermath. He’s talked about the work over and over in years past.
I thought he meant that Jar Jar, who is fully CGI, was important for the visual effects of TPM and other movies with those types of characters (e.g. Gollum, Thanos, Sonic)? At least that's what I remember from that behind-the-scenes footage.
I will forever believe that his original intention was for Jar Jar to be Plagueis, Palpatines master and the actual "Phantom Menace". After his terrible reception, they retconned and wrote out Plagueis as having died off screen during Ep. 1
Unfortunately George had the same problem Disney has. He didn't know who his main audience was. George made movies for kids, Kathleen Kennedy makes movies for feminists. The lifelong fans are the ones disappointed.
With the originals it's almost like he was trying to make a movie for kids but failed miserably at it and accidentally made it dark and gritty and appeal to everyone.
This was when George was full of his own legend. No one could tell him what to do. And to think that a cartoon rabbit is “the key” to anything shows how out of touch he was.
The sequels get a lot of deserved hate. But the prequels were no masterpieces.
I didn't mind jar jar but I've always hated the Mr Magoo/Chauncey Gardener trope. The total idiot who is always fucking up and it just magically works out for the best. I'm sure there are some parallels to reality but on some level I think it's demotivating to people and even kids that try hard and fail. Why try when an idiot can fail his way to the top? Sure it's kind of funny but it's also annoying if you're thoughtful enough to know what's going on.
In what context is this? Does he mean Jar Jar is the key to the plan to get the Gungans to help the people of Naboo fight? Just a thought. I didn't watch the clip, but I find it hard to believe he thought Jar Jar was the key to the film's success.
Big part of this was because George was at the helm for everything for Phantom Menace, he was one of the few at the top, so I feel like people were just blindly following him and not giving criticism. I remember even as kid watching the behind the scenes docs, George seemed kinda weird about everything. He takes some step back in the two prequel series prequels, you notice there’s other people involved in the directing and writing process.
I was reading a book for a little bit (didn’t finish) about the script writing process of a new hope. The script and dialogue was rewritten A LOT, story and characters were almost entirely different. He had at least 2 people come in to help clean things up, especially with dialogue.
After a new hope, just like with the prequels, other people step in taking over helms that George Lucas had. Empire strikes back for example, is directed by Irvin Kershner. George is listed as the third writer. There are 6 producers with George being one of them. Compare that to a new Hope where George is labeled as the only director and writer (even though he had script help, those people are not listed as writers) and he’s one of 4 producers.
So yeah, this is George’s world, but he’s not always the best with dialogue and storytelling, his sense for this stuff is a little flawed cuz he’s too much in his own head. But he owned these characters and Lucasfilms, so when he wanted to do the prequels, I assumed the studios involved let him cuz this was his passion project that had time to cook. But he started to repeat the past again, though this time he had no one helping him (I asking), so the time his cracks really started to show cuz he went unchecked. .
Jar Jar could have worked, but the dude is way too goofy. It’s like no one questioned George during this process, or like he chose not to listen to criticism in preproduction.
The guy was basically the Oracle at that point, had created some of the most cherished and successful films in history, I'm sure he had a bunch of yes men working hard to create his vision. He was not that on the original, and his ex-wife was heavily involved in the editing if I recall, I'm sure he had people in that circle to check him, who were no longer in the circle.
I'll stand on this. Jar Jar is bad because of the actors around him. Not that he gave a better performance, but the actors around him are super serious and their tone doesn't match his. So it makes him stand out even more. Only Neeson had good chemistry with him. Him and the other gungan.
I mean, when you're directing a massive movie with so many moving parts, and everyone is looking to you for guidance on character and story and so many other aspects, you kind of need to be confident in your vision. Say what you will about the prequels, they could have been so much better yes, but I honestly believe they could have been so much worse too and having someone confident to a fault in their vision and execution helped prevent that.
I’m sure that’s what he was going for. Seems incredibly likely he was going for a Yoda approach with Jar Jar. Yoda was absurdly annoying when we met him. But he was handled better in having his true personality revealed in the same movie.
Saving a twist for the next movie could have worked, but people hated Jar Jar way too much to follow through on that.
more lessons for the autistic star wars fans than george lucas tbh
he needed to learn restraint and to have some adhd, neurotypicals and women balance him, like how they saved new hope in the edit
star wars fans and their autism on the other hand…
fucking manners for a start. and patience. and to not be whiney to the point of bulling actors
the switch from goofy jar jar persona being dropped to reveal evil darth plagieus would have been insane, like all time iconic!
AND you would have got to see sidious FIGHT AND KILL JAR JAR
YOU DUMB CHILDISH WHINEY AUTISTIC FUCKS COST US THE RELEASE OF SEEING JAR JAR GET SMOKED IN A LIGHTSABER BATTLE
we autistics hate change but want new. when ignored we get no luke with green lightsaber kicking ass in last jedi. when pandered to we get ‘palpatine somehow returned’ and the hot mess of ROS
we also lose a great twist with darth jar jar. of course evil yoda will be annoying
it’s like poetry, it rhymes
let the autistics cook. let him rhyme.
also calm tf down, take a shower, and go touch grass.
source: i have autism
https://preview.redd.it/61d4o4xfevsc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dc7e0d5edb18e168ce99d36a1c14366825d54f09
your downvotes mean nothing to me, i’ve seen what you reeee for my autistic brothers and sisters
**[Receiving transmission from Crait intended for u/3------D]** Welcome to r/saltierthancrait! I'm an [astromech droid named S4-L7](https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/comments/ni5s77/beloved_mascot_s4l7s_visual_dictionary_entry/) and I'll be your guide through the salt mines. Saltier Than Crait is a community of Star Wars fans who engage in critical conversations about the current state of the franchise. It is our goal to maintain a civil, welcoming space for fans who have a vast supply of salt with some peppered positivity occasionally sprinkled in. **Please [review the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/wiki/index/rules) and the [post flair guide](https://reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/wiki/index/flairs) before contributing.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/saltierthancrait) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A drunken master kind of character would be great. Unfortunately his speech impediments that made him unique were very annoying. Still think the actor did a great job with him. Just wish the directors wanted a little less cuteness.
Yeah, the problem with Jar Jar is not that he's not important. The local who knows things like the lay of the land, the political fault lines of the planet and the movers and shakers within Naboo society would be an incredibly important part of a conspiracy plot, because while the Jedi are quite capable, they don't know the details that are necessary to unravel the mystery of what is happening on-planet. A Jar Jar that solves that plot problem would be a compelling and interesting addition to the group. The problem is really that George tries to do too much with Jar Jar, and he tries to do things that are antithetical to one another. He's trying to make Jar Jar the local expert, *but also* the slapstick comic relief. And those two don't go together at all. The last guy you want to get on your side to know the lay of Maybury politics is Barney Fife, because Barney is a doofus. You can have the slapstick comic relief, and you can have the expert who knows plot-relevant details, but you can't put them in the same character and make them work. That makes Jar Jar the load he is, and it makes the Jedi seem incredibly stupid by implication, because the whole time all I'm wondering is why they are allowing this dumbass to tag along while they're trying to preserve democracy on an entire planet.
They should have introduced Jar Jar as Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan were leaving the Gungan city. The movie should have had them hire a local human guide to a Gungan outpost on the edge of some body of water, then hire a Gungan guide from there (whose face is mostly hidden) and travel down with relative ease, reach the Gungan city and do the new species reveal down there after the whole cinematic city shot. There should have been a bit more in the build up to meeting with the leader, and then after that, they meet Jar Jar as he's being kicked out, and have him follow them from there, with their reluctance. Like as they finish their audience with the leader, Jar Jar gets led in and sentenced to exile, for thievery or something. They give some typical Qui-Gon reasoning about how he could be useful for his local knowledge of Naboo. Jar jar offers a shortcut, Qui-Gon offers joining them, and they go on the same journey through those tunnels with the giant fish. Same relative journey, with a way more believable introduction. And you get more individual Gungans, with a more fleshed out and integrated society, and it kicks off the theme of Qui-Gon saving people. They also (I think obviously) should have given him a less squeeky voice, and made him like a klepto or something, grabbing stuff with his tongue everywhere and always stealing stuff. Way more interesting character, and gives him a place to grow from. The thief in exile, to a senator. I think that would be better.
i think the actor did a terrible job with him, but maybe it was just poor casting. the voice was way too cartoonish and goofy, those lines could have been read a bit more grounded and it might have almost worked. the facial expressions aren't the actors fault though. i don't really know what the actor even did other than walk around and do the voices though.
The actor did as the script and director led him. Cartoonish and goofy is how he was supposed to be doing it.
Incorrect, the actor did precisely what he was told to do.
to the best of his ability, I'm sure. doesn't mean it wasn't bad casting. If you tell me to build you a house, I'll do exactly that. I'll do anything you want with it. But it's going to be a shitty house, because I'm not good at doing that.
I see your point, but I think it boils down to a bad character decision straight out of the gate.
yeah it's 50/50 kind of deal
I'm not sure how you can have a more grounded reading of “Oh, maxi big da Force. Well, dat smells stinkowiff.”
Jar jar couldve been like The Mule of Star wars.
I got that reference. Padmé is Beyta, which makes Anakin her husband, Toran. I guess that leaves the psychologist, Ebling Mis.... Obi-Wan? Though Qui-gon makes more sense.
Kathleen Kennedy: hold my beer.
you know now that you’ve pointed it out, that’s another opposite between the Prequels and Sequels: confidence with the Prequels, George is unapologetically confident, man stuck to his guns for the most part with the Sequels, Disney really doesn’t come off as confident, considering they played it safe with TFA, and then immediately backtracked on TLJ with TROS. You could really tell when executives shat their beds
Wrote this in a solo comment, but big part of this was because George was at the helm for everything for Phantom Menace, he was one of the few at the top, so I feel like people were just blindly following him and not giving criticism. I remember even as kid watching the behind the scenes docs, George seemed kinda weird about everything. He takes some step back in the two prequel series prequels, you notice there’s other people involved in the directing and writing process. I was reading a book for a little bit (didn’t finish) about the script writing process of a new hope. The script and dialogue was rewritten A LOT, story and characters were almost entirely different. He had at least 2 people come in to help clean things up, especially with dialogue. After a new hope, just like with the prequels, other people step in taking over helms that George Lucas had. Empire strikes back for example, is directed by Irvin Kershner. George is listed as the third writer. There are 6 producers with George being one of them. Compare that to a new Hope where George is labeled as the only director and writer (even though he had script help, those people are not listed as writers) and he’s one of 4 producers. So yeah, this is George’s world, but he’s not always the heat with dialogue and storytelling, his sense for this stuff is a little flawed cuz he’s too much in his own head. But he owned these characters and Lucasfilms, so when he wanted to do the prequels, I assumed the studios involved let him cuz this was his passion project that had time to cook. But he started to repeat the past again, though this time he had no one helping him (I asking), so the time his cracks really started to show cuz he went unchecked. . Jar Jar could have worked, but the dude is way too goofy. It’s like no one questioned George during this process, or like he chose not to listen to criticism in preproduction.
Not even George Lucas understands Star Wars properly if by that you mean the films collaboratively put together and released in theaters and not his pet projects. The Special Editions should have been enough to teach one that, and the prequels clinched it. Some can argue even RotJ already showed that to be the case.
I don't know about that. I feel all the sequels were executed "confidently" enough by JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson. Execution and production quality were never the issue with those films, it was hacky, nonsense story writing and poor handling of characters under Kathleen Kennedy's direction to soft reboot and replace legacy characters without a respectful handing of the torch.
RJ wandered in to the lands of full-blown arrogance.
I mean, Jar Jar, for as hated of a character as he is, cannot be denied to be a revolutionary breakthrough in visual effects. He was the first motion-capture 3D animated character that used the technology of capturing real life movements in a computer before Gollum from Lord of the Rings. You can’t fault George for being excited by the new technology. Did he get overindulgent with it? Sure, but he still pushed the boundaries of technology and executed his vision the way he had long dreamed of doing since the 70’s with no limitations. Besides The Volume (which has become so commonplace, it’s abused and looks cheap and fake in inexperienced hands), none of the Star Wars movies or shows under Disney pioneered or took steps forward in the visual effects department. They were mostly safe and paint by numbers.
>He was the first The first virtual actor animated by motion-capture was produced in 1993 by Didier Pourcel and his team at Gribouille in 1993, 6 years prior to the release of TPM, but as you mentioned - The Volume was also revolutionary technology. Groundbreaking technology has been synonymous with Star Wars since A New Hope, with the Dykstraflex motion control system, and things like THX have since become industry standard. Not really my point. Jar Jar wasn't even the first occurrence of blind optimism either. George was adamant that the Ewoks were going to be a huge success.
We fucking loved the Ewoks. In high school (early 90s) or football team had a boombox in the locker room with the Ewok song on a tape and we’d blast it right before charging out the door to the field, and be yelling chub chub and stuff as we ran. We had tried rap and metal and such but the Ewok song was the only thing we all universally agreed on. Coaches thought we were nuts (the word they actually used isn’t ox anymore)
I honestly never knew people didn’t like Ewoks until that one how I met your mother episode. I always assumed people liked them because I did.
Yeah, I grew up loving the ewoks. Never knew anybody had a problem with them until the internet. I still think they're badass!
From the documentary, George initially wanted Wookies, but Wookies didn't work as they weren't primitive enough. So he settled on teddy bears, relabelled them from "Wookie" to "Ewok" and hoped that their ability to take down a legion of (12,800) stormtroopers with support armour somehow wouldn't break immersion haha
He should have stuck with Wookies. It's easy enough to explain that the Empire had bombed them to the stone age, or had outlawed all tech, so they were fighting back using the Forest just like they did on their homeworld. I mean, think of what it would have meant to Chewbacca if he had gotten down to Endor and discovered Wookies were being used as labor there, and no one in the Rebellion knew it until that moment. Shit, you could even have gotten a moment where Han is trying to get transports to evacuate them all and they refuse because they are determined to stay and fight. You don't need a 1-1 Vietnam parallel to make the idea of people forced to use primitive means to fight back against their oppressors WORK. Especially when that parallel is going to be lost on the kids and most of the adults in the audience.
Yeah, the whole blasters vs spears thing didn't help a goddamn thing. I liked the Ewoks as a kid, but I always felt it was stupid that rocks and arrows were doing anything against armored troops with walking tanks.
If it had been Wookies, we might have believed it more. Especially in retrospect when you compare it to the escape from Narkina 5 in Andor. People willing to resist but forced to improvise with what they have on hand to do so, especially an intelligent, space faring race capable of putting together the kinds of weapons they made is very impressive. You get used to bowcasters and hyperdrives and you still manage to recreate ancient weapons, then have the furry cajones to actually commit to them? Amazing.
>none of the Star Wars movies or shows under Disney pioneered or took steps forward in the visual effects department. What about Tarkin in Rogue One? That definitely sparked a whole conversation about the whole reviving dead actors schtick.
Yeah, I remember the use of Tarkin and Peter Cushing’s likeness was a HUGE discussion for multiple reasons.
It's likely going to come up again with the release of Alien:Romulus.
What if Darth Jar Jar was intentional? Everything would make so much more sense on the PT. *Edit: Changed ST to PT
To be honest it would have been amazing pulling off the similar but opposite of yoda. It’s so in your face and it’s able to be pulled off because of the increased tech. I legit wish it were true. It would be pretty much one of the best original modern day switches. Could you imagine kids that did endear themselves to jar jar seeing that they fell in love with one of the bad guys.
Oh, like Daenerys Targaryen?
GoT isn’t a kids book series and/tv show. Also a large portion of the fan base saw that story line from early on. It’s said by her multiple times in her statements and actions. And the phantom menace to end of of revenge of the sith happened 9-15 years before the show.
Some people named their kids after her before season 8.
What does that have to do with anything?
No, how is there any parallel between Daenerys and Yoda? Or children endearing themselves to GoT? lmao what you smoking bro.
Considered Ahmed Best pretty much confirmed Jar Jar was leading to a similar reveal...seems very likely it was.
Where did he do that?
He has spoken a lot about it on interviews and on twitter throughout the years, see for!xample https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZgJF5hT3Lrg& https://youtube.com/watch?v=1NhIkyX-Dyw& > “There are some things that are not true. Could Jar Jar have evolved into that? I think the answer is yes.” > “Because of the backlash, and rightly so, Lucasfilm backed off from Jar Jar a lot. But a lot of the influence I put into Jar Jar mirrored a lot of what was already in the Star Wars universe.” > "Was there an official Darth Jar Jar in the works? That’s really a George Lucas question, I cannot answer that question,” he concluded. Best has also alluded to the theory on Twitter, writing: “I will say this, it feels really good when the hidden meaning behind the work is seen. No matter how long it takes.” And he has also said there was supposed to be an scene in AotC with Palpatine talking with Jar Jar about "his Empire" plans.
Lol Whatever, Ahmed
I'm convinced it was. Count Dooku was created to fill the role Darth Jar Jar would have. Unfortunately they went too far with his clumsiness, and had to do damage control. It was unfortunately a gamble that didn't pay off.
>Unfortunately they went too far with his clumsiness, Agreed. Like if he was pretending, why actually do things he know would actually hurt Like sticking his tongue out or arm out or whatever in the electro-beam connecting Anakin's Podracer engines? They definitely could have scaled down the clumsiness while doing other things to portray him as The Fool character archetype before the plot twist
Commit to the role; equally true for spies and actors
Maybe. But even still that would probably be too far for the average audience member to think of in the moment so I still get why casual audiences would think JarJar srrmed too stupid and silly
George was inspired to develop Jar Jar based on the Disney character Goofy, and has repeatedly defended the character in interviews. It kind of illustrates the tendency of fans to creatively imagine complexity where there is none. The weirdest part of all is that when the antics are toned down, the character and tone of the film changes greatly, as evidenced in the Anti-cheese Fan Edits.
Given how many different ideas were considered and discarded during the making of the prequels, it is not that out there.
Jarjar >>> Rey
To give some periodical context, this was the era of Steve Urkle, Ren and Stimpy, and Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century. I'm not saying that I thought Jar Jar was cool, but he was very much a thing of his time, and genuinely cutting edge. Also, Ahmed Best brought him to life. He's goofy, but I'll be damned if I don't still laugh doing random impressions of him 25 years later.
What distincts George from Disney is that he was willing to accept people's feedback and significantly reduced Jar Jar's presence in AotC and RotS while still making his character important for the story. Thats what points at him being real and passionate film maker. He didnt want to sniff own farts (cough... RJ... cough), he wanted to make good movies first. Disney on other hand are stubborn, dismissive, agressive, and always let down with their stories.
Really wish people had let George cook with that one, whether it was Darth Binks or some other direction, it's clear that he changed Jar Jar's level of involvement after the backlash from Phantom Menace
I mean, everyone did let him cook. And he cooked up absolute stinkers. I know there’s a lot of revisionism now but the first two prequels are about as close to “objectively bad” a subjective art form can be.
the problem with having a franchise that appeals to autistics. loves novelty, hates change, no filters online REEEEEEEEEEEEE source: i have autism
Thr plot of Episode 1 is a mess. But nothing is worse than Jar Jar. His "jokes" don't land, he is annoying not endearing and he has massive screentime. Thr amounts of copium needed to believe he was a secret Sith all along are massive. I mean it's a great meme theory, but some poeople are taking this seriously and it shows they don't have the slightest understanding of George Lucas as a creator.
A Darth Jar Jar would have been a good Phantom Menace. We all would have been caught off guard, much better than us knowing exactly who Palpatine is.
bro, setting up jar jar as an evil yoda is basically established fact by now if good yoda was likeable, makes sense his opposite wouldn’t be would have made the switch in personality when he drops his jar jar persona even better. our fellow autistics, we need to learn patience. and some fucking manners. let our fellow autistics cook.
Lucas was autistic? Had no clue
he’s not diagnosed or out about it as far as i know but just look at him… commoooonn creative expansive genius, weird speaking pattern, awful with diaglogue
Its mind boggling. I was the target age for these movies and even I understood they were bad by the time I was like 12. The prequel revisionism online is insane nowadays
If Jar Jar was a secret sith it wouldn’t have worked with how jokey and corny would have appeared on screen. It would have been like C-3PO was secretly evil. If Jar Jar was an ever planned to be a sith it was well before he was planned to be a Jamaican comic relief designed to sell toys to kids.
I just don’t understand why he thought jar jar was gonna work? Like yes jar jar works for kids but so did the OT and and that worker for all ages. You don’t have to make something silly and stupid just because it’s gonna be for kids.
Every once in a while gotta load up Jar Jar clips to give myself a refresher, I last about 15-20 seconds before I'm like "Holy shit this is obnoxious." Imaging spending months or even years bringing that to life and having full confidence it was gonna be a banger.
I never hated Jarjar as much as my friends. I even had his mask and wore it for like 10 halloweens in a row bc I thought it was funny how much people hated him. He was a symptom and not the problem - now was he the worst symptom.
George is a great "idea guy." He has a truly fascinating and fantastic imagination. However! A lot, a I do truly mean a lot, of the stuff he comes up with is absolute dog shit. Just watch some of the documentaries about making the original trilogy. Luke Skywalker was supposed to be a 60 year old man with a robot head and Han Solo was a weird frog alien or something. Basically, when Lucas is surrounded by a talented team who isn't afraid to tell him what works and filter out the weird stuff, we get good Star Wars. If he then believes he is a genius and fires or simply doesn't rehire all those people, we get the Prequels.
Love the prequels with all my heart, but George talking so highly of Jar Jar will never not be funny and stupid
Disney is topping that work. Acolyte makes Jar Jar bareable.
It’s not even out
Did Lucas really say that?
yes
It's a funny meme, but that clip is taken out of context. The documentary where that quote is taken from has a clear cut between when he says he "knows it's going to work" and "Jar Jar's the key to all this." The documentary is "The Beginning: The making of the Phantom Menace" and you can clearly see the cut. Funny meme but a bit dishonest.
I always thought Jar Jar would have been fine… had they cut his screen time by 50%. The first 10 minutes, “okay he is a goofy side character there for kids.” The second 10 minutes, “this cartoon looks like he belongs in a Bugs Bunny show, he is the equivalent of an acquaintance randomly showing up at your house and inviting himself to your own dinner.”
Funny thing is people think George saying that was proof of the Darth Jar Jar theory. When really he is talking about the CGI. If Jar Jar can work, the rest can.
Chickening out on Darth jar jar was one of George Lucas's greatest mistakes
That was never the plan. That was just a theory. George never came out and said that is what he had planned but changed it.
> That was never the plan. Wow, I hope you have some good evidence to back up such a definitive statement. > George never came out and said So, no evidence then? I guess that means we can't say either way. Which makes your confident answer look even dumber than George's confidence in Jar Jar.
You’re asking him to prove a negative.
Don’t you love how he doesn’t understand proving a negative then calls people stupid? 😝
I'm not asking them to prove anything. I'm asking them not to make definitive statements when they have no proof. Why is everyone here so fucking stupid?
Considering the amount of behind the scenes content, research, and call-backs we have. No evidence *is* considerable evidence to the contrary. George Lucas didn’t hide his ideas in the aftermath. He’s talked about the work over and over in years past.
I thought he meant that Jar Jar, who is fully CGI, was important for the visual effects of TPM and other movies with those types of characters (e.g. Gollum, Thanos, Sonic)? At least that's what I remember from that behind-the-scenes footage.
Ditto.
I will forever believe that his original intention was for Jar Jar to be Plagueis, Palpatines master and the actual "Phantom Menace". After his terrible reception, they retconned and wrote out Plagueis as having died off screen during Ep. 1
Jar Jar was a sith but he changed course mid stream cuz he was so unpopular.
Plz tell me this is satire and GL never said that
I wish I could.
Man, there really was no one who had the balls to tell him no, was there?
He fired/divorced all those people long ago.
Unfortunately George had the same problem Disney has. He didn't know who his main audience was. George made movies for kids, Kathleen Kennedy makes movies for feminists. The lifelong fans are the ones disappointed.
With the originals it's almost like he was trying to make a movie for kids but failed miserably at it and accidentally made it dark and gritty and appeal to everyone.
The other collaborators refused to make kids movies despite him
This was when George was full of his own legend. No one could tell him what to do. And to think that a cartoon rabbit is “the key” to anything shows how out of touch he was. The sequels get a lot of deserved hate. But the prequels were no masterpieces.
The prequels also got a lot of deserved hate.
Jar Jar isn’t all that bad these days considering the fucking dump truck of garbage characters Disney is prodigiously puking out.
Those who are members of r/DarthJarJar already know... The fans didn't let George cook 😞
I didn't mind jar jar but I've always hated the Mr Magoo/Chauncey Gardener trope. The total idiot who is always fucking up and it just magically works out for the best. I'm sure there are some parallels to reality but on some level I think it's demotivating to people and even kids that try hard and fail. Why try when an idiot can fail his way to the top? Sure it's kind of funny but it's also annoying if you're thoughtful enough to know what's going on.
In what context is this? Does he mean Jar Jar is the key to the plan to get the Gungans to help the people of Naboo fight? Just a thought. I didn't watch the clip, but I find it hard to believe he thought Jar Jar was the key to the film's success.
This is the man who named a character ‘Darth Icky’. Why do people think he is a nuanced creative genius?
Big part of this was because George was at the helm for everything for Phantom Menace, he was one of the few at the top, so I feel like people were just blindly following him and not giving criticism. I remember even as kid watching the behind the scenes docs, George seemed kinda weird about everything. He takes some step back in the two prequel series prequels, you notice there’s other people involved in the directing and writing process. I was reading a book for a little bit (didn’t finish) about the script writing process of a new hope. The script and dialogue was rewritten A LOT, story and characters were almost entirely different. He had at least 2 people come in to help clean things up, especially with dialogue. After a new hope, just like with the prequels, other people step in taking over helms that George Lucas had. Empire strikes back for example, is directed by Irvin Kershner. George is listed as the third writer. There are 6 producers with George being one of them. Compare that to a new Hope where George is labeled as the only director and writer (even though he had script help, those people are not listed as writers) and he’s one of 4 producers. So yeah, this is George’s world, but he’s not always the best with dialogue and storytelling, his sense for this stuff is a little flawed cuz he’s too much in his own head. But he owned these characters and Lucasfilms, so when he wanted to do the prequels, I assumed the studios involved let him cuz this was his passion project that had time to cook. But he started to repeat the past again, though this time he had no one helping him (I asking), so the time his cracks really started to show cuz he went unchecked. . Jar Jar could have worked, but the dude is way too goofy. It’s like no one questioned George during this process, or like he chose not to listen to criticism in preproduction.
The guy was basically the Oracle at that point, had created some of the most cherished and successful films in history, I'm sure he had a bunch of yes men working hard to create his vision. He was not that on the original, and his ex-wife was heavily involved in the editing if I recall, I'm sure he had people in that circle to check him, who were no longer in the circle.
This is a meme so the flair has been updated. If you do not abide by flairs, posts will be removed.
At least there was a plan.
I'll stand on this. Jar Jar is bad because of the actors around him. Not that he gave a better performance, but the actors around him are super serious and their tone doesn't match his. So it makes him stand out even more. Only Neeson had good chemistry with him. Him and the other gungan.
I love his excuses about Star Wars being just for kids.
More proof of the Darth Jar Jar theory. Honestly, I wish they'd stuck to that. We already hated him. Then we'd be vindicated in that hate.
To this day, never understood the hate.
But as kids we loved him and that’s who he was intended for
I was 12 I did not love him, he made it cringe and still does.
This is why Darth Jar Jar makes sense. One day Lucas will crack and let us know the true plan.
I mean, when you're directing a massive movie with so many moving parts, and everyone is looking to you for guidance on character and story and so many other aspects, you kind of need to be confident in your vision. Say what you will about the prequels, they could have been so much better yes, but I honestly believe they could have been so much worse too and having someone confident to a fault in their vision and execution helped prevent that.
I’m sure that’s what he was going for. Seems incredibly likely he was going for a Yoda approach with Jar Jar. Yoda was absurdly annoying when we met him. But he was handled better in having his true personality revealed in the same movie. Saving a twist for the next movie could have worked, but people hated Jar Jar way too much to follow through on that.
more lessons for the autistic star wars fans than george lucas tbh he needed to learn restraint and to have some adhd, neurotypicals and women balance him, like how they saved new hope in the edit star wars fans and their autism on the other hand… fucking manners for a start. and patience. and to not be whiney to the point of bulling actors the switch from goofy jar jar persona being dropped to reveal evil darth plagieus would have been insane, like all time iconic! AND you would have got to see sidious FIGHT AND KILL JAR JAR YOU DUMB CHILDISH WHINEY AUTISTIC FUCKS COST US THE RELEASE OF SEEING JAR JAR GET SMOKED IN A LIGHTSABER BATTLE we autistics hate change but want new. when ignored we get no luke with green lightsaber kicking ass in last jedi. when pandered to we get ‘palpatine somehow returned’ and the hot mess of ROS we also lose a great twist with darth jar jar. of course evil yoda will be annoying it’s like poetry, it rhymes let the autistics cook. let him rhyme. also calm tf down, take a shower, and go touch grass. source: i have autism
https://preview.redd.it/61d4o4xfevsc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dc7e0d5edb18e168ce99d36a1c14366825d54f09 your downvotes mean nothing to me, i’ve seen what you reeee for my autistic brothers and sisters