Not being a Star Wars fan (I saw the original Star Wars when it first came out…I think I was 10 or so, so I don’t remember a whole lot), I really don’t understand references such as the one in this thread that seem to imply that Jar Jar Binks was the scourge of the movie landscape.
Can someone fill me in on why this is such an issue?
All I can say is,
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
I honestly don’t see how anyone could have sat through that movie and not been entertaining ideas concerning Jar Jar, a vat of hydrochloric acid and a blowtorch. But I’ll explain my reasons for hating the character:
JarJar, and the rest of the Gungans, represented (to me, anyhow) Lucas’ attempt to ‘Muppetize’ the movie to make it more palatable to kids. A big part of Star Wars has always been commercial and toy tie-ins (Burger King glasses, toy lightsabers, stuffed Ewoks, et cetera, ad nauseam), and it seemed to me that the Gungans were put into the movie to be the next big cuddly stuffed toy to market to kids. It’s a giant step back from the original Star Wars, which sure as heck wasn’t marketed to kids but did well with them anyways.
Also, the character was extremely ignorant… and one of my pet peeves in movies is dumb characters.
JarJar was just one factor contributing to the craptastic-ness of an overall bad movie. Stupid JarJar… hopefully he gets creamed in the next movie. <hope hope hope>
I’m not sure I made myself clear…the only Star Wars movie I’ve seen is the original one that came out in 1977 (so I was 7 years old, not 10). I haven’t seen any of the sequels, including Episode 1.
On a weirder note…should I now be ashamed that I wasted my 200th post on Jar Jar Binks? 
Jar Jar never bothered me the first time I saw Episode I. I saw him easy to ignore then. But the second time I saw Episode I, he began to get to me. And then again. And then to the point where I fast-forwarded past the major scenes with Jar Jar in them.
I agree with Krunk; I hate dumb characters, too. I find them horribly immature, and I hate too much immaturity. Especially in the form of kiddie humor (fart jokes and the like).
I mean, I used to understand the reason why they put Jar Jar in was to entertain the kids. But the kids have enough entertainment with the pod race and the whole character of Anakin Skywalker, and the lightsaber duels. They could have taken out Jar Jar. Not to mention he’s one of those characters that has a million opportunities to die but doesn’t (another one that annoys me like that is the character of Sarah in The Lost World: Jurassic Park). It would be really satisfying if Darth Vader kills Jar Jar in Episode III, if Jar Jar happens to survive Episode II.
I had nothing against the other Gungans, though. Boss Nass was a decent, if not fully developed, character, and those Gungan soldiers didn’t do badly. I guess the problem I had with Jar Jar (that I didn’t have with the other Gungans) is that the character didn’t have any dignity. Boss Nass, for all that he’s a giant frog, in his limited screen time, managed to convey that he was in control. The Gungan soldiers managed to display a kind of professionalism. Jar Jar did neither.
My objection to Jar Jar was that he seemed to be there to provide comic relief at times when there was no tension to relieve.
Uh-oh, Obi Wan’s fighting the robots! Will he survive? Um… yep.
Look out! Anakin’s in trouble! Will he survive? Umm… yep.
Hello, George? We saw the first Star Wars movie. We know these people survive, okay? While we’re busy getting our intelligence insulted, here comes Jar Jar with some fart jokes! Wheeee!!!
Cap’n, I’m certainly not disagreeing with you. The other Gungans, as well as Boss Nass, were substantially more mature than JarJar and were more worthwhile characters. To my (admittedly jaded) point of view, they all looked like giant Muppets and just looked… well… too silly for characters in a space-opera movie. I just couldn’t take them seriously. Then again, that might have been part of the point… <shrug>
Why is it that all I can think of is that scene from Three Kings?
“What is the problem with Michael Jackson?”
Eventual answer to his own hypothetical:
“America is sick, f****d-up country.”
Hmm… I suppose that answer could be valid for both questions… from a certain point of view.
Personally I didn’t mind Jar-Jar nearly as much as the Ewoks, the dance number at Jabba’s palace, and the “atmosphere” Cantina shots. At least the digital puppets look a little more real than most of the old fuzzy ones (IMHO).
I, um…really like Jar Jar!
d&r
How about racism? Before anyone points out the obvious, I realize JJB and the rest of the Gungans were aliens, but this supposedly alien race had all the stereotypical characteristics that black characters were portrayed as having in pulp era movies. Being as Lucas has admitted he used these movies for other forms of inspiration, it’s not hard to assume he sought the same sources for his ideas on comic relief.
Mee-sa da dumbest character EVER!
Jar-Jar Binks is a worthless character- he did nothing to improve the movie, had no real purpose, and made stupid jokes (fart jokes, stepping in poop, saying “How Wude!” He irritated the shit right out of me and had no place in this movie. The rest of the movie was reletively serious- is that such a bad thing?
I also cannot stand the way he talks “Esqueeze me!” (give me a break!) and the inappropriate yammering throughout the movie.
When I saw this in the theatre, people yelled and cheered when the “A long time ago…” rolled across the screen, then complianed loudy throughout the movie about Jar-Jar. I saw 8 people get up and leave (and didn’t come back). I considered it myself, so great was my annoyance.
In my opinion, the Star Wars series is the best set of movies ever made. Jar-Jar just really distracted the viewer from the storyline and didn’t help advance the plot at all with his childish, annoying antics.
Zette
We do know that Jar Jar was voiced by a black actor who had to think of some kind of earthly accent to approach, and chose Caribbean, right?
But the character was a complete waste of time, yes.
I think JarJar was channeling that blonde kid, the middle little girl in** Full House.** How wude!
That’s the crux of the issue. Jar-Jar did exactly two things in the movie - led the Jedis to the Gungan city, and led the Queen to the Gungan rallying point. Besides that, he did absolutely nothing to advance the plot. Nothing. He didn’t help in any fights, provide any wisdom, make any distractions, or even get into enough trouble for the heroes to go and rescue him. Plot-wise, he could easily have been replaced by a convenient signpost.
Now, I’ll tolerate useless characters if they’re funny. But did anyone find Jar Jar Binks funny?
I didn’t mind him at all. And as for racism I never noticed it, what I did notice was that the guild all sounded like Chinese. And also seemed to play up their stereotypes. Anyway.
It’s a shame they stopped this column but I really enjoyed this. And as I knew several Jar Jar haters I really got a kick out of this column Jedi Jar Jar. Probably not true but I got a great kick out of it knowing all his detractors.
As per the OP, I think a lot of people had expectations for the movie that were too high and Jar Jar is an easy target.
Great quote from column “George Lucas may have pulled the wool over the eyes of an audience of millions.”
Hell, I felt the same way about Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back. “It’s a muppet!” I said, “It’s a fucking muppet!”
Yeah, so was Jabba and I got a kick out of both those characters. Jar Jar was just one more general malaise that proved Star Wars was now purely about money making and not film making. I’ll pay to watch crap only so long as its good crap.
I found him slightly annoying, but mostly ignorable. Pretty much the way I felt about the whole movie. I did think it seemed racist, but mostly I couldn’t understand a damned thing he said, which was fine with me as the stuff I did understand was really stupid. If I had bothered to watch this movie a second time, I’m sure he would have annoyed me even more.