Why is Jar Jar Binks Annoying...but C3PO isn't?

[RealityChuck]

@Mahaloth

I’ve seen Ahmed Best talk about the voice, which is obviously one of the worst things in the prequels.

He gave Lucas a lot of choices of voices. The one you hear in the movie was the one Lucas picked as the voice. Ahmed Best is pretty much a victim of Lucas wanting a high-pitch annoying voice.

He’s goofy, anyway, but from the moment he said, “Hey, wait!”, I knew the voice was the key thing that was irritating.

I think the choice of voice was what did him in. The actual lines are pretty ambitious – Lucas was creating a different language structure, under the restriction that it had to be understandable to the audience. Using “meesa” for “me” and “I” was good science fictional worldbuilding. But the goofy way it was used completely ruined it.

C3PO, OTOH, used a “silly-ass British” voice, which is a known comic trope, and far more acceptable.

[Ike_Witt]

Just wondering if anyone here is familiar with the theory that Jar Jar was actually Darth Plagueis?

[Joey_P]

@Richard_John_Marcej

Well, Yoda had a stupid way of talking and people loved him.

He rearranged sentences but you didn’t want to slap him. I think anyone comparing him to Yoda need to go listen to some clips of Jar Jar speaking.

[muldoonthief]

@MrAtoz

I’ve heard that too. Specifically I heard it as C-3PO being a slimy used-car salesman type. You can see remnants of it in the scene where Uncle Owen is looking him over preparatory to buying him, and Threepio has a positive answer to everything Owen asks.

3PO: Protocol? I’m all about protocol. Why I’ve forgotten more about protocol than most droids–
Owen: I don’t need a protocol droid.
3PO: Of course you don’t! Protocol sucks, who needs it? Why I oughta–
Owen: Know anything about vaporators?
3PO: Vaporators? Boy, does that take me back! Remind me to tell you about my first job, when I–
Owen: I need a droid that speaks Bocce.
3PO: Bocce? My God, many’s the time I used to sit around with the old gang, speaking Bocce and–

Definitely - the original 3PO was a fairly smart droid, just in over his head at times.

“Beep?”
“No, I don’t he likes you at all.”
“Beep?”
“No, I don’t like you either.”
“Sad beep”

Plus the scene when they’re in the docking bay control room, and the stormtroopers break in - 3PO does some pretty quick thinking to get out of it.
And of course “I suggest a new strategy R2. Let the Wookiee win.”

[Boyo_Jim]

You’re all wrong. C3PO is not funny, and IS annoying, just not as annoying as Jar Jar on the Annoyance Rainbow.

[Ranger_Jeff]

@Boyo_Jim

You’re all wrong. C3PO is not funny, and IS annoying, just not as annoying as Jar Jar on the Annoyance Rainbow.

Well, yeah. Be a wet blanket and ruin all our fun, why doncha?

[Mahaloth]

@Ike_Witt

Just wondering if anyone here is familiar with the theory that Jar Jar was actually Darth Plagueis?

Yes. It’s just a joke, though.

[Richard_John_Marcej]

@Joey_P

He rearranged sentences but you didn’t want to slap him. I think anyone comparing him to Yoda need to go listen to some clips of Jar Jar speaking.

As I sat in the theater on 5/21/80 seeing Empire Strikes Back (and REALLY enjoying the film) everytime Yoda spoke I kept thinking, my god, why did they give this most important character such a stupid, annoying, muppet voice? It always took me out of the movie whenever Yoda spoke. I didn’t mind the sentence structure, just could never take the character seriously with that muppet voice.

[MovieMogul]

C3PO was an important part of the SW crew in the OT, but the PT mismanaged him in every conceivable way (horribly unfunny, not remotely important, painfully shoehorned into settings/stories). That’s why when Ep7 came, his appearance was not welcome, because while he might’ve been with the old gang again, his personality and function were closer to the PT than the OT. Of course, he will have to appear in the next several films, but if he gets blown out an airlock right after the Ep8 crawl, I won’t miss him one iota.

[Tim_R.Mortiss]

@Boyo_Jim

You’re all wrong. C3PO is not funny, and IS annoying, just not as annoying as Jar Jar on the Annoyance Rainbow.

Yeah, that’s pretty much my assessment as well. I’ve hated him since the first movie.

[MrDibble]

@RealityChuck

The actual lines are pretty ambitious – Lucas was creating a different language structure[…]Using “meesa” for “me” and “I” was good science fictional worldbuilding

Aping existing English pidgins was hardly radical worldbuilding. Lazy, more like.

[Malthus]

I gotta agree with MrDibble on this one: Jar Jar reminded me uncomfortably of “blackface” minstrel clowning from the pre-vaudeville era.

[Lemur866]

Part of what made C3PO a good character in Ep4 is that he’s the audience surrogate, that introduces us to the universe of Star Wars. He’s stuck in a battle but doesn’t know why, he’s dumped on a desert planet and doesn’t know what to do, he’s kidnapped by Jawas and doesn’t know how to escape, he’s bought by Uncle Owen for unknown purposes, he’s explaining R2 to Luke.

All through the first half of Ep4 C3PO might not be driving events but we’re seeing the world as he sees it and it eases us into the story very neatly. But his role decreases as the OT progresses, and he does end up as bumbling comic relief. But he’s earned our audience identification from Ep4, so he’s not JUST bumbling comic relief, he’s a guy we know.

And of course in the Prequels he’s all bumbling comic relief, and in the Prequels he really is JarJar’s equally annoying brother.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Lemur866

Part of what made C3PO a good character in Ep4 is that he’s the audience surrogate, that introduces us to the universe of Star Wars. He’s stuck in a battle but doesn’t know why, he’s dumped on a desert planet and doesn’t know what to do, he’s kidnapped by Jawas and doesn’t know how to escape, he’s bought by Uncle Owen for unknown purposes, he’s explaining R2 to Luke.

All through the first half of Ep4 C3PO might not be driving events but we’re seeing the world as he sees it and it eases us into the story very neatly. But his role decreases as the OT progresses, and he does end up as bumbling comic relief. But he’s earned our audience identification from Ep4, so he’s not JUST bumbling comic relief, he’s a guy we know.

He does still get to play translator, though. Even while being mistaken for a deity! And since the kind of guy who wouldn’t like Threepio is probably the kind of guy who really wouldn’t be a fan of the Ewoks, by the transitive property he’d have to grudgingly give the droid a lesser-of-two-evils point for that!

(And even if someone ain’t a fan of Threepio, and really ain’t a fan of the Ewoks, the bit where he narrates The Story So Far for the little guys is kinda awesome.)

[Trinopus]

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

. . . Still, imagine an EMPIRE STRIKES BACK where that’s not the case: where he [Yoda] keeps acting like Grover on drugs the whole time, even while being chosen to serve as a General and then as a Senator, picture that, and you’ve got Jar-Jar.

Ouch! And you’re right; I really hated the first few minutes of Yoda.

@Malthus

I gotta agree with MrDibble on this one: Jar Jar reminded me uncomfortably of “blackface” minstrel clowning from the pre-vaudeville era.

Alas, true. The racial stereotype is overt, and the Melanesian “pidgin” effect is glaring. Maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t intended, but it sure as hell is what we perceive.

@Boyo_Jim

You’re all wrong. C3PO is not funny, and IS annoying, just not as annoying as Jar Jar on the Annoyance Rainbow.

Grin! “Annoyance Rainbow.” I’ll buy that. C3PO is like “Bandit” on Jonny Quest: so small an annoyance, you really don’t mind. Compare to Snarf or Orko or the Monkey-Bird, who are unceasingly annoying. Imagine if Scrappy-Doo were in every scene.

I’m fine with Gabby Hayes or Walter Brennan backing up John Wayne…just so long as they aren’t on-screen the whole movie, doing their schtick without ever stopping dammit.

[snfaulkner]

@Bryan_Ekers

… but I’ll take all the Brian Blessed I can get.

WhatwhatWHAT!? Were the prequels so bad that I totally missed that Brian Blessed was in it altogether! Really?! Are going to make me look this up? Does this mean I now have to watch those fucking abortions again just to see him? Do I now hate you forever? Fuckin’ell. Happy bday to me.

Btw, Brian Blessed as Voltan is the best thing that’s ever happened.

“BRING ME THE REMOTE CONTOL”

[GuanoLad]

You can’t see Brian Blessed as such, he plays another Gungan, and really only voices him as there was no motion-capture back then.

[MrDibble]

@snfaulkner

Btw, Brian Blessed as Voltan is the best thing that’s ever happened.

I’m not so sure - it’s possible this guy on Have I got News For You or this guy on QI or this other guy on Blackadder could give him a run for his money…

[Muffin]

Coonery, not just buffoonery.

Lucas tossed in the Stepin Fetchit to entertain children, and by doing so, he perpetuated one of the more offensive Hollywood traditions by making minsteralism’s coon characters an accepted part of our children’s culture.

What movies are appropriate for children, and what movies are not appropriate for children? The coon Jar Jar Binks is absolutely not appropriate for children, and yet that character was created solely to appeal to children. A pox on Lucas for doing this.

Minstrel show - Wikipedia Wikipedia:

Minstrel shows lampooned black people as dim-witted,[1] lazy,[1]buffoonish,[1][2] superstitious, happy-go-lucky,[1] and musical.
. . . .
Popular entertainment perpetuated the racist stereotype of the uneducated, ever-cheerful, and highly musical black well into the 1950s.

http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/coon/
From an excellent article by Dr. David Pilgrim, Professor of Sociology Ferris State University (I strongly encourage you to read the article in full):

The coon caricature is one of the most insulting of all anti-black caricatures. The name itself, an abbreviation of raccoon, is dehumanizing. As with Sambo, the coon was portrayed as a lazy, easily frightened, chronically idle, inarticulate, buffoon. The coon differed from the Sambo in subtle but important ways. Sambo was depicted as a perpetual child, not capable of living as an independent adult. The coon acted childish, but he was an adult; albeit a good-for-little adult.
. . . .
Fetchit became identified in the popular imagination as a dialect-speaking, slump-shouldered, slack-jawed character who walked, talked, and apparently thought in slow motion. The Fetchit character overcame this lethargy only when he thought that a ghost or some nameless terror might be present; and then he moved very quickly indeed. (p. 89)
. . . .
Fetchit was the embodiment of the nitwit black man. As with the Zip Coon and Urban Coon, this old-fashioned coon character could never correctly pronounce a multisyllabic word. He was portrayed as a dunce.
. . . .
His appearance, too, added to the caricature. He was tall and skinny . . . . His grin was always very wide, . . . . his feet very large, . . . . his dialect very broken. (P. 41)
. . . .
But he will always be remembered as the lazy, barely literate, self-demeaning, white man’s black.
. . . .
. . . Jar Jar, a bumbling dimwitted amphibian-like character, spoke Caribbean-accented pidgin English, and had ears that suggested dreadlocks. Wearing bellbottom pants and vest, Jar Jar looked like the latest in black cinematic stereotypes . . . “Rastafarian Stepin Fetchit on platform hoofs, crossed annoyingly with Butterfly McQueen” (Fleeman, 1999). This incident suggests that Fetchit’s legacy is to be remembered as a coon caricature: lazy, bewildered, stammering, shuffling, and good-for-little except buffoonery.

For me, the coonery – buffoonery in a racialized context – of Jar Jar Binks left such a bad taste in my mouth that it was the last Star Wars film I watched. I’m a big spec-fic/sci-fi fan, but fuck that shit.

[Mister_Rik]

@journeyman_southpaw

C3PO was occasionally useful during the original trilogy. In the first film he was mostly an audience surrogate

What I came in to say. C3PO behaved much like any of us would have had we found outselves in a similar, overwhelming situation.

@Lantern

The essence of humor is confounding expectations.

Kids have less experience of the world so doing this is easier.

Kids quickly figure out that “surprise” is a big part of humor. This why the punchlines in jokes told by children are so often preceded by the words, “all of a sudden …”

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

He does still get to play translator, though. Even while being mistaken for a deity! And since the kind of guy who wouldn’t like Threepio is probably the kind of guy who really wouldn’t be a fan of the Ewoks, by the transitive property he’d have to grudgingly give the droid a lesser-of-two-evils point for that!

(And even if someone ain’t a fan of Threepio, and really ain’t a fan of the Ewoks, the bit where he narrates The Story So Far for the little guys is kinda awesome.)

I always wondered about that scene: Had C3PO ever, up to that point, seen Darth Vader in person? He imitates Vader’s breathing during his story, and despite having just watched the previous two movies, I could not recall the two characters ever being in the same room.