The Collaborator

February 18, 2017 4:55 PM

The final, sad fate of Jar Jar Binks has been revealed by Chuck Wendig in the latest of his pre-Force Awakens Star Wars: Aftermath books.
posted by Artw (89 comments total)

As a rule I haven't been interested in SW novelizations for a while, but this gave me pause. It's successful and meta-successful as an ending for Jar Jar's story, although it would be more so if the minstrel accent had been polished down for the occasion. Spare a thought, too, for Ahmed Best, the performer, whose career received a Phantom Edit, although he gave it his all.

This is canon now, yes?
posted by Countess Elena at 5:03 PM on February 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

All the Wendig stuff is canon, apparently, which introduces some rather wonderful bits and pieces if you read it. Tie-in stuff is a mixed barrel at best, but he's doing good work here.
posted by Artw at 5:05 PM on February 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Canon is a bit of a weird concept anyway... like Rebels is canon, but the "expanded universe" is not, but now Admiral Thrawn is in Rebels so ???

So take from it what you want, really.

And he totally cut his ears off playing with a lightsaber.
posted by Artw at 5:13 PM on February 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Everyone else got to order what they wanted, but Palpatine made Jar Jar eat meatloaf. The end.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 5:20 PM on February 18, 2017 [73 favorites]

"Spare a thought, too, for Ahmed Best, the performer, whose career received a Phantom Edit, although he gave it his all."

Really? Why? It wasn't just the writing that was both bad and offensive, it was the performance. His all was apparently completely terrible, as was his artistic judgement.
posted by Infracanophile at 5:38 PM on February 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

The words canon and paperback are like oil and water, they don't mix.
posted by Beholder at 5:38 PM on February 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

Are they shunning him, or just avoiding him because they feel awkward?

I mean, what do you even say to a guy who cut his own ears off playing with a lightsaber?

"Sorry you cut your ears off playing with a lightsaber?"
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 5:41 PM on February 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'm kind of curious how much ground is going to be covered in the last "Aftermath" book, because the last one ends roughly a year after "Return of the Jedi," just before the battle of Jakku.
posted by drezdn at 6:00 PM on February 18, 2017

I understand it's mostly juggling and the word "uh-ohs."
posted by No-sword at 6:09 PM on February 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

Six movies of people having things cut off with lightsabers and getting robot versions of them - he gets robot ears, right?
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:16 PM on February 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

Actually, it would probably be something more like,

SORRY YOU CUT YOUR EARS OFF PLAYING WITH A LIGHTSABER
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:16 PM on February 18, 2017 [32 favorites]

Six movies of people having things cut off with lightsabers and getting robot versions of them - he gets robot ears, right?

Well, we never saw Darth Maul with a hover lower half, so I'm guessing no.
posted by Celsius1414 at 6:19 PM on February 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

The clown, they called him “Bring the clown. We want to see the clown. We like it how he juggles glombo shells, or spits fish up in the air and catches them, or how he dances around and falls on his butt.”

The adults, though. They don’t say much about him. Or to him. And no other Gungans come to see him, either. Nobody even says his name.

The narrative plays with an emotional contradiction, which is interesting. It's a sad fate, which anyone who wasn't a young child during the original released has wished for Jar Jar about a millions times; but the second part feels like it's supposed to be a narrative mirror for those who have wanted him disposed in one way or another. Not to justify Jar Jar's existence in the first place, or make anyone feel bad about not liking him, but as a way of humanizing the fate of someone/something that has simply been an object of unapologetic hate. It's an interesting accomplishment as an author, perhaps something of a trick, that I would imagine not many would think possible with this character. I almost imagine one of Wendig's friends betting him that he couldn't do it, and this is what he came up with.
posted by SpacemanStix at 6:30 PM on February 18, 2017 [11 favorites]

The clown, they called him “Bring the clown. We want to see the clown.

It's like that "lost" Jerry Lewis movie.
posted by My Dad at 6:30 PM on February 18, 2017 [13 favorites]

As difficult as I found the character to be, I do remember going to the theater opening day to see The Phantom Menace and being completely awestruck by the movement of the fabric that Jar Jar was wearing and how he dove into water with a completely real looking splash. Digital integration of characters into live action scenes took a major step forward with Episode 1.
posted by hippybear at 6:31 PM on February 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

You'd think the writer would tone down the ridiculous patois, too.
posted by My Dad at 6:32 PM on February 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

Also, I seem to remember the Red Letter Media review of The Phantom Menace really softening my view of Jar Jar (and that whole movie in general), but I can't remember exactly what they said about him and I'm not going to rewatch that to find out.
posted by hippybear at 6:33 PM on February 18, 2017

Just wait for the next episode, Jar Jar is undercover and will reveal the reveal the infamous Molejedi.
posted by sammyo at 6:47 PM on February 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Lake Tahoe
posted by adept256 at 6:50 PM on February 18, 2017

Sith Jar Jar is the only good Jar Jar
posted by Frayed Knot at 7:04 PM on February 18, 2017 [6 favorites]

See also Star Wars 7.5
posted by Artw at 7:08 PM on February 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Lake Tahoe

I think I understand this reference because I'm smart! Not like everybody says... like dumb... I'm smart and I want respect!
posted by vorpal bunny at 7:15 PM on February 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

So assuming the truth of the (obviously correct) Sith Lord Jar Jar theory that Frayed Knot beat me to posting, this is basically acknowledgement that Jar Jar is quietly biding his time while he puts pieces together for his master plan, right?

Jar Jar = Snoke confirmed.
posted by Itaxpica at 7:38 PM on February 18, 2017 [3 favorites]

vorpal bunny: "Lake Tahoe

I think I understand this reference because I'm smart! Not like everybody says... like dumb... I'm smart and I want respect!"

That's good, because technically I am smart, and I got nothin'.

Yay for brilliant lagomorphs!

(Maybe explain it to me in MeMail?)
posted by Samizdata at 8:30 PM on February 18, 2017

Someone is building a Frankenstein monster out of all these severed bits of Star Wars characters - Luke's hand, Jar Jar's ears ...
posted by fallingbadgers at 8:32 PM on February 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

General Grievous' schlong

Best Band Ever.
posted by mikelieman at 8:36 PM on February 18, 2017 [10 favorites]

Well, we never saw Darth Maul with a hover lower half, so I'm guessing no.

There were the spider legs though, and then he graduated to proper robot legs.
posted by dumbland at 8:36 PM on February 18, 2017

As a rule I haven't been interested in SW novelizations for a while, but this gave me pause.

Wendig is a jaw-droppingly awful writer. If you are interested in the novelizations, stay far, far away from him. A no-shit sample paragraph:

"The TIE wibbles and wobbles through the air, careening drunkenly across the Myrran rooftops - it zigzags herkily-jerkily out of sight."

Yes, that is third-person present tense. A just world would carry a death sentence for it.
posted by smoke at 8:38 PM on February 18, 2017 [5 favorites]

That might be a matter of taste. I find his prose style pretty breezy and fun.
posted by Artw at 8:50 PM on February 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

hippybear: "Also, I seem to remember the Red Letter Media review of The Phantom Menace really softening my view of Jar Jar (and that whole movie in general), but I can't remember exactly what they said about him and I'm not going to rewatch that to find out."

Interesting, because I don't remember anything favorable being said about Jar Jar in the RLM review. One of the clips they keep using to beat Lucas over the head with is him saying, "Jar Jar is the key to all of this...because he's a funnier character than we've ever had before."
posted by Chrysostom at 8:57 PM on February 18, 2017

I seem to remember the Red Letter Media review of The Phantom Menace really softening my view of Jar Jar

I'm pretty sure RLM had nothing but hate for Jar Jar from the start. This is from the review of Episode 3, where "Almost no Jar Jar Binks" is listed as one of the positives:

After three films, Lucas finally got it. We only see this loathsome cunt but for a brief moment or two. But even though his role as a funny thing for babies is no longer useful, he's still walking around the Senate doing something. Why isn't he working as a janitor somewhere?!

The janitor line is actually somewhat prescient, given the canon end here.
posted by Panjandrum at 9:11 PM on February 18, 2017

Yes, that is third-person present tense. A just world would carry a death sentence for it.

Real talk, person and tense are not even in the top 10 things that bother me about that sentence.
posted by No-sword at 9:15 PM on February 18, 2017 [11 favorites]

There were the spider legs though, and then he graduated to proper robot legs.

Sometimes I hear EU tidbits and wonder if Palpatine ever leaned in from camera right and deadpanned a "sock it to me" before tentacle-headed go-go dancers started doing the shimmy
posted by middleclasstool at 9:21 PM on February 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

He had sort of robot dinosaur legs for a bit as well tho.
posted by Artw at 9:26 PM on February 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

(TBH I am much less distressed by Robo-Maul than the attempts to make Sabage Opress a thing.)
posted by Artw at 9:27 PM on February 18, 2017

I do feel really bad for Ahmed Best. I painted scenery for a show he was in about JFK. He played Sammy Davis Jr., and his performance was astonishing. He's amazingly talented.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 9:35 PM on February 18, 2017 [7 favorites]

Sabage Opress

I only got through about half the run of The Clone Wars, but the running gag in my household for the longest time was WWSOD, for 'What Would Savage Opress Do?'

Re: Jar-Jar -
I thought he got off light in the excerpt, all things considered.
posted by mordax at 9:35 PM on February 18, 2017

So I just googled "Sabage Opress", thinking, no, there's no way they named a dude Savage Oppress but changed one consonant and removed another. It turns out I'm right, they didn't, you made a typo! All they did was take two angry words, randomly hit the backspace key once, and take an existing villain and change his color so he's basically Darth Luigi.

I'm...weirdly on board with that.
posted by middleclasstool at 9:38 PM on February 18, 2017 [4 favorites]

Ah, but he's tougher and more spikey.
posted by Artw at 9:39 PM on February 18, 2017

Well, you gotta level up at the next boss
posted by middleclasstool at 9:40 PM on February 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

Savage Opress was ridiculous from the name on down but I thought he worked (maybe unintentionally) to subvert expectations, you thought you were just getting hokey off-brand Darth Maul and then his story introduced a more interesting take on the genuine article than existed in the movie. "Crazy somehow alive Darth Maul with robot spider legs" really worked a lot better than it had any right to.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:36 PM on February 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Sorry for being too cryptic. Lake Tahoe is where Fredo Corleone gets whacked. Vorpal Bunny was quoting him.
posted by adept256 at 10:44 PM on February 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

I had hoped for something more.
posted by ethansr at 10:45 PM on February 18, 2017

Wendig is a jaw-droppingly awful writer.

Third person present can work, I think, but his reader for the audiobook ought to have been fired. Every single sentence is exciting! Every sentence, no matter how trivial, ends in a exclamation point!

I had to stop after a bit.

Can we discuss Bloodline, though? Bloodline was good. Bloodline was the best.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 11:59 PM on February 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

As horrible as Jar Jar was, he was still the best character in TPM. Seriously, the humans were all totally devoid of personality. They were more stiff and awkward than Gerry Anderson puppets. (And these were some clearly talented actors. Lucas had to work to get characters that flat.) Jar Jar's personality was grating as hell, but at least he had one.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 12:24 AM on February 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Canon is a bit of a weird concept anyway...

You mean weird that a concept related to church law would be applied to something as silly as stories about fantasy heroes and chosen sons and magical forces instead of the serious subject of religion?

Er, nevermind.
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:52 AM on February 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

mikelieman: "General Grievous' schlong

Best Band Ever."

Well, they were before they got big and sold out. I listened to them before they were circumcised with a lightsabre.
posted by Samizdata at 1:29 AM on February 19, 2017

adept256: "Sorry for being too cryptic. Lake Tahoe is where Fredo Corleone gets whacked. Vorpal Bunny was quoting him."

Sorry. I have slept a couple of times since I have last seen that.
posted by Samizdata at 1:30 AM on February 19, 2017

I like third person present tense. What the heck is wrong with something happening in the present?
posted by kyrademon at 2:29 AM on February 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

A just world would carry a death sentence for it.

Is a death sentence one that murders you with its terrible clause? Because I've read some of those in my day...
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:44 AM on February 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

(And these were some clearly talented actors. Lucas had to work to get characters that flat.)

I was sort of in shock there. Trying to figure out why Hayden and Natalie were -- phoning it in I guess -- when I *knew* there were incredible. Did they HATE Lucas. In retrospect, it's always hating Lucas.
posted by mikelieman at 3:13 AM on February 19, 2017

I'm not sure I like this. I think it is needlessly mean-spirited in that it plays off the idea that Jar Jar still doesn't understand why he is banished (he mentions what others think of him, but doesn't seem to realize anything about himself on his own). I mean... it's been how long since we last saw this character? And why would the Naboo allow him around?

It is like a twisted version of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. I walk away from this not wanting to deal with this novel.
posted by fmoralesc at 4:03 AM on February 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

I liked both of the Aftermath books and the audio versions. *shrug*
posted by drezdn at 4:22 AM on February 19, 2017

In the Red Letter Media reviews, Plinkett makes a good case that Lucas gave the actors nothing to react to, since almost the whole movie was shot with green screens instead of props and sets. In one of my favorite bits he plays the scene from the first JJ Abrams Star Trek where Kirk is running through the ship, dodging around people and jumping over things, in order to reach the bridge and warn them to come out of warp with shields up. Then he contrasts this with a scene from Star Wars of Obi-Wan and Anakin discussing a matter of similar urgency as they calmly stroll through a corridor. "And why doesn't Lucas have any scenes like this?" (back to brief clip of Kirk.) Then he switches to the same Obi-Wan Anakin scene, but before the SFX were applied, and answers his own rhetorical question -- "Maybe it's because his green screen was only thirty feet long."
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:26 AM on February 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

"Star Wars Minute" (now mid-"Attack of the Clones") has spent the past year or two dissecting the prequels. The green screen plays a major part, but Portman seems to have been given nothing to work with, and so she in particular decided to phone it in pretty early on. McGregor seems to have been enthusiastic enough to pull off a decent performance. It sounds like Best was quite dedicated, though, which makes his character kind of tragic.

I detest Jar-Jar, but I feel like an offscreen death would have been less mean-spirited.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 7:31 AM on February 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

You mean weird that a concept related to church law would be applied to something as silly as stories about fantasy heroes and chosen sons and magical forces instead of the serious subject of religion?

I think the problem is that "canon" is too intellectually incoherent, as a notion, to be usefully applied either to religion or art. It's always an act against the freedom of the reader, based upon the purely imagined right for anyone or anything (including the author, church or holder of legal copyright) to speak on behalf of the text itself.
posted by howfar at 7:37 AM on February 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

I think in general the trick with any kind of shared world is to take the attitude that it ALL happened, take the bits that are required to make your story work and be fun, then shuffle all the rest off to one side and kind of ignore it. And if there are contradictions, then there are contradictions. Stick to the spirit of the thing and anything that doesn't match some bit of nerdlore will easily be hamdwaved away by some other bit of nerdlore.
posted by Artw at 8:07 AM on February 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

I think I like to take a vaguely Tolkienesque approach to imagined worlds. Pretending that a world is real opens up the opportunity to put any inconsistencies down to innacuracy in the sources. So when Tolkien rewrote the riddle game section of The Hobbit, he explained that Bilbo had misreported the real story in earlier editions of the Red Book. Approaching the texts as texts, rather than revealed truth, actually makes the worlds they evoke more stable and satisfying, not less. This is also true of the parallel problem of canonicity in Biblical interpretation.
posted by howfar at 8:17 AM on February 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

Seems coherent enough to me: this is the real stuff, this is what happened. Darth Vader didn't fight Batman; that's not canon. And isn't the "freedom of the reader" also imaginary?
posted by thelonius at 9:46 AM on February 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Darth Vader didn't fight Batman;

He didn't fight Luke Skywalker either. There is no fact of the matter that canon can be accurately said to be describing.

And isn't the "freedom of the reader" also imaginary?

Yes. That's rather the point. The idea that one imaginary thing is more real than another seems to me to be pretty obviously incoherent.
posted by howfar at 10:38 AM on February 19, 2017

Look, canon works because people agree on it. Lots of things are that way, like law and money, for example. This does not mean they are not "real".
posted by thelonius at 10:45 AM on February 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Just ask the no-eared gungan.
posted by Artw at 10:50 AM on February 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

That's not actually what's meant by canon in the context of Star Wars or religion though. Canon, in these contexts, refers to the right of an authority (the rights holder or the church) to determine the status of particular texts. Law and money are the same way - except they're actually backed by the power of the state and the size of the economy. They are manifestations of power. Fantasy canon is much closer to religious canon than those concepts.

It's entirely reasonable for us to refer to shared standards and contexts when we're talking about shared worlds, and to agree between ourselves that "x is real but y is not". But the idea of "canon", as typically used, actually goes significantly further than that.
posted by howfar at 10:53 AM on February 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Canon in the context of Star Wars means that the Mouse is going to make a best effort to make the history, characters and events described in canon works internally consistent. Other, non-canon-but-still-official Star Wars works, like Legends, will not necessarily be consistent with the canon universe.
posted by anifinder at 10:56 AM on February 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

So now that he’s dead, Jar Jar is eligible for canonization?
posted by mbrubeck at 11:01 AM on February 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

the trick with any kind of shared world is to take the attitude that it ALL happened, take the bits that are required to make your story work and be fun, then shuffle all the rest off to one side and kind of ignore it.... Stick to the spirit of the thing and anything that doesn't match some bit of nerdlore will easily be hamdwaved away by some other bit of nerd lore.

Broadly speaking, speaking as someone who reads a lot of fanfic -- which the novels arguably are -- engaging with stupid material is sometimes more fun than ignoring it. You can get amazing synergies in which a stupid (or problematic) bit of one book is explained or exploited in another.

(Minor Rogue One spoiler warning.)

This is sort of not a proper example, thanks to Disney, but the Death Star having a lightsaber crystal at its core is an amazingly stupid bit of EU trivia, yet Rogue One managed to turn it into a central plot point. Ditto with the flaws in the Death Star (though this is, arguably, less effective) -- in a lot of ways, Rogue One was a "fix it" fic for the entire ANH.

On the later point, Bloodline (written separately) deals with the exact same issue in this hilarious conversation in which one of the characters speculates that "the Death Star was an inside job" and then goes on to talk about the problems involve with engineering a tiny flaw that could destroy the entire structure.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 11:08 AM on February 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

You all know that canon counts for LucasArts and they have, in fact, had someone (Leland Chee) whos sole job for years is tracking and managing continuity. In fact, he has been doing it (according to his LinkedIn) for over 17 years.

You all knew this right?
posted by Samizdata at 11:09 AM on February 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Now, mind you, I never said he was good at it, but it is his job.
posted by Samizdata at 11:09 AM on February 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

"Suncrusher? Totes legit."
posted by Artw at 11:14 AM on February 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Just ask the no-eared gungan.


Loudly.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:42 AM on February 19, 2017

Darth Vader didn't fight Batman;

He didn't fight Luke Skywalker either.

Wait, what?
posted by hippybear at 11:53 AM on February 19, 2017

So now that he’s dead, Jar Jar is eligible for canonization?

Well, it might be fun to shoot his corpse out of a gun, but I think we should probably just let him rest in peace.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:45 PM on February 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Isn't having his remains shot out of a cannon how Hunter S. Thompson was memorialized?
posted by hippybear at 1:00 PM on February 19, 2017

Yeah.

Hunter S Thompson was kind of an asshole wasn't he?
posted by howfar at 1:38 PM on February 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

That's Saint Hunter to you.
posted by mbrubeck at 1:59 PM on February 19, 2017

You all know that canon counts for LucasArts

Han shoots first.
posted by mikelieman at 2:14 PM on February 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

I once saw a profile and interview of Leland Chee. While Chee was the documentarian, it was clear that Lucas was the Source of All Canon, and he mainly hired Chee to keep himself straight. But it was noted that numerous entries in the bible were noted "Lucas," because even if Chee thought they were unlikely or stupid, if George Lucas said it happened then it happened.
posted by Bringer Tom at 2:16 PM on February 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Tears began to run down the street boy's cheeks, the blaster heavy in his hand.

"Meesa gonna feed da wabbits, yes?"

"Sure, Jar Jar, you can raise the rabbits. We'll have a place, a little farm, with cows, and some pigs..."

"Anda da wabbits?"

"And the rabbits."

His finger tightened on the trigger, and the tears came faster. The clown wouldn't come when called anymore.
posted by AzraelBrown at 2:46 PM on February 19, 2017 [16 favorites]

Wendig is a jaw-droppingly awful writer.

I just "finished" (trans.: stopped halfway through) his Invasive, about ants, and yeah. In fairness I was told in advance that it was bad.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:16 PM on February 19, 2017

I have a friend who, for a time, was the roommate of a guy dating someone who let's just say was an actress in the prequels. There were a number of phone calls from Australia in the middle of the night. "He gives us nothing, he's the worst director I've ever worked with, I can't break the contract," and on and on and on.

Those prequels were just a clusterfuck, even without Jar-Jar
posted by Ber at 3:55 PM on February 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm late to this thread but fuck me I can't believe Savage Opress not only exists, but exists in pretty mainstream canon (nine episodes of Clone Wars) and actually has merch.

where has this character been all my life
posted by flatluigi at 6:08 PM on February 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

He's Darth Maul from deeper down in the dungeon.
posted by turbid dahlia at 7:12 PM on February 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

>Well, it might be fun to shoot his corpse out of a gun, but I think we should probably just let him rest in peace.<

I'd watch that for a dollar!
posted by twidget at 1:39 PM on February 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

Savage Opress... actually has merch.

And of course, his own LEGO version
Also, Darth Maul with Robot Legs
posted by LEGO Damashii at 3:56 PM on February 20, 2017 [2 favorites]

Having your own Lego is gold standard canon.
posted by Artw at 4:14 PM on February 20, 2017

And of course, his own LEGO version
Also, Darth Maul with Robot Legs

You are burying the lede here, Darth Maul has a Santa LEGO version
posted by jason_steakums at 4:18 PM on February 20, 2017

There can be only one canon for Lucas and Jar Jar.

It will have an extra 'n', and it will be pointed into the sun.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 4:27 PM on February 20, 2017

my personal headcanon for jar jar's fate
posted by entropicamericana at 11:19 AM on February 21, 2017

The Cannon of Literature
posted by Artw at 11:59 AM on February 23, 2017 [3 favorites]