Of course, this would assume that Jar Jar is even alive

August 30, 2018 8:09 AM

Speculation late last year implied Episode IX could be the final installment of the famed Skywalker saga, meaning it would have to feature the ultimate destruction of the First Order. It's already been established that Jar Jar is haunted by personal demons, and there's something undeniably appealing about the infamous clown exorcising them by proving his worth once more. How A Star Wars Movie Cameo Can Redeem Jar Jar Binks.
posted by Juso No Thankyou (32 comments total)

Or the theory is true and Jar Jar is Snoke.
posted by chavenet at 8:14 AM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

Please no.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 8:43 AM on August 30, 2018

"Still, the prequels are a part of the canon. The Force Awakens can stray away from midichlorians all it likes, but the events of those three movies still happened and played a role in the larger narrative."
(emphasis mine)

See, this is where canon gets in the way of storytelling. The events of those movies didn't "happen," they were parts of those made-up stories. And the lovely thing about made-up stories is that you can make changes to them, because they're not real! So saying, "We must address this real thing that really happened' is kind of silly, TBH.
posted by xingcat at 8:47 AM on August 30, 2018 [12 favorites]

I suppose it might be okay if they use archival footage, but nobody wants to see a CGI Jar Jar flopping around in the uncanny valley.
posted by straight at 8:52 AM on August 30, 2018 [10 favorites]

Alternate solution: damnatio memoriae
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 8:52 AM on August 30, 2018 [8 favorites]

It's already been established that Jar Jar is haunted by personal demons, and there's something undeniably appealing about the infamous clown exorcising them by proving his worth once more.

Getting a real The Day The Clown Cried vibe here.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:54 AM on August 30, 2018 [4 favorites]

Needs a "backstage" cutaway where the 'actor' breaks character and the fourth wall pulls off the ears and goes on a tirade in the lightest british accent about how he knows it's a deep cover but the whole accent and 'tude is demeaning and racist mitochondrianish.
posted by sammyo at 8:54 AM on August 30, 2018

Meesa no want!
posted by thelonius at 9:00 AM on August 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

They're making another Predator film, so no reason his head shouldn't be nailed to a wall in that.
posted by biffa at 9:02 AM on August 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

Eh, I've made my peace with the prequels through a combination of acceptance and not taking them too seriously (the Star Wars Minute's approach is a mindset I wish more fanpeople would embrace), along with a hearty helping of Clone Wars and Rebels.

I've said it before, but Clone Wars already did a fine job of redeeming Jar-Jar in a handful of episodes and arcs, with the full participation and collaboration of Ahmed Best, who I've always felt was the odd man out in any and all discussions of the character. He's a smart, talented guy who was kind of left adrift in the aftermath of Episode I, and the fandom still hasn't fully come to grips with their own role in that.
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:08 AM on August 30, 2018 [11 favorites]

[end of crawl]
Meanwhile at the main base of the First Order, Dark Lord Kylo Ren continues his rejection of Darth Vader by taking his frustrations out on one of Anakin Skywalker oldest friends...

[Interior, First Order torture chamber. Jar Jar Binks is on the rack while Kylo Ren stands nearby]

JJB: Ex-squeeze me. Mesa go now!
KR: Not until you say it right! "I want to go now." Say it!
JJB: Mesa want...
KR: No!
[Kylo Ren uses THE FORCE to pull Jar Jar’s tongue out to its fullest extent, then wraps it several times around the Gungan’s neck, throttling him]
KR: Listen, Jamaican patois won’t even exist until the far future and you speak a lousy imitation anyway.
JJB (muffled): Oh, maxi big da Force...
KR: "The Force is powerful!" Say it!
[Jar Jar is turning orange and is unable to speak. Just then a First Order Colonel enters the room and approaches Kylo Ren]
FOC: Sir, we’ve found them.
KR (to Jar Jar): We’ll finish this later.
[Kylo Ren releases Jar Jar’s tongue and turns to leave]
JJB: Yousa big baddie! Yousa...
[Kylo Ren turns back and lifts a warning finger]
JJB: ...
KR: That’s better.
[Kylo Ren leaves with First Order Colonel]
[End Of Scene]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:23 AM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

I much prefer Strange Interlude's take over Tell Me No Lies. I always found the near-hysterical levels of hate for Jar-Jar creepy. C-3PO is every much as bit a cartoony stereotype if not more, but no one throws out torture porn on Metafilter about him.
posted by tavella at 9:32 AM on August 30, 2018 [9 favorites]

Let the past die.
posted by orange ball at 9:36 AM on August 30, 2018 [6 favorites]

I came to basically echo what Strange Interlude has already said well. I honestly believe that Clone Wars is, by a lot, the strongest and best material of the entire franchise. The Jar Jar episode is excellent, and Matt Lanter's portrayal of Anakin is nuanced and basically everything we hoped the I-III would be, but were not.

I'll also note that this article is from 2017, and is discussing putting Jar Jar into Episode VIII, not the upcoming IX. Considering the state Our Heroes were left in at the end of Last Jedi - a tiny band, desperate for allies, I could certainly see a way to work JJB into IX were Abrams so inclined. I don't think he's so inclined, though.
posted by anastasiav at 9:52 AM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

C-3PO is every much as bit a cartoony stereotype if not more, but no one throws out torture porn on Metafilter about him.

C-3PO gets blasted and dismembered in Empire Strikes Back, handed over to a sadistic slave lord and has a mook rip his eye from its socket in Return of the Jedi, is introduced as an embarrassed naked hunk of junk heap parts in Phantom Menace, gets decapitated in Attack of the Clones, and has his memories erased in Revenge of the Sith. The torture porn already got handled, no need to add to it.

That's a good example of why the proposed Jar Jar cameo would just annoy people more. C-3PO hardly "proved his worth". What happened was the Universe was crueler to him than even the meanest fans wanted to be, so it never felt unfair that he got to be a little cartoonishly annoying. A "Darth Jar Jar" plot might have been workable once upon a time ("We were right to hate him!" "Look at him becoming a damaged Sith monster!" "When he was acting dumb or annoying it's just a magician's misdirection!") but it's too late to do more than just move on and forget about him now.

On the other hand, if all these movies get rebooted in a hundred years, I personally hope the big plot twist is "My spake disa mui humble pidgin! [slight voice change] And then every over-privileged bigot in the galaxy would readily ignore the menace right next to them."
posted by roystgnr at 10:00 AM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

I am fully 100% in favor of Star Wars movies doing more to annoy Star Wars fans.
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:40 AM on August 30, 2018 [8 favorites]

Apparently you can redeem both sexism and racism if the character you play has some kind of arc.

Well, doesn't have to be a big arc. Or even a small arc. Actually, a hyphen would work just fine.
posted by PlusDistance at 10:40 AM on August 30, 2018

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: Star Wars is a story for ALL AGES, ESPECIALLY CHILDREN. Jar Jar (like Threepio and R2 before him) were all written as comic relief for young children.

My son is 5. He loves the Original Trilogy. But he LOVES Phantom Menace because there are characters he can relate to. Anakin. His mother. Jar Jar. In fact, he giggles and laughs hysterically at all of Jar Jar’s goofiness during the climactic battle at the end. I relate to different parts of the movie (I sob like a baby when he leaves his mother now, which I didn’t do before I became a father).

And that’s ok!

“Don’t give in to hate. That leads to the Dark Side!” - Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Empire Strikes Back
posted by zooropa at 11:00 AM on August 30, 2018 [6 favorites]

Still, the prequels are a part of the canon

Are they? No really, this isn't some "there's only one Matrix movie" denial. More like, we've always differentiated "extended universe" from "the core canon."

IMO, there's a core canon of the original trilogy. The rationale for starting on Episode 4 was that Lucas was inspired by the serials of his childhood, where you might not have seen the previous episodes, and you were just dropped into the story. The trilogy was a complete work by being incomplete.

The prequels and sequels are like adding arms to the Venus de Milo. Maybe the artist thought they should be there, maybe they complete the story, but the canonical Venus de Milo that we know and love has no arms. Yes, I know this analogy is somewhat flawed since the original statue started with arms, while the original trilogy was created alone.
posted by explosion at 11:00 AM on August 30, 2018

yeah and the guy at the end of Solo was a new character, Terence Hornhead
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:15 AM on August 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

> Are they? No really, this isn't some "there's only one Matrix movie" denial. More like, we've always differentiated "extended universe" from "the core canon."

there is only one matrix movie it is the matrix revolutions and it is awesome. fite me.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 1:21 PM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

The Skywalker story is pretty much over. The only remaining Skywalker is irredeemable already. There are only 1-3 Star Wars movies worth watching or thinking about at this point, and they all came out decades ago.
posted by GoblinHoney at 1:26 PM on August 30, 2018

Poor Jar Jar is an exploited figure-- exiled from his home, conscripted into a war, and then given a sinecure as a Senator to get him far away. From there, he's manipulated by Palpatine and given this burden of guilt that outweighs the temporary good he did in his moments of glory. It's sad.
posted by 4th number at 1:35 PM on August 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

sometimes, it occurs to me that Revenge of the Sith might be the best Star Wars movie, and that future generations who review the series as a whole will regard it as such.
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:43 PM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

there is only one matrix movie it is the matrix revolutions and it is awesome. fite me.

fiteing you is going to be easy, since I have a gunroom with an infinite number of assault weapons that you cannot even conceive of.
posted by biffa at 1:51 PM on August 30, 2018

The prequels and sequels are like adding arms to the Venus de Milo.

I'm not sure what kind of arms you had in mind, but I'm picturing wookiee arms. It's worth a try; we can always take them off again if it turns out bad.
posted by sfenders at 2:05 PM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

I started playing Lego Star Wars on Game Boy Advance a few months ago. I got stuck on the level where I have to play as Jar Jar. I have to say, I feel sorry for this character because I just cannot get my shit together with that level.
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 2:10 PM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

it would have to feature the ultimate destruction of the First Order

I'm sort of hoping it features an introduction to who the First Order are, and what they're about. I know, I know, it's all explained in the extended universe somewhere, or maybe you can infer what's going on if you carefully read between the lines in all of BB-8's dialogue or something, but as someone who just casually watches the movies I have no idea.
posted by sfenders at 2:10 PM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

I assume GoblinHoney meant Kylo Ren, who is also a Skywalker. Leia will presumably die in Episode IX, leaving only (potentially) Kylo still alive.
posted by thefoxgod at 2:46 PM on August 30, 2018

(Assuming by "Skywalker" we mean "descendants of Anakin", and not "people with Skywalker in their name")
posted by thefoxgod at 2:47 PM on August 30, 2018

How A Star Wars Movie Cameo Can Redeem Jar Jar Binks.
posted by Juso No Thankyou

Um...deliberately appropriate name there?

My apologies to Ahmed Best, but the character sucked rancid donkey balls of bad and lame (if he's supposed to replace Chewbacca as the large stoic yet funny alien, FAIL) and I DON'T WANT HIM REDEEMED.

What bugs me is I know/have known way too many people who think Jar Jar is genuinely funny and adorable. I do not get this.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:36 PM on August 30, 2018

Ha! My mother's husband is a 70-something-year-old, third-generation Hawaiian/Chinese/Italian who grew up poor in Honolulu, I think mostly in Chinatown. He LOVES Jar Jar because he considers him to be representation for Pidgin speakers like himself. When he talks about the character he code shifts back into not-quite-Pidgin but pretty close.

Death of the author and all that. Everyone has their own reading.
posted by stet at 9:56 PM on August 30, 2018 [4 favorites]