Design vs Character: Jar jar.

[issreliant]

what made you hate him? if he was a different character but the same design, would you still hate him? i think if he was played as a criminal, shade of han solo, and he would have been a cool character, funny but diffrent, what do you think, what sucks about Jar jar? design or character?

 

[BlobVanDam]

It's mostly character. His design did look goofy, but it wouldn't have bothered me so much if it weren't for the ebonics or whatever it was he was speaking. He was just a slapstick character with no real depth. That was what made him a bad character imo.

 

[JarodRussell]

Jar Jar was just annoying as a character. I couldn't care less about the design. Doesn't matter to me what he looks like, it's Star Wars.

 

[rafterman1701]

I like the Gungan design a lot. The problem was the character and the voice.

 

[Whofan]

I think they could have come up with something more original-it looks like they used the Hadrosaur Dinosaur family for inspiration.

 

[RandyS]

Jar Jar was just annoying as a character. I couldn't care less about the design. Doesn't matter to me what he looks like, it's Star Wars.

Bingo.

And I still say that we should have seen Darth Vader behead the annoying little asshole at the end of Episode 3. This would please fans and help show Vader's journey to the dark side.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The design was okay. It was the way the character that was written that was so offensive. If Chewie had looked exactly the same but was written and given the accent of a painfully obtuse racial stereotype, he'd have been just as loathesome.

I had the same reaction to Nute Gunray and the other Trade Federation guys, with their obvious Japanese accents (and in their case, the character design was also a problem, since their robes also looked Japanese). What is this, some WWII propaganda film about sneaky Japs? I found that creepy and racist, too. I know Lucas has to base accents on real-world ones, but it would be a good idea to make them less obviously traceable like that.

if he was a different character but the same design, would you still hate him? i think if he was played as a criminal, shade of han solo, and he would have been a cool character, funny but diffrent,

Sure, disguise the accent better and make him more of a smart con-man. Maybe not very slick, more of a faker who thinks he's smarter than he really is, but also definitely not a bumbling fool.

 

[Kegg]

i think if he was played as a criminal, shade of han solo,

The prequel trilogy did badly need a Han Solo, but Jar Jar Binks was more clearly designed to take on some of the humour associated with the two droids.

That said, Han Solo was this guy who was pretty sceptical about the whole lot of Jedi nonsense, and a pragmatically lovable rogue. The prequel films spend a lot of time with the Jedi without any characters like that to undercut them a little.

 

[Whofan]

They did kind of have Captain Panaka as a guy who didn't trust the Jedi in the first movie, but he wasn't quite as charasmatic as Solo-and because Hugh Quarshie ranted against Lucas, he wasn't asked to return (The EU even makes him into an Imperial).


Funny thing about the Neimoduains (TF guys) is that they were originally suppossed to look like the Battle Droids and be all CGI. However there wasn't enough time or money so they had to rush animatronic masks which didn't match the voices. Hence the 'bad dub' effect. I think also they should have gone with an original design as well, they got lazy and made them pretty much similar to some Cantina Aliens (Known as the Duros, they actually are apparentally a related race according to SW apocrypha). The original Neimoudian design was later reused (with some revisions) for the Geonosians in AOTC.


Lucas once said that he intended for the Neimoudians to sound like Bela Lugosi's Dracula. But I suppose Silas Carson couldn't quite do it right...

 

[C.E. Evans]

I had the same reaction to Nute Gunray and the other Trade Federation guys, with their obvious Japanese accents (and in their case, the character design was also a problem, since their robes also looked Japanese). What is this, some WWII propaganda film about sneaky Japs? I found that creepy and racist, too. I know Lucas has to base accents on real-world ones, but it would be a good idea to make them less obviously traceable like that.

To me, Nute Gunray sounded more like an old guy from Jersey or Queens (I swear, my uncle--who isn't Japanese--sounds just like him, which is why I like hearing the Trade Federation guys talk)...

 

[Kegg]

They did kind of have Captain Panaka as a guy who didn't trust the Jedi in the first movie, but he wasn't quite as charasmatic as Solo-

Panaka's literally just some guy who says some lines. On the page there's pretty much nothing to the character beyond a glorified extra - more General Rieekan than Han Solo.

Lucas once said that he intended for the Neimoudians to sound like Bela Lugosi's Dracula. But I suppose Silas Carson couldn't quite do it right...

I remember once having a Phantom Menace behind the scenes book where they were discussing trying to give the Nemoidians an accent that didn't sound remotely like any real world accent.

 

[Cmdr_Blop]

The problem is all George Lucas... the man cannot write characters to save his life... the Trade Federation "Japanese" people and Jar Jar are the best examples of this... with Jar Jar, he offered us just a depthless shell of a comic relief character that had the most annoying voice ever heard. The Trade Federation Japanese were an insult. He then tried to even further typical stereotypes with the diner owner alien, and Watoo.

The man simply cannot write good and deep characters. Not only that, he cannot write well in general... he has no sense of dramatic pacing. To illustrate the point, take the battle in Episode II in the arena...

Here we have this epic battle going on, and the very second we get caught up in all of it, George Lucas ruins everything by showing us some RETARDED cutesy-ass shit like C3P0's head being welded onto a battle droid, and having him spout some babble about the situation, only to go back to the battle, to only AGAIN ruin it, by having R2D2 replace C3P0's head again, while all around them, Jedi and others are supposedly being slaughtered. I cannot STAND that kind of crap, and IMO, it's all George's fault... he's lost his touch... his characters are as 2D as the medium which created them.

 

[Whofan]

^The final battles in ESB and ROTJ also had 3PO and R2 hijinks, though-and arguably the most dramatic scene in ESB, when Han is frozen, has 3PO yammering.

 

[ColeMercury]

I think the Gungan design is pretty cool.

it wouldn't have bothered me so much if it weren't for the ebonics or whatever it was he was speaking.

Okay, am I the only person in the world who just doesn't hear it? In the twelve years since The Phantom Menace came out I have never listened to Jar Jar speaking and thought "He sounds like a black person". It's always just sounded like a silly voice to me, nothing more.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think the Gungan design is pretty cool.

it wouldn't have bothered me so much if it weren't for the ebonics or whatever it was he was speaking.

Okay, am I the only person in the world who just doesn't hear it? In the twelve years since The Phantom Menace came out I have never listened to Jar Jar speaking and thought "He sounds like a black person". It's always just sounded like a silly voice to me, nothing more.

Yep, it was just a silly voice.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I didn't care one way or the other - he was okay, but not any more amusing than the remainder of the movie.

 

[kythe]

I never had a problem with the design or the character of Jar Jar. I have a problem with how prominent, yet useless, he is in TPM. He should never have been a main character in TPM.

Jar Jar is the tie between the other major characters - the two Jedi, the Gungans, and the Naboo. His first scene had purpose, that of bringing the Qui Gon and Obi Wan to the Gungans. Later, through them, he befriends Padme and helps her form an allegience between her people and the Gungans.

But WTH was he doing on Tatooine when they met Anakin? Qui Gon was reluctant to take the Queens "handmiden" when he went into the settlement to acquire parts for their ship. Yet he never argues against Jar Jar being there? Jar Jar was nothing but a distraction in that entire sequence of scenes. And in the end when he went from being banished to being a *general*!? He was clearly incompetent in the battle and really should have never been allowed near it.

I never found Jar Jar offensive, but he was a poorly written character. He was greatly unneccessary and because of his mannerisms, annoying.

 

[Set Harth]

And in the end when he went from being banished to being a *general*!?

Kind of like how Lando went from turning over Leia and Han to Vader to becoming an Alliance general.

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

I would have liked it better if Jar-Jar had started out as the goofy prat we know him as but slowly became a competent Jedi. In TPM he could have had his last big screw-up which forced him to reflect and get serious about in things. In the end he would be a quirky Jedi odd-ball who can also fight in a badass style and get bussiness done.

Why have Jar-Jar be a Jedi? To inject a litte bit of life into the Jedi. All of them were so serious and devoid of personality it would have been nice for one of them to still retain a sense of humour. Kudos to Obi-Wan for still being capable of empathy.

 

[Blip]

I'd have preferred him be a kind of rogue/thief/pickpocket/scoundrel kinda guy, and minus the ridiculously over-the-top slapstick, head-shaking, tongue-wagging antics. That was just retarded.

If I want to watch a cartoon I'll stick to WB, thanks very much.