The Rehabilitation of Jar-Jar Binks?
See? Much cooler without Jar-Jar...
Is George Lucas a glutton for punishment? Or is he just trying to show us that he’s so rich he can do whatever the hell he wants to regardless of what his fans think?
I watched the first couple of episodes of the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars when it first came out a few months ago and thought it was okay, but I wasn’t overly impressed. Part of it was the fact that I wasn’t a big fan of the animation style, and part of it was that I didn’t like the first two prequels at all. But my son decided he was now a Star Wars fan, and I ended up watching a few more episodes at his insistence.
The show grew on me, as did the animation style, to the point where I’m now getting caught up on the episodes I missed. But I still have one major complaint: It seems like about every third or fourth episode, Jar-Jar Binks plays a major role in the story. WHY? Why do they insist on continuing to feature a character whom they know is almost universally despised?
The only thing I can think of is that George Lucas imagines he can somehow rehabilitate the character using this show. He must think that if only we see MORE of this lame-ass character, we will eventually grow to love him.
You know what? He’s WRONG. Jar-Jar is one of the biggest mistakes in cinematic history, and nothing will ever change that. He’s the worst idea in the long list of bad ideas that made up Episode One: The Phantom Menace. One of the best things they ever did was to minimize his role in the other two prequels, and it looked like they had learned their lesson. I have literally (and when I use the word literally, I mean literally) never met a single person who liked this character.
If they have any sense whatsoever, Jar-Jar will disappear from the show and Lucas will finally own up to his mistake.
Author Christopher J. Valin 
Oh no! You may never speak to me again. I liked Jar Jar Binks. I know. This makes me a freak.
Doh! Now you went and messed up my record of never knowing anyone who liked Jar-Jar. I guess I set myself up by posting this in the first place.
I was going to say that “freak” may be a little bit strong, but then I reconsidered. Yes, if you like Jar-Jar, you are truly a freak.
My local friends don’t exactly get it either. I guess I liked his ears and the way he walked. I don’t necessarily agree that he was necessary for the story, though.
Who I didn’t like, though, was emo boy Anakin of the last two films. UGH.
Yeah, I guess Lucas was going for a combination Chewbacca/comic relief character that kids would like. To top off the other problems, the CGI at the time wasn’t quite up to the level of realism required to make a completely animated character blend in.
I totally agree about Ani in those movies. In fact, I was just telling my wife a couple of days ago that the CGI character in Clone Wars is a better actor than Hayden Christiansen.