Jar Jar Binks

Jar Jar Binks "How wude!" Gender: Male Type: Annoying Alien Terrible Ripoff of Chewbacca Species: Gungan Portrayed by: Ahmed Best Phil LaMarr Status: Alive Media of origin: Star Wars

Jar Jar Binks (born 52 BBY on Naboo) is a minor yet recurring character from the Star Wars franchise and its prequel trilogy. He is also a member of the Gungan species who is nothing but bumbling and foolish from the planet Naboo and has been banished by his tribe as punishment for his clumsiness. Since his first appearance in the first Star Wars prequel film, The Phantom Menace, he has received infamy and negative responses from fans.

Why Heesa Wude

1. The main problem with Jar Jar is that he has no reason to exist in the Star Wars universe or even served any importance with the prequels other than to appeal to children according to Star Wars creator and director of his first appearance in The Phantom Menace by George Lucas.
2. He is extremely annoying, and his antics gets old very quickly as a lousy attempt to be a comic relief in Star Wars films. By design and behavior, he is meant to be inspired by Goofy from Disney, but without the charm and likability he had, similar to Hi-5 from The Emoji Movie and The Lemmings from Norm of the North.
3. He barely helps the heroes. In fact, he is so unhelpful that he actually gives the then-Chancellor Palpatine (Darth Sidious in disguise and later future emperor) even more power than he already had.
   • At first, he doesn't contribute much to the plot. All he does is lead Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi to Otoh Gunga, where they get hold of a means of reaching Padme. Nothing else Jar Jar does after that point ends up being important, other than him making an off-hand comment in front of Padme about his Gungan race having a big army, giving her an idea how to retake Naboo.
   • According to George Lucas, he stated that this was because he wanted to give the people that already hated Jar Jar one final thing to hate him for.
4. Just when you think he might actually turn himself around by leading a Gungan unit into battle against the Trade Federation, he completely flunked that as well, and only avoids getting killed along with his unit when Anakin destroys the droid control ship in the nick of time.
5. His design is really ugly, even for Star Wars standards.
6. For some reason, he becomes the representative of his race and part of the Galactic Council. And since Boss Nass assigned him this role, we can say that Boss Nass essentially doomed the entire Galactic Republic.
7. Just like other minor characters, he gets no character development at all.
8. His name sounds extremely laughable for how Star Wars' aliens can get.
9. His dialogue is extremely stupid, annoying, nonsensical and laughable to the point that it looks like he doesn't even know how to speak.
   • "How wude!"
   • "Icky icky goo!"
   • "Uh oh! Biiiiiig goober fish!"
10. In that one Legends comic, he was at his worst when his antics caused his father's ship to crash on a deserted island and drove him insane so much that he caused him to almost commit suicide.
11. His character could be interpreted as a rehash of the Magical Negro archetype.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Although his design is ugly, it still has a lot of effort to it.
2. Thankfully he becomes less important in the movies over time, so much that in Revenge of the Sith he only makes a cameo appearance and never speaks or does anything stupid.
3. He has a few funny moments from time to time. Like his head going numb from getting caught in an electrical beam.
4. He has become more likable in 2008's Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series and had some badass moments every now and then, and earned Mace Windu's respect during the Dagoyan Masters arc, something even Anakin couldn't.
   • In the "Shadow Warrior", he manage to impersonate Boss Lyonie and fool General Grievous. He also manage to disarm Grievous of one of his lightsabers and capture him.
5. He actually comes off as sympathetic in the book "Aftermath: Empire's End" where he ends up being stuck as a street clown due him being shunned again by his people for his role in causing The Emperor to rise to power plus the fact that he was remorseful for it.
   • Qui-Gon and Padmé Amidala are the only people in the series who sees any value in Jar Jar despite everyone, even the Gungans, showing a huge dislike of him.
6. He left an impact on the film industry, as he has been regarded as the first fully CGI character in a live-action film, and perceived as paving the way for Gollum in The Lord of the Rings and Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean.
7. For all his annoying traits and moments, Jar Jar Binks obviously isn't poorly intentioned by any means; he does mean well and he cares about his friends and family.

Trivia

• Singer Michael Jackson wanted to play the role, but wished to portray the character using prosthetics while Lucas wanted him to be all CGI.
• The reason why Jar Jar is the way he is comes from a quote by Rick Worley, that being "Jar Jar is an audience proxy character for children, he covers his eyes when something scary is happening, he's confused and overwhelmed by the big events around him, as children would be."
• Ahmed Best, the actor of Jar Jar Binks, and the animatiors of ILM, had a blast coming up with ideas for what Jar Jar can do. Where the euthusaism is seen all over the screen behind the scenes.
• Fan theories and Internet memes arose that stating that Jar Jar Binks was secretly a Sith Lord. George Lucas considered this but later scrapped it and possibly felt it would make him a silly villain.

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