Jar Jar Binks
Jar Jar Binks (born c. 50 BBY) is a fictional character in the Star Wars movies The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. His primary role was intended to provide comic relief - based on his gangly way of walking and his unique speech accent. Jar Jar's voice was portrayed by Ahmed Best. He is almost completely computer-generated. Although he was played on set by a costumed Best, Best was usually edited out and replaced by the animated character, except in some close-up shots where his face is not visible.
This was the first time that such a highly detailed photo-realistic CGI character had interacted with live actors in a motion picture. Director George Lucas and his effects team were quick to hail this as a major technical breakthrough, but the controversy surrounding the character has to some extent overshadowed his importance to the development of movie special effects.
Jar Jar Binks is a six-foot-five-inch (1.96-metre) tall Gungan, with long ears and eyes mounted on stalks, and overall looks something vaguely like an anthropomorphized platypus crossed with an amphibian or perhaps a hadrosaurus.
Character story
Banished from his childhood home, Jar Jar lives in the swamps of Naboo. In the events of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi arrive on Naboo, ending up in the swamps rather than the intended destination of the capital. Qui-Gon inadvertently saves Jar Jar's life, so in a Gungan Life-Debt, Jar Jar feels obliged to stay by Qui-Gon's side until he dies. Jar Jar provides instances of comic relief throughout the movie, including a number of comical battle scenes. For instance, Jar Jar inadvertently sends a cascading wave of Boomers into a group of battle droids which destroys a large number of Trade Federation troops.
In Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Jar Jar (who has much less screen time) becomes a politician who deputizes for Padmé Amidala in the Galactic Senate. He is influenced to propose a bill giving Supreme Chancellor Palpatine emergency powers to raise a clone army, presumably beginning the slide towards dictatorship and the replacement of the Galactic Republic with the Galactic Empire.
In Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Jar Jar has an even smaller role and is only seen a few brief times, most noticeably in Padmé Amidala's funeral march at the end of the film (along with Boss Nass). He had a total of fifteen words in two lines in the script, and even they were cut out.
Controversy
After the Phantom Menace was released, Jar Jar Binks was widely rejected and often ridiculed, especially by hardcore fans of the series. Jar Jar, intended as a draw for younger demographics, clashed with the expectations of the older hardcore fanbase, used to the more adult tone of the earlier films. It is commonly speculated by the character's detractors that Jar Jar represents a cynical turn in George Lucas' epic, a marketing gimmick designed to sell memorabilia. Jar Jar's ubiquitousness on the merchandising surrounding the film, did little to allay the fear that Lucas had "sold out". (Similar charges were levelled at the appearance of the teddy-bear like Ewoks in 1983's Return of the Jedi.) As hardcore fans often seek to identify with movie characters (e.g. cosplay at fan conventions and premiers), many object to any portrayal of cuteness in the Star Wars hexalogy.
Some of the more serious charges against the character of Jar Jar (and consequently against Lucas, his creator) suggest that Jar Jar is a modern incarnation of racist stereotypes used as comic relief in many motion pictures of the first half of the 20th century. His dialect is widely thought to sound stereotypically like Jamaican English, while his bodily expressions and tendency to get into trouble remind many of Stepin Fetchit and other similar (black) characters. It is likely, however, that Lucas had in mind a different racial stereotype. The character Gunga Din, in the 1939 movie of the same name, was an Indian "water boy" for the British army who comically tried to imitate the British soldiers but in the end saved the day by blowing a horn to summon assistance in the middle of an attack. The fact that Jar Jar is called a Gungan, and that he blows a horn to start a battle where his people help save the day, both suggest that he is intended as an homage to Gunga Din.
Jar Jar is not the only character in The Phantom Menace whose accent has drawn controversy. Notably, detractors claim, the greedy Trade Federation spoke with East Asian accents, and Watto (who lives in a desert climate and was a trader) spoke with a Yiddish accent. These allegations are controversial and not universally agreed upon. George Lucas in particular denies such allegations.
Jar Jar is given a significantly more utilitarian role in Attack of the Clones. Having acquired some esteem from those around him, he is suddenly cast into a pivotal role by filling in for Padmé Amidala on the senate and moving an army into action, which then sets up the entire plot for the Clone Wars. We see, in this action, Jar Jar's innocence betrays him as he inadvertently causes the undoing of the Galactic Republic. In this light, the character takes on new significance. Many believe that George Lucas may have written this shift in character importance in response to the criticism he received originally.
In Revenge of the Sith, Jar Jar is only seen three times and has no speaking parts in all but one scene (at the beginning of the film, after Anakin and Obi-Wan land with Palpatine, and as the senators file behind him, Jar Jar gets in the way of Senator Orn Free Taa and says a brief "Excuse me").
The character was inspired by Lucas' youngest daughter.
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