It’s been ages since I last saw ep 1 and, while looking for the despecialized original trilogy, I came across the prequel fan edits. “Eh, why not?”
Gotta say, I was expecting the pacing or the story to kinda fall flat, but this was a very enjoyable watch. There’s a lot that was cut, nearly all the “whimsy” was removed, also the whole underwater trip when the jedis first land on Naboo. This leads to the Gungan alliance being a “jar jar ex machina”, but it worked well enough in my opinion. Other than that, I think the movie works really well in every aspect.
The torrent I got also comes with a .docx that lists the whole movie script with all the stuff that was cut in red, and new additions (very few) in blue. A smaller list of changes can be read here - Besides removing a lot of jar jar’s antics and any references to midichlorians (I personally never cared about that), one notable change near the end was making Anakin blow up the command ship before Padme and her group capture the Viceroy, so it makes it seem that the droids being deactivated is what allowed them to complete their objective.
One thing that I noticed during the final battle was that the Trade Federation pretty much dropped the blockade, as they only left one command ship in orbit, compared to the dozens at the beginning of the movie. I guess that was because the land invasion worked, so there was no further need to keep the orbital blockade.
PS: I couldn’t stop laughing when Obi Wan fell because of that fucking meme
PPS: I always liked how Naboo looks, but this time I really paused to look a bit better at the architecture, and it has such a nice mix of mediterranean marble of yellowish tones and cyan roofs. With the current image quality and all, it was much easier to pick out “ancient CG” and in many places it looked like a “old last gen game”, but it had that late 90s charm that warms my hearth with nostalgia.
PPPS: The worst part about watching SW as an older person is seeing all those damn walkways without a single guardrail anywhere. Coruscant is even worse, that transport vehicle full of VIP heading to the senate is fully open without so much as seatbelts.
I appreciate the writeup! I don’t have anything new to bring to the table, and I think you’re more familiar with not just the movies but also the theory than I am. What had me pretty convinced is that Lucas loves the “harmless creature by the roadside turning out to be supremely powerful” trope, in the way he used it with Yoda. Part of the theory goes that Lucas had started to set Jar Jar up as the “Dark Side” version of Yoda using this idea, which seems to track (taking only the events of the first movie into account) because the Gungans as a people actually do seem afraid of him. If he was just a well-meaning bungler, fear would not be a rational response - locking him up where he could be watched 24/7 and not allowed to fuck anything up would be the way to go. But, there was a tonne of backlash after the first movie, so much that it’s absolutely plausible it could have resulted in a rewrite.
As well, Dooku felt very shoehorned-in, but that could just as easily be my failure to follow the details of the story, or really poor writing.
I’m sure there was more, but unless I go back and revisit the theory and the movies I probably won’t remember it. I’m not sure I’d agree that there are more inconsistencies in the theory than there are in the canon lore. Ultimately though I guess I just prefer the narrative that Jar Jar was included as a foil to Yoda who ended up getting retconned into comic relief thanks to “fan” outrage, because it’s more fun than “the movies were bad”, so I’m willing to give the holes a bit more leeway.
I think your grasp of it is pretty good, haha, I only know what I know from podcasts and message boards, so feel free to take everything I’m saying with a grain of secondhand salt.
I don’t remember seeing any evidence of fear in the movies. I feel like Binks being locked up was used by the Binks sith theory as a supposition of gungan fear rather than any explicitly expressed fear in the movies. The rationale that binks keeps breaking things, they just want him to stop breaking things seems more plausible than actual fear from the gungans because there would be some sort of respect toward a character they fear. At least there usually is respect with feared Star wars characters, and I don’t think binks was treated respectfully at any point.
Dooku was shoehorned in, but there’s two important considerations there . 1) I think he does have a really cool lore in the books or something, he used to be a Jedi and 2) they probably just had to get him on screen because Christopher Lee agreed to play him and lee’s one of the most compelling actors in the freaking history of Cinema.
With Yoda, I’m not sure how Yoda was ever a helpless creature by the roadside. In the movies he’s already a Jedi Master, he just doesn’t explicitly tell Luke he’s a Jedi Master for like 2 minutes, but there’s no deceit involved and reveals himself after a couple questions.
If they were setting up a similar reveal for jar jar, his setup has no winks to the audience like Yoda’s does, few parallels to Yoda’s, and is a much longer setup before a theorized reveal.
I love the theory, I want to see an animatic of jar jar being a sith Lord, and even sith Lord battles with him in them, but so far the Canon explanation for jar jar makes way more sense to me with what we know about the behind the scenes production and what’s on screen.
I also love talking about it though, haha, so thanks for taking the time to write up your side.
I actually found the scene where he first gets back to the city with Qui-Gon and Anakin! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7xKCK1Ojuo
Watch how the citizens react, and the guards too. I dunno, having watched it again it still reads like fear to me. Maybe more “severe consternation”, but still - “I was clumsy” doesn’t warrant all that.
As to the helpless creature by the roadside, the original theory that got posted to the orange site never provided a source for that, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to find the documentary interview where Lucas said that’s what Yoda was meant to be.
Anyhoo, it was fun revisiting this, and I ended up finding a truly impressive collection of links to “evidence” for the theory in my travels. Cheers!
Haha, awwwesome. Okay, it’s deep dive time.
I can’t get to it right now, but I’m saving this comment and I will be working on it and then I’m going to address all of the points in that list and at some point you’re going to wake up to a horrifying wall of text hahahaha.
Don’t feel compelled to read it, it’ll be detailed and pedantic and boring to most people, but I want this to live on floating on the lemmyverse.
Oh man if you actually do that and think I won’t read every word, you’re sorely mistaken! Pedantic and detailed is my favourite kind of text wall 😂 I’ll keep an eye out for it, and I’ll make an effort to visit each link in the list (some are broken, I know - like the link for “The Gungans fear Jar-Jar” goes to an archived Reddit post that you need an undeleter to see) beforehand so I’m properly refreshed.
PART 5 of 5
-----In Shakespeare’s TPM, a parody of TPM, Jar Jar’s “devious” nature is written about as similar to a Sith lord.
Argument: Binks has ulterior motives to his actions the parody, so in the real movies he is a Sith.
Counter:
Jar Jar is explicitly described in the cast list of STPM as “a Gungan clown”. Palpatine is listed as “Senator Palpatine/Darth Sidious”. If Binks had a second personality, it would be listed here. It is not.
The “ulterior motives” alluded to in this theory refer to the Shakespearean tendency to speak all of their thoughts aloud. The connotation does not necessitate evil or harmful intent, but rather as a clear explanation of a character’s actions.
The first “ulterior motive” of Jar Jar is to act foolishly in front of Jinn so that Jinn will be inserted into the Gungan tragedy and help the Gungans and Naboo eventually unite. Binks’ first “ulterior motive” is explicitly altruistic and harmonious, and he mentions that the Jedi can specifically help Binks achieve this dream of saving the Gungans as he cannot do so himself:
“Belike this man[Jinn] brings aid unto Naboo
Such as will help my people and my land.
Mayhap this is the chance I have desir’d!”
STPM follows the Shakespearean convention of the fool(the Gungan clown) always understanding the world better than those deemed better than themselves, so this ulterior motive of wanting to unite the Gungan and Naboo is immediately obvious to the Shakespearean fool, and then the other, more respectable main characters will come to realize its significance later.
This is a LucasFilms sanctioned retelling of the Phantom Menace, so it’s the first time we can see directly inside Binks’ thought process in a work connected directly to LucasFilms. What we see is exactly what he appears to be. A bumbling fool with noble intentions.
This argument is mischaracterizing altruistic exposition as “ulterior motives” that are explicitly pure, altruistic and respectful of Jedi in this retelling and expansion of SPTM.
No Sith-ness here
-----Jar Jar uses force jump again.
Argument: Jar jar drops down from a different place than where he climbed over a wall.
Counterargument: there’s no force jump here. Binks could have easily swung over to where he drops down so that the droid guard aiming at him misses where he was hanging off the wall.
Taken altogether, most of this evidence is a non-starter. Rickety mountains of tenuous assumptions or circular logic. There is scrutiny of a word or behavior that does not actually occur in a referenced scene or example. Of the “clues” we can examine, none of it offers a more compelling reason for the actions of Jar Jar Binks, and much of it contradicts itself.
Most of these Binks behaviors people attempt to describe as Sith talents indicating Binks’ force ability are performed publicly by Binks without compulsion, contradicting the idea of a hidden Sith.
I’m well aware these are not all the arguments for Darth Binks, and am ready and willing to go into the rest.
Thanks, this was fun.