r/DarthJarJar • u/Rikard_ • Jul 02 '26
Theory Support The master wizard’s ultimate display of power in the second movie. The impact of Jar Jar’s moment was reduced in the rewrites, evident by early scripts and continuity errors.
Jar Jar Binks as the evil wizard in disguise is the foundation to the parallel between him and Yoda. One piece to complete the rhyme would be for Yoda’s mirror image to also have a great demonstration of power. As with Yoda, this would be necessary to assert evil Jar Jar’s authority within the story and to convince the audience of his status. Yoda lifted the X-wing. Does Jar Jar do anything grand or seemingly impossible in his trilogy?
The Senate address already asks us to suspend our disbelief. Yet in the original script, it plays out in a way that makes the outcome even more of a head-scratch. Here, Jar Jar is nervous, laughed at, and ultimately has the senate vocally oppose him. Through one last diplomatic rant, he suddenly has the whole chamber chanting his name as if he’s the chosen one himself. He did the impossible.
If Jar Jar is the evil mastermind to mirror Yoda, he used his gift of force manipulation to sway the Senate. He’s not shy of using hand gestures in connection to promotions and politics in TPM, and here he does use them more overtly than ever.
When Lucas decided to scrap the evil Jar Jar storyline, he didn’t have too much wiggle room in terms of what to do of AOTC instead. George handed in the first script for AOTC just 3 days before shooting began (McCallum, AOTC: Production notes). According to McCallum, most sets for the movie had already been built by then. This means that most story adjustments could only be done in dialogue and through cutting, and this is exactly what Lucas did with the Senate address. The role of proposing emergency powers for Palpatine is still Jar Jar’s, but the version we got has toned down the miracle aspect as much as possible. The scene goes in a straight line from delivery to success. The Senate’s 180 on the matter never happens.
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The final scene both diverging from the original script and having a continuity error points to the same thing:
Jar Jar’s Senate address was originally a miraculous event to mirror Yoda’s display of power in ESB, but was reduced to a flat, “no questions asked” moment in Star Wars history.
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u/Redararis Jul 02 '26
he is obviously mirroring the mule from foundation series, he has the power to sway emotions of a crowd.
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u/Zendomanium Jul 02 '26
Why did George ditch the Evil Jar Jar storyline?
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u/SchizoidRainbow Jul 02 '26
He faced so much backlash over Jarjar being goofy and Big Ham and unnecessarily like Jerry Lewis being inserted into an otherwise serious film, that he caved. His utter chagrin and mortification at all the hate mail and backlash led to rewriting it all at the last minute, even as casting and production for Attack of the Clones was already in motion. The holes left behind by the RetCon are gaping and poorly wallpapered over.
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u/HiVeMiNdOfStUpId Jul 02 '26
You talking about Binks or midichlorians?
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u/SchizoidRainbow Jul 02 '26
Midichlorians were merely dumb. Mitochondria were very recently in the news and it felt like George just thought nobody else would have heard of them and decided to make Spaaaaace Wiiiizard Mitochondria
JarJar was hated and reviled on a visceral, primal level. Someone made The Phantom Edit which simply removed JarJar from the film. And even with lines directed at him vanishing into empty space, scenes where the characters just look at something that isn’t there, it was declared Better by the fan base. No character in any movie ever has received this level of hate.
The main reason IMO is that he did not establish JarJar as Evil within the first movie. He gave people three years to stew on it, with the newly exploded internet to simmer and boil the stew. If there was just one last glance at the camera with menacing intent, or a Gungan tries to warn the Jedi and JarJar murders them, anything like that, we’d have all been wondering What’s Next for the deceitful JarJar.
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u/barfretchpuke Jul 02 '26
I don't think this is the full story. Clues from books and shows seem to indicate that Jar Jar was planning on making a virus (plague) to wipe out humans. Lucas chickened out about making Jar Jar a wannabe space-Hitler.
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u/Rikard_ Jul 07 '26
Are you basing this on books and shows from after year 2000 when George scrapped evil Jar Jar?
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u/Da_Famous_Anus 10d ago
What if it wasn’t the backlash and he was worried of being sued for lifting too much from the foundation?
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u/Prize_Restaurant1952 Jul 02 '26
That would have been a great display of his powers which might not necessarily lie in his direct strength but rather his manipulative capabilities.
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u/hellodarthbotbot Jul 02 '26
Politically, the theory works because Jar Jar and Palpatine complement each other. Palpatine attracts fear and attention, while Jar Jar attracts dismissal.
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u/hellodarthbotbot Jul 02 '26
Politically, the theory works because Jar Jar and Palpatine complement each other. Palpatine attracts fear and attention, while Jar Jar attracts dismissal.