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The New Star Wars: Aftermath Novel Reveals the Pitiful Fate of Jar Jar Binks

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MrBadger

Member
The "confirmation bias" type.
Everyone hates Jar Jar, so let's shit on him because everyone will get off on it!

It's the cheapest of pops, like a Muslim/Russian/foreign wrestler saying he hates America at a WWE event. lol

I agree, but it could be worse. At least he's not dead or secretly evil like Scrappy Doo was
 

Mega

Banned
That's not at all how I would imagine some weirdo still frothing about Jar Jar's lameness to write his fate in a canon novel.

"Sad clown making amends in his own quiet way" is not how most people who "loathe" Jar Jar would wind that particular story up, I don't think.

And again: The book isn't particularly focused on this at all. It's an aside. His fate (such as it is) is more or less a parenthetical. It's the storytelling equivalent of rushing along a busy street and looking over your shoulder at something happening in the alley for a couple seconds.

That's the problem. A person bustles down a street and has a chance run-in with an audience-hated character. Said readership has their giddy moment of schadenfreude at seeing this wretch, once an officer and politician, reduced to a bum preforming on the street before he's once away cast away in to the shadows. It's juvenile indulgent material.
 
That's the problem. A person bustles down a street and has a chance run-in with an audience-hated character. Said readership has their giddy moment of schadenfreude at seeing this wretch, once an officer and politician, reduced to a bum preforming on the street before he's once away cast away in to the shadows. It's juvenile indulgent material.

Again: How are you getting "schadenfreude" out of this? It doesn't read like that at all. If someone is rubbing their hands together and cackling because "jar jar got his UNF" that's... a weird fucking interpretation of the passage as read. In that case, I'd argue the juvenility in question is on the reader, not the guy who wrote it.

Like, are people arguing the quality of the actual passage, in context of the book, and the book's place in the trilogy that it closes? Or are they arguing against some sort of abstract ANGRYFAN who MIGHT be somewhere chortling into his fist at the idea that Jar Jar Got His MM HMM?

Is this just some sort of variation on the old argument that the bad new creators of the Star Wars stories are pandering to bad fans in a misguided attempt to "win them back" or whatever?

"Jar Jar is a sad clown who tries to make kids feel good to offset the way he made everyone else feel bad" is, on a scale of juvenile indulgence, preeeety low down the list, especially when compared to the rest of the expanded universe, both out of- and in-canon.
 

tci

Member
At least I hope we will never see him again. That character alone almost ruined SW for me. I was in the process of watching the Clone Wars series. I came to an episode of with him. Have not been able to continue the series since then. Still I have been told he is not in any more episodes, but my hate for him is so high I am not sure if I can manage to continue.

I really don't care what happens to him, as long as he is never ever to be heard of again.
 

Savitar

Member
I want to challenge the notion that Aftermath was a good book, the first one was horrible. Absolutely atrocious in every single way possible. Know how people say that they were happy the old EU got junked since there were so many bad stories? Yeah well this was equally as bad as any story you could think of.

What an utter disappointment.
 

Mega

Banned
Again: How are you getting "schadenfreude" out of this? It doesn't read like that at all. If someone is rubbing their hands together and cackling because "jar jar got his UNF" that's... a weird fucking interpretation of the passage as read. In that case, I'd argue the juvenility in question is on the reader, not the guy who wrote it.

Like, are people arguing the quality of the actual passage, in context of the book, and the book's place in the trilogy that it closes? Or are they arguing against some sort of abstract ANGRYFAN who MIGHT be somewhere chortling into his fist at the idea that Jar Jar Got His MM HMM?

Is this just some sort of variation on the old argument that the bad new creators of the Star Wars stories are pandering to bad fans in a misguided attempt to "win them back" or whatever?

"Jar Jar is a sad clown who tries to make kids feel good to offset the way he made everyone else feel bad" is, on a scale of juvenile indulgence, preeeety low down the list, especially when compared to the rest of the expanded universe, both out of- and in-canon.

You wanna chill? It's pretty obvious this can come off as pandering to a certain group of readers who may hate that character, and no, I'm not arguing about a hypothetical "ANGRYFAN" cackling madly into the night but merely someone who gets a little kick out of it -- "ha, Jar Jar... serves him right." *quietly continues reading*

Don't get so heated because you disagree and interpret it in a completely different manner. We're discussing subjective matters, not concrete facts that can be viewed one specific way. My original question was:

Anyone else think this is shlocky and clichéd?

Does anyone else? You don't? Okay, fine. You said your piece. Move along instead of browbeating and twisting people into how you see that scene, how it must be seen, because you can't deal with basic disagreements.
 
You wanna chill?

I'm not un-chill, Mega. Or heated. I mean, yeah, I disagree with the interpretation, but I'm not like, mad about it. Or unable to deal with basic disagreements.

For example, I don't think I was the one who broke the seal on "shut up and stop arguing with me" as a response to this particular conversation.
 
Wouldn't the better solution to the whole Jar Jar thing is to just never mention him again....like ever?

I'm pretty sure people simply do not want to be reminded of this character. I don't think people give a shit if he has a downfall of some sort.
 

Savitar

Member
Wouldn't the better solution to the whole Jar Jar thing is to just never mention him again....like ever?

I'm pretty sure people simply do not want to be reminded of this character. I don't think people give a shit if he has a downfall of some sort.

People would always want to know and speculate, doesn't matter if you hate or like him.
 

Mega

Banned
I'm not un-chill, Mega. Or heated. I mean, yeah, I disagree with the interpretation, but I'm not like, mad about it. Or unable to deal with basic disagreements.

For example, I don't think I was the one who broke the seal on "shut up and stop arguing with me" as a response to this particular conversation.

No one said to '"shut up and stop arguing with me"' ...

You came off as the "sole person" in the entire thread as "pretty aggressive" and "so-super-serious," so... You can surely understand "how" you came off a "certain way" in an otherwise very light "thread" about Jar Jar Binks "being" a street clown"."
 

Ushojax

Should probably not trust the 7-11 security cameras quite so much
That's the problem. A person bustles down a street and has a chance run-in with an audience-hated character. Said readership has their giddy moment of schadenfreude at seeing this wretch, once an officer and politician, reduced to a bum preforming on the street before he's once away cast away in to the shadows. It's juvenile indulgent material.

Most Star Wars books and comics are full of indulgent material, that is why they exist. Cameos and references permeate every Star Wars product.
 
Yeah, this is fine. For people who haven't read the first two books in the trilogy, the majority of the books follows a fairly tight group of characters and their narrative, but every so often, there's a short interlude like this that just describes a random person. Sometimes it's a famous character we're familiar with, like this, other times it's a totally original character that ties into something somehow. Sometimes it's just a bit of lore seasoning to give a little barometer check on how things are.

For example:

One of these interludes in the first book gives you a quick glimpse of Tatooine, post-Jabba...
Remeber Malakili, is the chubby Rancor trainer from RotJ who cried when Luke killed his pet? He's out wandering aimlessly, and gets harassed by some naer-do-wells out to fill the criminal power vacuum. As they're talking to them, a self proclaimed local sheriff and his posse comes and wastes the gangsters, and tells Malakili that they have custody of a young Hutlett (maybe Rotta?) they'd like him to come help teach.
...Not an important scene at all, and the story never returns to it, but just a little check in with a minor character or two, and a look at how things are on Tattooine now.

Similarly, the second book has an interlude with some boys in a Coruscant street gang. The area is run down ruins, that were once thriving a point driven home when the narrative points out that their hideout
was once Dex's Diner
.

Another of these interludes begins the second book. It describes a boy on Jakku way earlier than we've ever seen Jakku... prior to the end of the Clone War. He has a chance meeting with a major SW character. This one differs from the others a bit, in that
the boy turns out to be a major character himself within that very book
.



The Aftermath Trilogy is full of these little interludes. Hopefully this puts the Jar Jar bit in better context. It's just a little check in on a random old character, and kind of demonstrates how an old prequel era icon like him would be faring in the post RotJ galaxy.
 

Mega

Banned
Most Star Wars books and comics are full of indulgent material, that is why they exist. Cameos and references permeate every Star Wars product.

Alright, thanks for letting me know this is the norm for the books... someone earlier said as much too.
 
No one said to '"shut up and stop arguing with me"' ...

You came off as the "sole person" in the entire thread as "pretty aggressive" and "so-super-serious," so... You can surely understand "how" you came off a "certain way" in an otherwise very light "thread" about Jar Jar Binks "being" a street clown"."

What in the world am I watching here
 

Sanjuro

Member
I still don't like how they treated Jar Jar in the films. Just felt cowardly with all the other absurd concepts they were pushing forward.

Him being in a book this far after the fact really doesn't generate much of a reaction.
 

Ithil

Member
At least I hope we will never see him again. That character alone almost ruined SW for me. I was in the process of watching the Clone Wars series. I came to an episode of with him. Have not been able to continue the series since then. Still I have been told he is not in any more episodes, but my hate for him is so high I am not sure if I can manage to continue.

I really don't care what happens to him, as long as he is never ever to be heard of again.

He's barely in the show, he's in probably less than five episodes total out of six seasons, none of them essential.
 
At least I hope we will never see him again. That character alone almost ruined SW for me. I was in the process of watching the Clone Wars series. I came to an episode of with him. Have not been able to continue the series since then. Still I have been told he is not in any more episodes, but my hate for him is so high I am not sure if I can manage to continue.

I really don't care what happens to him, as long as he is never ever to be heard of again.

...how about, and this is a stretch, you just skip those episodes?

But be wary, you might just see the ear of a gungan at the very edge of the screen in one episode, that'd be terrible!
 
For all the times I've wanted to try and give Jar Jar a chance, the thing that cemented my dislike for him was the Clone Wars cartoon. The CG one.

Every episode where he is the focus, is a bumbling mess of pratfalls and slapstick comedy. In a series with a bit of humor, but mostly intense combat and political maneuvering, the slapstick bullshit the gungan pulls is like an irritating filler episode for an otherwise solid show. The character is incapable of growing up, and straight up gets important people KILLED due to his bumbling antics.

The only bright spot, is that in one of the Clone Wars episodes, one of the Clone Captains is down to a handful of his men, and rather than fight a suicidal situation against a superior armed force... he weaponizes Jar Jar.

Yes. He WEAPONIZES JAR JAR.

In what can only be the most meta thing I have ever seen, he tells the gungan to go 'negotiate' with their aggressor. His troops don't like it at all, and he just tells them to "Just watch."

Sure enough, the troops capture Jar Jar, and in doing so he sets off a chain reaction of insanity that results in some enemy armor being destroyed and most of the enemy troops being taken out.

It was the only time I enjoyed seeing that idiot gungan on screen, simply because the writers gave a huge nod and wink to the viewing public, and used the powers of the Chaos God in a productive manner.

Fuck do I hate Jar Jar.
 

msdstc

Incredibly Naive
Im pretty sure for the most part the Darth jar jar thing is a big joke. But still it's sad just how many people actually bought into it.
 

120v

Member
reading that excerpt was unbearable (at no fault of the author, as jar jar is perfectly personified)

almost makes me wish jar jar wasn't thrown into ep VIII or XI just to troll fans. almost
 
I could totally imagine a scenario where pre-fall of the empire hard leaning Imperials deeply appreciate Jar Jar's stupid ass for paving the way for them, and every so often Palpatine wheels Jar Jar out and talks about how he's "one of the good ones".
 

Cuburt

Member
The character deserved at least more dignity.

I mean, he was a Senator in canon, how did he get from there to here? Plus they basically left it to where someone, who wasn't malicious nor selfish and made a decision he thought was the right thing to do, got fooled like everyone else, and then was apparently treated like a pariah for the rest of his life.

But then again, I was someone was open to seeing a redemption story for Jar Jar or even a jokey/serious take on Darth Jar Jar if they had to, rather than just letting him continue to be a caricature for the rest of his fictional life and a jester working in the street before he dies. Just feels like a shitty treatment of a character, like the creators were so scared of the backlash, they were afraid of even giving him some character development over time and justify his reason to exist at all rather than letting him go out with a whimper.
 

Nairume

Banned
How come C3PO hasn't received a similar fate?
They've actually done something of the sort with him.

It's been revealed that the constant cycle of traumatic events and memory wipes have actually left him with lingering psychological damage that manifests in the form of faint flashbacks haunting him of memories he can never get back. Also he's slowly realized the existential dread of his lot as a droid, having him come to terms with the fact that droids are treated like shit in the galaxy and that he's basically expendable.

Well he is now punished 3po, so that is his cruel fate
It's funny because
he actually runs a spy network during the time of the new movies.
 
They've actually done something of the sort with him.

It's been revealed that the constant cycle of traumatic events and memory wipes have actually left him with lingering psychological damage that manifests in the form of faint flashbacks haunting him of memories he can never get back. Also he's slowly realized the existential dread of his lot as a droid, having him come to terms with the fact that droids are treated like shit in the galaxy and that he's basically expendable.

Where did this happen? I'm way behind on all the new canon material cause I stopped paying attention after TFA and now I'm starting to get back into it for the run up to TLJ.
 
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