Darth Jar Jar: the joke would have been on us

Are you familiar with the Jar-Jar-Binks-was-going-to-be-a-Sith-Lord theory?

After watching the video above, as far as I’m concerned it’s case closed: Jar Jar WAS The Phantom Menace. And the intense hate that the character generated in the public’s eye was such that George Lucas didn’t have the guts to follow trough with his vision and changed the whole thing. Diluted the whole thing. Another case of marketing studies destroying a work of art.

I remember how excited I was for a new Star Wars and the level of disappointment I left the theater with after that first prequel. And Jar Jar was a big part of it. This movies are for kids, I thought, as opposed to the for-the-whole-family affair that the original trilogy was. Looking back, admittedly from a vantage point, I can’t help but think that a Darth Jar Jar would have made everything worthwhile. Even the horrible CGI effects, the pod racing, and Hayden Christensen talking about sand. A reveal so huge that it would have shaken the planet out of its axis.

Nowadays they’re the butt of all the jokes, but the reputation of those three movies would be another thing entirely if you all haven’t broken George Lucas.  It would have been beautiful. The joke would have been on us.