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.
So long as Jar Jar remains a Dark Lord of the Sith… it’s all good by me.
This is one of my favorite fan theories, especially with that deleted scene between him and palpatine.
Wait, what? Got a link?
it dates back to the days when reddit wasn’t just a total steaming pile of garbage. but here you go
Thanks, I knew about the Dark Jar-Jar theory. But do you have a link gor that deleted scene? I don’t see it in that Reddit thread.
I think it was only mentioned by the actor that played jar jar, and was basically just palpatine being a sarcastic ass and thanking Jar Jar for his help.
I’ll look for it, I don’t see it on YouTube at a glance.
Was that a deleted scene or in the movie? Jar jar Binks and palpatine walking down the hallway and palpatine talking to him about his plans?
Okay, now I’m worried I’m remembering it wrong. I’ll definitely look into it and get back to you
it’s my favorite because it actually makes sense.
I don’t think it makes too much sense myself, I just like imagining such a goofy character suddenly flipping a switch and speaking in a cold calculated manner making dramatic gestures and choking people out.
Yoda kind of went from goofy to the most powerful Force user around
Apparently Mace windu was more powerful.
That aside, are you saying that because binks is goofy…what are you saying here?
I was talking about the original trilogy.
My point is that Lucas subverting expectations from a goofy character to a powerful force user was something in the original trilogy, and it could have made sense for him to do a similar surprise reveal in the prequel.
I was going to point out to another comment, but it was to one of yours, so you’ll probably read it there.
Oh, I see. I Don’t think there’s much of a parallel, because Yoda is never being explicitly deceitful with his goofiness, and reveals who he is after a couple softball questions.
He even starts teaching Luke and offer some identity clues right away, whereas any theorized binks reveal takes entire movies to set up if it were to happen.
Even during the brief, minute long window when Yoda is goofy, he is more clever than Luke. He’s more physically adept and knows what’s going on, understanding how everything is connected.
Binks is goofy in that he is consistently inept and uninterested in his surroundings.
So I think while you can use goofy as a broad label for both characters under certain circumstances, I think once you zoom in on both characters, the goofiness differentiates into discreet personalities.
Not really at odds or dovetailing so much as fundamentally different.
Why do you think it doesn’t make sense? I admit I’m not a Star Wars superfan or anything so I’m not familiar with the nuances of every scene and line but knowing the broad strokes of the story, the logic of the theory seems pretty solid in my mind.
I also initially got swept up in the Darth jar jar theory because of how non-specifically I understood Star wars, and I did look it up but that was years ago now.
Some of the main points are:
The actor that played him was there from the beginning, before they even knew what jar jar looked like or what his role was going to be and never heard a word about some hidden aspect of jar jar’s personality until the sith Lord hypothesis rolled around.
Literally the entirety of his character would have to be a comprehensive ruse, which doesn’t fit into literally any other character in Star wars. Occam’s razor says he’s a dummy, he comes across as a dummy, and we can only accept he’s a sith Lord, if literally everything he does is a trick rather than what it seems to be.
There’s only ever one sith Lord and their apprentice, so there really isn’t room for jar jar to be associated with the sith most of the movie with the other apprentices to the emperor.
Palpatine has to convince jar jar to support palpatine taking over the Senate, which wouldn’t be necessary at all. If jar jar was already in on it.
I remember finding a whole bunch of reasons why he doesn’t seem like a sith Lord and I do not mind looking More of them up if you’re interested.
I think the crux of the matter is there really isn’t a compelling argument for him being a sith Lord.
If you have something that convinces you though, I’m eager to watch a video or read something and go through it again.
I still like the fun idea of it, I just think it has a very weak basis as an actual theory.
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 like to imagine Darth Jar Jar as being a goofball through and through, like a permanently drunk kung fu master, which would make even his sith peers confused and wary
I freaking love this and I want to play a fighting game with Darth jar jar.
I especially like the part that makes even his own sith peers confused, haha, that could be pretty great.
I really liked the anti-cheese edits.
I was listening to blank check but couldn’t bring myself to watch the original trilogy again, and I found out about the anti-cheese edits, a fan edit of the prequel trilogy that similarly takes out a whole bunch of cheesy stuff, changes all of the alien speak to subtitled, alien, grunts and noises, and everything is much better. I liked all three of the movies better with 30 to 40 minutes taken out of each film.
And a lot of the dialogue becomes much less ridiculous once they add spoken alien language and subtitles (like in the OT) instead of English being the inexplicable galactic language with goofy accents.
Also, I totally agree about the guardrails.
Jar Jar ex machina is awesome.
I mean, there’s no way to make it a worse movie.
