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.
PART 1 of 5
Oh, man, I got so excited when you sent this. I remember this is the sort of list I went through before, so that’s it, I’m diving in!
Disclaimer: I love the Darth Binks theory, looked into it years ago, and was disappointed to discover how flimsy the evidence for it is. But this is my first write-up directly refuting the “evidence”
My reasoning is below.
The list of Darth Jar Jar potential evidence: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarthJarJar/comments/3swo3l/possible_smoking_gun_early_ep2_script_leak_with/
I’m going to ignore the very important fact that Star Wars does not deal in tiny hints and clues as much of this list suggests but primarily depends on Manichean forces and grand reveals, and focus on addressing the logical consistencies and inconsistencies of each argument on the list based on the movies and words from creators themselves.
I’ll start with the Gungan “fear” of Binks since it is commonly repeated:
----- The Gungans fear Binks
Argument: The Gungans fear Binks because Binks is a Sith
Counter: There is only one 2 second shot where you cannot see any direct evidence of fear, but it could be implied. Following the camera zooming in, you can see that none of the Gungans in that initial wide shot show any fear, and even shrug, scold and attack Binks without concern.
Binks, an exile, enters the heart of the city with two unknown aliens. In a wide shot, Gungans briefly back away from the group upon their entrance. You can’t see the city Gungans’ faces, but you can see their body language. Relaxed, not running. This colective step backward is the only possible interpretation of fear, which is dispelled immediately afterward.
This relaxation becomes more obvious as the camera zooms in. Nobody is screaming or pulling anyone else away frantically. The crowd turns around, facing their back to Binks, an exile, and slowly saunters off to presumably tell the Gungan guards the exile has invaded the city.
Guards show up soon after.
The camera shifts to two Gungans regarding Binks. They hold out their hands in a confused manner, but not in what could be called fearful; their hands are palm up and they shrug at each other, not hands held up to ward off Binks.
Turning your back, slowly walking away, and shrugging are not fearful reactions.
Then a single Gungan, Tarpals, walks up and scolds Binks, who casts his eyes down in shame.
Then a guard walks up casually and zaps him with a lightning spear officiously and without a hint of fear. He doesn’t approach cautiously, he walks up and zaps him like you would any other pest, prisoner or figure of derision. Binks looks bummed out again.
In the next scene, when the Jedi and Binks are surrounded by the Gungans and in front of the chief soon after, none of the crowd pays attention to Binks and many are standing very close to Binks, ignoring Binks and watching the Jedi, so the proximal Gungan crowd doesn’t show any fear of Binks.
The chief says they’ll punish Binks and Binks looks sad again.
There is no evidence here of Jar Jar being feared.
---– Jar Jar was the first new ep. 1 character created
Argument: Since Jar Jar was the first new ep. 1 character created, he had to be very important in some way. Maybe he was a Sith.
Counter: There’s no evidence that jar jar was the first new ep. 1 character created, and the creation of a character wouldn’t indicate whether Jar Jar was good, evil, or anything at all. This is an unsubstantiated rumor that doesn’t have any bearing on the character if it were true.
A song of Ice and Fire was originally conceived around the character Daemon Targaryan, who became less and less important as Ice and Fire was conceived.
The original concept for LOTR grew out of a poem about Beren and Luthien
Earthsea started centered around Festin, but later developed its main characters and a much larger world around the main character Ged.
Being the first new character in a series doesn’t have to mean anything other than being a way into conceiving a story that has little to do with said original character, a position Binks doesn’t hold anyway.
–--- Jar Jar acts fearful when coming across a destroyed Gungan city in a deleted scene
Argument: Lucas cut this scene because “Darth Jar Jar would not be stunned in amazement in fear”.
Counter: Assumptions top to bottom(Lucas’, every PA, Jar-Jar) and the house of cards only balances if you 1) assume Jar-Jar is a Sith and 2) Lucas forgot that Sith lords as normally not fearful.
Unlikely.
This is a scene in which Jar-Jar, who is terrified of all things violent, is portrayed as scared at the signs of weapons violence scarring the walls of an abandoned city. Binks acts the same way around signs of violence consistently through the movies.
---– Jar Jar is in a lot of scenes, which is very costly, why would you invest so much in a non-essential character?
Argument: Since so much time and money were spent on Jar-Jar, he must be important. If he is important, maybe he is a Sith.
First, let’s recognize that “being a major character in Star Wars” does not itself necessitate the good or evil in a character. There are plenty of characters who are onscreen at great cost to production that are simply there to fill the frame.
The entire scene with R2-D2 and C-3PO running through the lava factory was inserted in post at immense cost and production time right before Attack of the Clones was released because Lucas thought they needed a laugh break.
Lucas invests literal fortunes into computer generation and new digital production techniques because he is personally interested in creating digital worlds and creatures. He explicitly prefers to render things digitally no matter the cost. He was adamant about creating entire scenes in every movie digitally for no other reason than that he wanted to expand digital cinematic production.
It is not strange at all that Lucas would commit time and expense to digitally rendering Jar-Jar when he rendered entire worlds and countless other creatures the same way for 30 years. Once his team had concocted a way of rendering the character, of course he’s going to paste in and use that character at every opportunity.
Now that Lucas went through the trouble and cost of creating Binks, he can easily put him in any scene he wants to. He can paste Binks anywhere and anywhen he wants at any point of the production process, which he could not do with live actors at the time.
Binks is in the movie a lot because he’s a main character. He is a bumbling self-concerned character serving as comic relief who occasionally pulls off an unlikely deus ex, as C3PO was in the OT.
-----Jar Jar executes a Force Jump perfectly
Argument: only force-users can jump that high”
Counter: Ahmed Best, VA and mocap actor, said when the character was described to him, he understood the Jar Jar to be an “orange frog”.
Frogs jump.
Force jumps in the films are exclusively used to achieve a purpose. Jumping out of the way. Jumping back up to a fight. Jumping onto a ledge to interact with circuitry.
Jar Jar, a frog-person, jumps about ten feet up, shorter than many other Force Jumps in the movies, and dives into the lake he, Kenobi and Jinn are walking into. There’s no reason to perform a Force Jump, especially in Kenobi and Jinn. If he were a Sith, why expose a supposedly hidden Force ability directly in front of two Jedi? Two strong and one experienced Jedi, who sense nothing is wrong or out of the ordinary when Binks jumps into the lake.
–--- Kenobi senses Jar-Jar, so we are supposed to assume it is because the Force is strong in Jar-Jar
Argument: Kenobi senses something elusive. That elusive thing could be Jar Jar. If it is Jar Jar, Kenobi is sensing Jar Jar because the Force is strong with him. If the Force is strong in Binks, then maybe he is a Sith.
Counter: This point relies on Kenobi sensing something “elusive” and assumes Kenobi means Binks.
By “something elusive”, Kenobi could mean anyone or anything, anywhere, with a strong Force power or not.
For instance, Jedi can sense rocks. That’s how Luke balances a cairn on Dagobah, because Jedi can sense literally everything in the galaxy because everything is connected to the Force. A Jedi sensing rocks is not evidence of Sith pebbles or Sith boulders.
–--- Jar Jar’s Theme Music is Sith-y
Argument: Jar Jar’s music sounds similar to the Imperial March because the third beat of part of the beginning of “The Adventures of Jar-Jar” is heavier than the surrounding notes, like the third note of the Imperial March.
Counter: taking a single beat out of a four-minute theme as evidence for Jar Jar’s Sith involvement throughout Star Wars is as inconsequential as taking a single word out of a song to fully explain every part of every song on an album.
John Williams famously recycles his tunes between characters and between movies, and has done so for “The Adventures of Jar-Jar” by describing Jar Jar’s role in The Phantom Menace(TPM)
Jar Jar travels with two Jedi, travels with Anakin and has an entire third act arc about fighting droids
John Williams composed a theme song for Jar-Jar that includes parts of “The Boys Continue”, part of “Anakin’s Theme” and part of the “Droid Invasion theme”, as well as a phrase from Williams’ “The Flight to Neverland” from Hook(1991).
It is spot on for Jar-Jar’s music to include traveling music, some of Anakin’s(not Vader’s) theme and the Droid Invasion Theme since Jar-Jar travels with the Jedi, is with Anakin most of the movie and has a huge part to play in the Droid Invasion. Plus, he also has “The Flight to Neverland” in there, which is not very Sith-like.