I hope this doesn’t offend too many huge Star Wars fans out there; you know the die-hard types that actually put “Jedi” down as their religion on important forms, and hope to one day actually construct a real light saber in their garage workshop. I mean no harm, but please hear me out as I have a confession to make…
I LIKE JAR-JAR-BINKS. NO, SCRATCH THAT!
I FUCKING LOVE JAR-JAR-BINKS!
…phew. I feel so much better. Sorry about that…
You see, I was like you – I couldn’t stand him. I quite enjoyed the newer movies on the whole (it was my childhood after all), but where Liam Neeson and the huge array of new bad guys succeeded, the presence of Jar Jar Binks always threatened to give me high blood pressure. Yes, even at that young age. There was just something about being forced to watch an absolute moron stumble through scene after scene, which made me want to throw my milkshake and/or Lego blocks at the television. Every time I watched that part with the big fish on Episode I, I hoped…no, I prayed, that somehow the outcome would be different – that this time he would be ripped apart, while Qui Gon and Obi Won swam away holding up their middle fingers…unfortunately that’s not how video tapes work, and consequently didn’t ever happen.
But…I’m very happy to say I had a change of heart recently.
You see, there’s a child in my kindergarten class who really struggles, and I mean struggles. I actually think he has some kind of learning difficulty which has been either missed or totally ignored (I suspect the latter sadly), this of course is no laughing matter, so I try to give him extra help wherever and whenever I can. I even suggested that he stays behind a couple of days so I can give extra (unpaid) lessons in my spare break time. Long story short, I love this kid, because he’s an all-around amazing little dude.
Problem is, he reminds me of someone…everything he says is always “meeesaaa don’t like this”, or “meeesaaa want to come with you”, and “meeesaaa day startin pretty okey day”…okay fine, I made the last one up. But yeah, he speaks in unintentional ebonics – JUST LIKE MY OLD NEMESIS JAR JAR! But what’s more strange is that I don’t mind it so much, I correct his grammar and sentence structure, but it doesn’t annoy me…I certainly have no wish to see a huge alien fish eat him alive.
Maybe I’m more mature than I was? Hmmm…nah, definitely can’t be that.
So anyway, a couple of days ago I re-watched Episode I, for the first time in a long, long time (for errr, research), and you know what? I found him utterly charming and thoroughly amusing. There I said it!
I feel a little bad for the hate mail and packages of dog shit I sent George Lucas many moons ago. Oh well, you can’t change the past…right?
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John Lee Taggart 