1 minute ago, Drasnighta said:

In Universe, he was pretty well unliked, used, then discarded...

I would imagine that that is due to the reception he received from the movies - i.e. had people liked him in the movies, he would have been well treated in the books/comics/expanded universe. So why did people react so strongly to his clumsiness?

1 minute ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

I would imagine that that is due to the reception he received from the movies - i.e. had people liked him in the movies, he would have been well treated in the books/comics/expanded universe. So why did people react so strongly to his clumsiness?

It wasn't just the Clumsiness.

A lot of factors around Jar Jar essentially turned him into a Comedic Character - a Character that exists only to lighten the mood. Now, when done well, this can be an asset to an otherwise darker tinged film, but for the most part - he came off as unneccessary, trivial, and a joke for a joke's sake.

Attached to that, was the Merchandising. Oh, Goddess above, the Merchandising, which further drove the point that Jar Jar existed seemingly as a Joke to BE a joke, and then to make money off of...

In Australia, we were spared a lot of the Merchandising, and basically, Opinion (generally speaking) isn't as horrendous about him as other places, and thus, I list it as a contributing factor - and it would not take me long to be easily convinced of that for you as well.

I don't attach any particular hate to the guy - but since the Political movies were inherently going to be more serious than the Space Westerns, he was just a lttle... too much in the other direction for most.

1 hour ago, Drasnighta said:

It wasn't just the Clumsiness.

A lot of factors around Jar Jar essentially turned him into a Comedic Character - a Character that exists only to lighten the mood. Now, when done well, this can be an asset to an otherwise darker tinged film, but for the most part - he came off as unneccessary, trivial, and a joke for a joke's sake.

Attached to that, was the Merchandising. Oh, Goddess above, the Merchandising, which further drove the point that Jar Jar existed seemingly as a Joke to BE a joke, and then to make money off of...

In Australia, we were spared a lot of the Merchandising, and basically, Opinion (generally speaking) isn't as horrendous about him as other places, and thus, I list it as a contributing factor - and it would not take me long to be easily convinced of that for you as well.

I don't attach any particular hate to the guy - but since the Political movies were inherently going to be more serious than the Space Westerns, he was just a lttle... too much in the other direction for most.

I fully agree. Episode I was, from what i would say, a film that was made for children. It was meant to be funnier than the old movies. The old movies had their jokes, but the joke was never the main focus of the scenes, and were never over the edge (ignore the Ewoks, ignore the Ewoks, ignore the Ewoks...).
R2D2 and C-3PO for example. They were as well the jokes (or clowns if you want to say so) to lighten up the mood. But they were never over the edge clumsy.

The Phantom Menace in the other hand was to overfilled with these jokes. And it were suddenly too many characters. Not only Jarjar. We had also Anakin and C-3PO+R2D2 who were making jokes, or behave funny.
Jarjar was not only the joke he was also clumsy. For me it was a bit to much of different parts. The voice, language, movement and behavior. He felt like a forced in Goofy with the single purpose of making the audience laugh, on all cost.

I saw the Phantom Menace when I was 12 or so. Maybe that's the reason but up to this day I don't think it is a bad movie. Not the best Star Wars, sure, but an enjoyable film to watch. And it's definitely better than anything Disney ever released. Except Rogue One. I have a weird love/hate relationship with Rogue One.

5 hours ago, Kani Kantai said:

George Lucas is an abject failure whenever he doesn’t have a filter. When George said “I want Jar Jar to be broadly comedic”, there needed to be a person who understood audiences to implement that, not the man who says his greatest skill is editing and then spends 3+ decades destroying the editing that won his first block buster an Oscar.

This right here. Unfortunately for us all the only filter he had was his very young children. They loved Jar-Jar, and I think that is why he does too. He forgot that in ANH all of us 4+ year olds loved it and thought it had funny parts and he did not hit us over the head with a Aircraft carrier for us to get it or overly racist stereotype voices.

• How can we not love this wonderful character? "Icky, icky goo!"

To really understand the vitriolic hate that Jar Jar receives, it's important to remember that Star Wars Fandom generally, and especially Star Wars tabletop gamers, are more likely to be unmarried and more likely to not have children relative to their age-group peers. There is absolutely nothing wrong with either single life or the kid-free life, of course, but I think the less contact one has with children and parenting, the less sympathetic one tends to be to something like Jar Jar (or Kaz or Porgs or Ewoks or BB-8 or any of the other many, many, many things about Star Wars that exist to appeal to kids and/or move product off shelves).

Making children happy isn't a sin, despite @Drasnighta's point up-thread pejoratively noting that Jar-Jar ends up a children's entertainer in canon. Rather than viewing that as evidence of the complete and abject failure of Jar-Jar, couldn't that be viewed as seeing him as doing a more noble calling than hopping in X-Wings and blowing stuff up? They blow you up today, you blow them up tomorrow, the conflict between Light and Dark will never end, yadda yadda. Rather than isolating children from their parents to continue their traditions (Jedi), cloning children and denying them any sort of childhood or life to use them as instruments of war (Republic), creating a child as a vessel or slaughtering them in cold blood (Sith), destroying planet's worth of children (Empire), or freeing horses so you can escape while leaving the abused children-laborers behind to face the wrath of the stable-keepers (Resistance), "won't someone think of the children?!" Jar-Jar is the one and only character from Star Wars who is doing something for the children, and not just treating them as a means to an end in some endless cycle of war and conflict.

In that regard, he may well be the most noble and heroic figure in the entire series. He was always the kindest character towards Anakin, and unlike the Jedi, Palpatine, and even Padme (TPM), he always treated Anakin as more of an equal and wasn't just using him for something. Jar-Jar just genuinely liked Anakin, he didn't like Anakin because of what he might become or what problem he might solve. Heck, if everyone had been more like Jar-Jar, Anakin would have never become Darth Vader. And that's why people hate Jar-Jar. He emphasizes what is really important in life: happiness, friendship, and good food...not glory or pride or wealth. The sort of stuff no one else across 10 films ever allows themselves to really prioritize or pause and enjoy, despite that being what they are ostensibly fighting for, except maybe Yoda. And that's some fine company for any character.

On 4/18/2019 at 9:28 AM, Norell said:

I saw the Phantom Menace when I was 12 or so. Maybe that's the reason but up to this day I don't think it is a bad movie. Not the best Star Wars, sure, but an enjoyable film to watch. And it's definitely better than anything Disney ever released. Except Rogue One. I have a weird love/hate relationship with Rogue One.

Love/hate with Rogue One? Now granted you said it is the only Disney movie you like more than TPM but what about Rogue One do you hate? Most of my friends adore Rogue One, I personally have it as a solid #3 in my list of all Star Wars Movies.

On the other hand the only movie I dislike more than TPM was Attack of the Clones which is hands down the worst Star Wars movie ever.

What I remember about the lead up to TPM was that Jar Jar, who was unnamed at that point, was described as a Chewbacca like side kick that would protect his friends and be loved by all. They completely missed the mark (FYI I am one of those older fans for perspective). Now I'm not a Disney hater, I thought TFA was a good reintroduction to the franchise, it had it's flaws but nothing to the scale of Jar Jar. Other than Canto Bight I did like TLJ. Solo while not great I think is better than it gets credit for.

Now finally I do want to make it clear that I did not dislike Gungans. Their accent was a bit cringy but other wise my dislike was with Jar Jar, not Gungans. That and the movie was a CGI love fest. Disney does a better job balancing practical effects with CGI.