jar jar binks

I paid off my student loans early

Lucasfilm

There are certainly plenty of controversial points in the Star Wars canon — Yoda lightsaber battle: awesome or stupid? Boba Fett: stone cold badass or totally overrated? — but one thing is nearly unanimous: Jar Jar Binks is the most hated character in the entire series. There was a lot that went wrong with Episode I: The Phantom Menace, but the clumsy Gungan was an unfortunate mix of racial stereotypes and catchphrases that just didn’t work.

However, that is not to say that the special effects that went into the character are not an important piece of the VFX development puzzle, something that the motion capture king Andy Serkis failed to mention in a new interview about the technique with Wired.

Andy Serkis, the world’s greatest motion capture performer, breaks down the history of motion capture technology: https://t.co/NwVWe4jE8Z pic.twitter.com/d03VEVBzpz

— WIRED (@WIRED) October 26, 2017

While this is a seemingly innocuous oversight, Ahmed Best, the actor behind Jar Jar, took to Twitter to set the record straight.

I don’t know how to retweet this and not sound bitter, but I feel I have been forgotten. No disrespect to the great @andyserkis https://t.co/4F3VBPV8Aj

— Ahmed BEst (@ahmedbest) October 27, 2017

1) thread: Thanks for the love today especially the Star Wars fans. Jar Jar is bigger than just me or my performance. As much as we actors

— Ahmed BEst (@ahmedbest) October 28, 2017

2) are on the front line when it comes to the success or the failure of characters we play, what's more important is the accomplishment of

— Ahmed BEst (@ahmedbest) October 28, 2017

3) bringing the work to the screen. Jar Jar helped create The workflow, iteration process and litmus test for all CGI characters to this day

— Ahmed BEst (@ahmedbest) October 28, 2017

4) on some days the code was being written in real time as I was moving. To deny Jar Jar's place in film history is to deny the hundreds of

— Ahmed BEst (@ahmedbest) October 28, 2017

5) VFX technicians, animators, code writers and producers their respect. People like John Knoll, Rob Coleman @arfkeldo and scores of others

— Ahmed BEst (@ahmedbest) October 28, 2017

6) who I worked with for two years after principal photography was ended to bring these movies to you. There's a joke I like to use when

— Ahmed BEst (@ahmedbest) October 28, 2017

7) talking about this stuff, Jar Jar walked so Gollum could run. Gollum ran so the Na'vi could fly. Thanks for lifting me up today.

— Ahmed BEst (@ahmedbest) October 28, 2017

While it’s likely that Serkis either didn’t want to wade into the debate surrounding the character or simply forgot, Best does have a point. Whether the character was beloved or not, there is no denying the impact that the work did on the films that came after. Even if Jar Jar was a goonish character designed to sell toys, the team behind him did pave the way for Serkis’s mo-cap characters.

Plus, he’s in the Star Wars family now. Jar Jar walked so Snoke could threaten the galaxy.

(Via The A.V. Club)

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