Back to the Clone Wars: Bombad Jedi
Aug. 16th, 2010 03:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerAgain, it's been a while since I last watched one of the episodes out of the Clone Wars DVD set. I suppose, though, that this time around I was taking my time getting around to the next episode in line because, again, I was wondering about how I'd react to the little documentary from the show's creators... along with, I suppose, dealing once more with mixed feelings running back to when the new Star Wars movies started.
The hard thought's come to me a few times that the consuming vortex of negativity and outright hatred might have first swirled into life and gained special strength around the computer-generated figure of Jar Jar Binks. Goofy comedy relief characters don't have an easy time of it from many fans, of course, and when the critics could pontificate about George Lucas being offensive... and yet, it just seems that I'm wired to feel sympathetic for fictional characters who attract dislike. I know it's just as pointless as disliking them, and yet it happens to me. From that sympathy, though, I can make a quite good effort at telling myself Binks might well be mortified at what keeps happening to him but can't do anything about it, and that may also add to the feeling I've developed that some people may have generated their bad feelings, not just come by them as "obvious"... In any case, it's possible to see Binks's steadily diminished role as the new movies went on as somehow "necessary" but also as nevertheless feeding certainties both smug and angry, and bringing him back in the Clone Wars as making a small effort to reclaim him from being the punchline of unpleasant and unfunny "jokes."
I suppose that when it came to the little documentary, I already knew the creators made an effort to say George Lucas had pushed them into bringing Binks back, and yet knowing that made it easy enough to accept their best efforts at seeming to make a subtle play to a certain subset of their audience. I did, though, take note of how a bit of byplay with the Jedi robe computer-animated in this episode was called an homage to Star Wars itself... and how that seemed just a bit of a surprise for Dave Filoni himself as well.
The hard thought's come to me a few times that the consuming vortex of negativity and outright hatred might have first swirled into life and gained special strength around the computer-generated figure of Jar Jar Binks. Goofy comedy relief characters don't have an easy time of it from many fans, of course, and when the critics could pontificate about George Lucas being offensive... and yet, it just seems that I'm wired to feel sympathetic for fictional characters who attract dislike. I know it's just as pointless as disliking them, and yet it happens to me. From that sympathy, though, I can make a quite good effort at telling myself Binks might well be mortified at what keeps happening to him but can't do anything about it, and that may also add to the feeling I've developed that some people may have generated their bad feelings, not just come by them as "obvious"... In any case, it's possible to see Binks's steadily diminished role as the new movies went on as somehow "necessary" but also as nevertheless feeding certainties both smug and angry, and bringing him back in the Clone Wars as making a small effort to reclaim him from being the punchline of unpleasant and unfunny "jokes."
I suppose that when it came to the little documentary, I already knew the creators made an effort to say George Lucas had pushed them into bringing Binks back, and yet knowing that made it easy enough to accept their best efforts at seeming to make a subtle play to a certain subset of their audience. I did, though, take note of how a bit of byplay with the Jedi robe computer-animated in this episode was called an homage to Star Wars itself... and how that seemed just a bit of a surprise for Dave Filoni himself as well.