Ahmed Best doesn’t need redemption. Instead, he needs an apology from everyone who bullied him due to a character he played in a film. For those who don’t know what I’m referring to, during the late 90s and early 00s, the Star Wars prequels were the height of cinema, but for a new generation of moviegoers.
Actor Ahmed Best played Jar Jar Binks, the goofy, silly sidekick Gungan character in The Phantom Menace. The blowback he got from this role was massive. In response, Jar Jar was reduced to more minor roles in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. In RotS, he had one line of dialogue.
The backlash against Jar Jar was a personal blow to Ahmed. The fans who took digs at him should be lining up to give him a massive apology. Jar Jar was a huge technological advancement, and Ahmed played an enormous role. We wouldn’t have Gollum, Peter Jackson’s version of King Kong, Caesar, and Thanos without him. None of those characters would’ve been made possible without motion capture.
Without Ahmed, We Wouldn’t Have The Characters We Do Today
As a massive mo-cap enthusiast, I can tell you now that the technology had come a long way since the 90s when it was used in sports games like golf. Andy Serkis is often credited for being the godfather of motion capture technology due to his work on Lord of the Rings, but we should be taking a step back and thinking about where it truly started, and that’s with Ahmed Best.
Jar Jar was the first CGI character with an actor providing movement and voice. Heavy Spoilers, Star Wars Explained and Star Wars Comics all said that having Kelleran Beq being the person to rescue Grogu was the best call as it redeems Ahmed, who had a horrible time in the first round when he played Jar Jar.
As I said, Ahmed doesn’t need a redemption arc, as he did nothing wrong. The fans were horrible, blood thirsty leeches, thinking he didn’t have feelings. Also, he’s not the only prequel actor to get backlash. Jake Lloyd, who played young Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace, allegedly quit acting in 2005 due to the backlash. He now has severe mental health issues and has allegedly been in trouble with the law. Hayden Christensen, Jake’s successor as Anakin, has been MIA for years in Hollywood. The last notable film he did was Jumper, which was released a few years after Revenge of the Sith. Sure, he’s been a staple at Star Wars Celebration in recent years, but before this, he was absent, likely due to fan backlash.
The Prequels Are Now Widely Respected
Since the release of the sequel trilogy, the prequel era has become more respected, but it’s too late. The prequels were already soiled, and people’s careers were ruined because of the toxic fans. Now, I’m not afraid to say that Star Wars has some of the most poisonous fans in pop culture. You would think the fans would’ve learned after the prequels to be more tolerant of aspects of the franchise they don’t like. But no. They haven’t learned. The sequels are just as much a sore spot to so-called fans as the prequels were. The Fandom Menace, as the toxic fans are known, believe that the prequels and the sequels shouldn’t be canon. Sorry to break it to you idiots, but you don’t get to decide what is canon and what isn’t.
Also, you might claim to love the prequels now, but you helped to ruin a large portion of the cast’s careers. Ahmed almost committed suicide after the backlash became so bad. How would you all have felt if he had gone through with it? Heavy Spoilers included bits of an interview with Ahmed where he talks about it, and it’s not easy to watch.
Uncertainty
Ahmed’s life for a long time was very dark and uncertain. He mentioned in the interview that he had not walked across the Brooklyn Bridge in 20 years, and when he did, he did it with his young son, and they stopped at the place where he almost ended his life. So when he posted the picture to Twitter, he didn’t expect the response he got. However, his story has become well-known in the fan community, and seeing the outpouring of support has been incredible.
If this had happened when the prequels were coming out, the positivity would’ve been drowned out by the negativity. Also, the internet wasn’t as widely used when the prequels were coming out. There were no social media like there is now.
Ahmed deserves so much better than to be ridiculed over a role that was supposed to be fun. Every single creative that the Fandom Menace has bullied deserves an apology. This includes John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran, Jake Lloyd, Hayden Christensen, Daisy Ridley, Moses Ingram and others. Bullying and racism have no place in our society.
The Fandom Menace Tried To Cancel Rian Johnson
The toxic fans tried to cancel Episode VIII director Rian Johnson but couldn’t. Why? Because he’s an outstanding director and writer. Sure, The Last Jedi didn’t have the effect it was supposed to, but everyone’s a critic nowadays. Some people like it, while many people don’t. He has proven this with his Knives Out films which have been super successful. Was he a good fit for Star Wars, however? It depends on your opinion.
If you don’t like something, don’t criticise others and try to cancel them. What does it achieve? Toxic people don’t think the individual they hate has feelings, thinking they’re a droid; excuse the Star Wars reference. You know, it’s a miracle that some of the bullied people even want anything to do with the franchise now.
Hayden Christensen Ignores The Prequel Hate
Hayden is a fantastic example of this. Twenty years have passed, but he is more embraced now than during the prequel era. Before the Obi-Wan Kenobi series was even announced, he would attend Star Wars Celebration and do discussions with Ian McDiarmid, who plays Palpatine. He would never dwell on the negative.
Also, the toxic fans of the late 90s/early 00s were likely original fanboys of the original trilogy who had a one-sided view of what Star Wars should be. Here’s the thing. As a creative myself, there is no one way to interpret something, and I’m sure anyone who is a writer, producer, director, or author associated with Lucasfilm will say the same thing.
Look at how E.K. Johnston reimagined Sola Naberrie in the Padmé trilogy of books she wrote. In canon, Sola is depicted as asexual and aromantic but still has an interest in having children. This is the complete opposite of how she was portrayed in Legends. She married an artist named Darred Janren and had two daughters with him. In canon, she only had one daughter that we know of. Yet, no one has even bothered to question it.
Since Sola is a minimal character, most people don’t care. However, people criticise more prominent recurring characters like Jar Jar despite him being the comic relief. Also, do people not do their research? At the time, Jar Jar was dubbed as being in the films to appease the younger fanbase and was considered by some to be “a flaw” in the prequel films.
George Lucas Fires Back
An article by the BBC going back to 1999 said that the film had been accused of racism because it sounded like Jar Jar had a Caribbean accent. George Lucas hit back and said that the people online instantly disliked the character. He even said that some people don’t like funny sidekicks. It was pointed out, too, that fans had had issues with each of the original films. For example, some fans hated R2-D2 and C-3PO in the original 1997 film. Then, they despised Yoda in Empire Strikes Back, and the hate was directed at the cuddly-looking Ewoks. Lucas also criticised the U.S. Media for their fascination with people’s opinions. Though, he also defended the heavy use of CGI as a technological advancement, which it was at the time.
In a parallel to real life, Chuck Wendig wrote in the 2017 novel, Aftermath: Empire’s End, that Jar Jar was seen as a disgrace to the people of Naboo, and he became a circus clown. Adults hated him for his role in the Empire’s rise, while the children found him entertaining.
There is nothing funny about what happened to Ahmed. In 2018, he opened up about the trauma he suffered due to the negativity surrounding his time playing Jar Jar. He was 25 when the film opened in 1999.
In conclusion, the world needs to do better. Apologies would go a long way in making things right. However, in the minds of the Fandom Menace, they’re right, and everyone else is wrong. They hate everything new about Star Wars and cannot accept that change is good, not bad.
