Taika Waititi tried to make a point when he revealed he was planning on telling a completely brand new Star Wars story in his upcoming blockbuster, joking that he wasn’t going to follow the nostalgia-heavy template by diving into the back catalogue for a Jar Jar Binks origin story.
Such is the unpredictability of the fandom, though, the Thor: Love and Thunder director’s offhanded gag ended up gaining widespread support online. On top of that, the derided Gungan was also recently hailed as one of the 21st Century’s most important motion picture characters, so we could be in the midst of a full-blown Jar Jar renaissance.
Taking things even further, one enterprising Redditor has pitched a standalone Star Wars spinoff revolving around Ahmed Best’s older, wiser, and hopefully less irritating Jar Jar. The inspiration? R-rated superhero classic Logan.
The fact many of the comments find people resigning themselves to the fact that it’s a pitch that just might be crazy enough to work speaks volumes about the new age of Jar Jar appreciation we’re living in. Would we love to see a violent, profanity-laded, intergalactic adventure that finds a grizzled amphibious alien getting his hands dirty while righting wrongs across the galaxy? Kind of, yeah.
Lucasfilm, if you’re listening, weaponizing nostalgia in the most unexpected fashion possible isn’t the worst concept in the world, even if Jar Jar’s Logan may not make it into active development anytime soon. Then again, stranger things have most definitely happened in the franchise, so we’d be remiss to rule it out completely.