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'Star Wars' fans believe Jar Jar Binks is actually a dark Sith lord

Molly Mulshine

2015-11-04T18:47:41Z

jar jar binks star wars episode I — But he looks so innocent! Lucasfilm

At best, Jar Jar Binks is known as one of the most annoying characters to grace "Star Wars." At worst, he's considered a racist stereotype.

But some Reddit users apparently think we could have been misreading Binks all along. They're theorizing Binks is a secretly intelligent dark Sith Lord.

The so-called Darth Jar Jar movement was started by Reddit user /u/Lumpawarroo on the Star Wars subreddit. Now, it's grown to have its own website and dedicated subreddit — both called Darth Jar Jar.

The theory is also picking up steam outside the world of Reddit. Wired, The Telegraph, and USA Today College have all covered it.

Read on to learn why the concept of Darth Jar Jar is picking up so much speed.

The first piece of evidence that Jar Jar Binks isn't who he seems: his agility.

Lumpawarroo points out that in the Star Wars universe, "very rarely do we see 'normal' characters exhibiting extraordinary stuntwork or physical feats unless they are Jedi, Sith, or at least force sensitives."

But as seen in the above gif, Jar Jar can be pretty athletic when he wants to. Even though Jar Jar seems clumsy, in battle, he's "always incredibly, amazingly successful," Lumpawarroo explains.

Jar Jar's moves appear to be modeled on Zui Quan, Chinese martial arts that imitate the movements of a drunk person.

In the above demonstration of Zui Quan moves like kipping-up and sloshing, the practitioner's movements look a lot like Jar Jar's.

"This discipline seeks to imitate the 'sloshing,' seemingly random foibles of a drunkard, but in reality the staggering and stumbling is the use of bodily momentum, deception, and unpredictability intended to lure and confuse opponents," Lumpawarroo writes.

That would make it the perfect type of movement for someone who's trying to seem like a bumbling fool in order to get the upper hand — like Jar Jar.

"It establishes that his over-the-top, childish antics are a veneer masking a more complex character than we're led to believe," Lumpawarroo writes.

Here's Jar Jar doing what looks like Zui Quan "sloshing":

People attribute Jar Jar's successes to luck — but like Obi-Wan Kenobi once said, there is no luck.

As Lumpawarroo writes, "This is one of the main reasons we as an audience hate Jar Jar so thoroughly; he breaks the fourth wall, he he shatters our suspension of disbelief, because we know that no one is really that lucky. We dismiss it as a lame, cliched trope — the silly pathetic oaf who always seems to inadvertently save the day."

In one scene, we see Jar Jar use the force... Well, either that or a continuity error.

In "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace," there's a scene where droids are attacking Jar Jar and two Jedi characters. At one point, Jar Jar drops down one side of the wall, gets caught, and ends up falling several feet away from where we last saw him.

As Lumpawarroo says, this "would seem to be quite impossible without a force-assisted jump and/or force sprint of some kind ... Easy to dismiss as a continuity or framing error, I suppose... except that one of the droids continues to fire on Jar Jar's initial position, even as we see him drop elsewhere!"

Here are two gifs illustrating the drop:

Lumpawarroo compares the possible flip or maneuver to a move Luke Skywalker does in "The Empire Strikes Back."

Jar Jar might be capable of using Jedi Mind Control.

Part of the reason people hate Jar Jar is that they don't find it believable that he'd even be included on Jedi missions or become a general or senator.

But again, if these things can't be attributed to good luck, what's the cause? Lumpawarroo says it could be "extensive and careful use of force mind powers."

People who are experienced with using the force can control others' minds, and when they do it, they often wave their hands.

Here are three gifs showing Jar Jar waving his hands while he persuades people to do things, according to Lumpawarroo:

And let's not forget that somehow, Jar Jar convinced the Senate to abolish democracy. Who would let that happen if their minds weren't being controlled?

So were Jar Jar Binks and Palpatine in cahoots?

Entertainment Weekly described a deleted scene from "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith" where Palpatine thanks Jar Jar Binks for helping him ascend to power. From Cosmic Book News's excerpt of the EW story:

"In Revenge of the Sith, there was a scene that was cut where I'm walking down a long pathway with Ian McDiarmid before he is turned into the Emperor," Best explains. "And Palpatine kind of thanks Jar Jar for putting him in power. It's a really interesting scene, and it shows the evolution of Jar Jar from this fun-loving kid's character into this manipulated politician. And it was an interesting arc for the character that I thought could have been explored, because the scene is really dark. But it just didn't fit in the movie, which I understand. But yeah, George's take on it is Jar Jar is now just a politician."

Also, the cast "thought Jar Jar Binks was going to be a 'breakout character' from 'Phantom Menace,' but due to audience reaction, Jar Jar's part in the next two movies was diminished," Cosmic Book News reports.

Lumpawarroo believes Jar Jar and Palpatine were not just collaborators, but partners, and that's why Palpatine kept the embarrassing character around.

Lumpawarroo's conclusion: Jar Jar was supposed to be a Yoda-esque character who seems harmless in the beginning of the original trilogy and is later revealed to be much more powerful than he acted.

That concludes Lumpawarroo's original theory — and now, Reddit users are going nuts finding even more evidence to support Darth Jar Jar.

It's unclear whether Lumpawarroo is half-joking with his original theory, but Star Wars fans are actually now finding more and more evidence — not necessarily that Jar Jar Binks is a Sith lord, but that he is smarter than previously thought and might play a role in the new movies.

One Reddit user uncovered a news story from when the prequels were released saying that a character who is frozen at the end of Episode III would come back for episodes VII, VIII, and IX — which could mean Jar Jar.

Reddit user MamiyaC330 posted a video full of "evidence" of Jar Jar using the force to persuade people in "The Phantom Menace."

Some users are devising their own theories — on this thread, fans discuss whether Jar Jar might be a "pawn for the force."

So whether or not "Darth Jar Jar" will ever be a thing, one thing's for sure: This fan theory is making people pay way more attention to a grating character that most people would probably rather forget.

Star Wars