(This video was uploaded on December 18, 2015, before The Force Awakens was released. Obviously, Emperor Snoak is not Jar Jar Binks. Also… yeah, I’m rather late to this, in terms of blogging about it. Everybody already knows this theory. I actually saw the original Reddit post not long after it was put up; I just never thought to blog about it until now.)

So… like most people, I hated the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Surprisingly, Jar Jar Binks was not my main complaint. I was only a few days away from turning 12 years old when The Phantom Menace was released, and, to be honest, I actually kind of laughed at Jar Jar. While I absolutely felt he was annoying, and I won’t go so far as to say that I liked him, he never grated on me like he grated on a lot of people. My issues with the prequel trilogy can be summed up by two actors:

Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen

I genuinely believe that the Prequels would be quite a bit better had basically anyone else played Anakin Skywalker. In fact, to be completely honest, I could deal with Jake Lloyd. He could have been a lot worse. Hayden Christensen was the real problem for me.

That said, there is a(n all but confirmed) theory that, had it actually happened, would have helped the make the prequel trilogy a lot better even if they had kept Hayden Christensen.

It’s the theory that Jar Jar Binks, far from being a bumbling clown, was, in fact, a Sith Lord:

(Another long video… this one is 48 minutes and 7 seconds long…)

I sort of wonder what the movies would be like had George Lucas actually intended this (and it very much seems like he did) and stuck with it despite fan backlash to Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace. I genuinely think the trilogy would have been a lot better on that alone, and I’m sad that this didn’t happen. I think it would have been awesome, actually.

To be fair, there are a lot of other problems with the prequel trilogy, from plot pacing to the script to other issues (some have wondered about the age gap between Anakin and Padmé; she was 5 years older than him: he was 9 in Phantom Menace, and she was 14; in Attack of the Clones, she was 24 and he was 19; for me, this isn’t really an issue, but others may disagree). But I really do think this theory would have been a significant improvement overall.

It now looks like Jar Jar Binks won’t be showing up at all in the new films, and, in the end, that’s probably for the best. So this theory just isn’t canon. But, for me, that’s too bad, because it would have been really cool.

What do you think? Should George Lucas have stuck with this and made Jar Jar Binks a Sith Lord? Was this ever even intended (I honestly think it was, and the video lays out some reasons to think it was)?

Let me know!

(BTW… there’s a subreddit and an official website dedicated to this theory, for those who didn’t know…)