Jar Jar was not good, but the real problem was 1) horrible dialogue (especially for Anakin) 2) Jake Lloyd was pure crap on top of the crap that we was saying, and 3) overly long in the middle act that needed some editing.

On topic, I think Jar Jar was meant from the beginning to cause the rise of the Empire but who knows.

It's all Qui-Gon's fault. he found Jar-Jar and more importantly Anakin. without either it would have played out quite differently

Yes, it was Qui-Gon's fault. He was too rash when it came to Anakin. He saw that Anakin would bring balance but he didn't realise that it'd be through Anakin's heirs.

Or, Anakin indeed was meant to bring balance but Sidious' medling (and Qui-Gon's death at the hands of Darth Maul) ensured that the outcome was very different from what was meant to be. Sidious altered the Grand Design, if you will, to his own liking.

I think you could argue that without Qui-Gon, the Sith may have won in the end. Who knows how it would have turned out, but guessing without Anakin, the Sith would have still gained power and without Darth's turn, the Empire may still be in power.

So I still think Jar Jar is to blame as nothing positive has come from him so far. At least Qui-Gon "found" the chosen one that ultimately (though a little late) brought balance to the force. Also, we would have no Luke without Qui-Gon, but really, this is a little to geeky to be talking about on a Saturday night.

Eh, that goes both ways. You can say Luke altered the Grand Design of the dark side...

Not only was Jake Lloyd's acting horrendous but was made even worse by a terrific performance from another child actor that same year. Haley Joel Osment in the Sixth Sense. One could come out of Star Wars and say "hey he was just a little kid" then they could go see the Sixth Sense and say "Boy that kid from Star Wars really sucked"

Easy answer! Palpatine is ultimately to blame. Even if it wasn't Jar Jar, nobody would have ever thought Palpatine was up to no good. It seemed like an innocent move to help put an end to the problem. So Palpatine would have manipulated anyone. Jar Jar was just the sucker to get manipulated. Then again, he's hardly alone.

Jar Jar was the worst thing about TPM. I can understand bad kid actors, it is rare you get a good performance out of them, so I wasn't expecting much.

But as for Jar Jar, it still baffles me why he is in there. Does he have to ruin an entire movie so the payoff he is the one that nominates Palpatine to be chancellor, which could have been done by anybody in the Senate?

It makes little sense. I don't see any characters in the OT that were as consistently as annoying as Jar Jar. People compare him to the Ewoks, I guess I don't see it as they are the movie for less than half the time in ROTJ.

For the little kids, and because Lucas probably thought he was funny. Lucas' sense of humor is off. That's why he should leave the humor to people who know what is funny.

I think thats part of the problem, Lucas fucked up trying to make it a kids film.

Too true. If nothing else, the PT has made me appreciate Obi-Wan and Luke a lot more. Sure, Obi-Wan was always cool in my book but it's nice to see him in his younger days. As for Luke, though I never hated him, it took me a long time to warm up to him. Thanks to the PT, I appreciate him more. Let's face it, if Anakin was "too old" when Qui-Gon found him, Luke was practically a senior citizen when Obi-Wan took it upon himself to train him as a Jedi. Add to that the fact that Luke shared a lot of his fathers more undesirable traits (his show-offy nature and impatience, for example) and you can see that Luke definitely should have turned to the Dark Side when he faced Vader in the Emperor's throne room. It speaks volumes of his character that he managed to show restraint toward the tail end of that duel and not strike his father down (a father he'd never truly know, mind you).

Natalie Portman didn't exactly act it up in either TPM or AOTC. She delivered her lines about as flat as her chest in Ep I. I don't blame this on her, however - she's a pretty decent actress in other movies.

It's totally the director's job to get the best out of his actors. If an actor doesn't nail a scene, the director should explain what he wants and reshoot it. I get the impression that Lucas would shoot a scene and say, "Was the green screen in the right place? Good, print!" or "Was there room in that shot for the cute, farting creatures that I'm going to add digitally? Oh, and the actors said their cheesy dialog too, right? OK print then!"

Honestly, I think I read something to that effect [not the exact quotes per se]...but something like the actors commented that they did it the way George wanted it. I think I might've read it in the SW Spoiler thread..

I don't think it was so much not directing the actors, or being more concerned with other things, but that acting is not that big of a deal to him. That seems to be his style, if the actors do a good job, they deserve all the credit.

I wonder what ever happened to Jar Jar during/after E3 and into the OT....

Just as long as his ass doesn't end up in either TV series Lucas has planned, I don't give a rat's ass.

I think he left Naboo and did some episodes of The Surreal Life.

wow. I actually prefer jake loyd to hayden in terms of acting ability
he did better with his crappy lines than overly wooden hayden did

All the answers can be found here:

sorry, but ewoks are worse than jarjar

For all the crap that people will give Jake Lloyd, I thought his performance when he said goodbye to his mother was very good.