Very set back from episodes II and III of the Star Wars prelogy, the fate of Jar Jar was however implied in a scene unfortunately cut from “Revenge of the Sith”.
To say that the character of Jar Jar Binks was hated by Star Wars fans is an understatement! It has been so much that its interpreter has tried to commit suicide. However, his destiny in the saga was to be quite different from that officially presented in the three films of the prelogy.
Ahmed Best, the actor who played Jar Jar in performance capture, told Entertainment Weekly in 2012 that a scene finally deleted from episode III was to enlighten his character quite differently:
A deleted scene from Revenge of the Sith showed [Jar Jar] cross the road to [Palpatine] before he acceded to the status of Emperor. He was thanking Jar Jar for bringing him to power, and it showed Jar Jar’s evolution from being a child-amusing character to being a manipulated politician.
Recall that in the previous film, Attack of the Clones, Jar Jar initiated a senatorial vote in order to entrust full powers to Chancellor Palpatine, which authorized, among other things, the army of clones. In episode III, these full powers allow him in particular to order the extermination of the Jedi across the galaxy.
“It was an interesting arch for the character that I thought could have been explored”laments Best, “because the scene was very dark. I get it, it didn’t fit in the movie, but George’s vision was that Jar Jar was now just a politician.”
Jar Jar’s journey should therefore reflect the way in which a childlike and carefree being was damaged by political manipulation and their harshness. Or how a positive hero from the Star Wars universe finally ends up on the ground, blaming himself, among other things, for the death of Padmé.
Lucasfilm Ltd.
This is not the only cut scene that could have given a completely different tone to the feature film, since this one would have made it go really too far!
Obviously, the poor reception of Jar Jar when The Phantom Menace was released led George Lucas to drastically reduce Jar Jar’s presence in the two following opuses, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. To the point that in the third episode, the Gungan has almost no response and is content to be physically present without any real narrative impact.