Jar Jar Binks is one of the Star Wars universe’s most controversial characters. The hapless Gungan, introduced in The Phantom Menace, delighted children but low-key tortured parents and critics alike. The comic relief character, and his actor Ahmed Best, quickly became the fandom’s punching bag, which he remained long after the film’s 1999 release.   51q1k

Despite his reviled status, Jar Jar remained a key character throughout the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars series. While the series finale wrapped up plenty of loose ends left by the films, it never answered what happened to the controversial character after Palpatine and Darth Vader overthrew the Republic after Order 66.

How did Jar Jar help establish the Empire? 4r1y3u

After the events of The Phantom Menace, Lucasfilm could have easily let Jar Jar slide into oblivion. Instead, they opted to bring him back for several cameos, including in Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, and multiple story arcs throughout The Clone Wars animated series.

Episode II established the Gungan warrior as a key member of the senate, one well respected enough to stand in for Senator Amidala during important votes. Throughout The Clone Wars, Bink’s involvement continued to grow. The Gungan spearheaded multiple diplomatic missions, and took up arms against galactic menaces from pirates to Separatists.

But no amount of generosity from his friends could make Jar Jar something he wasn’t, and his good intentions were no match for his ignorance.

In a bid to make Amidala proud, Jar Jar was a key contributor to Palpatine’s power grab. He consistently threw his weight behind the secret Sith Lord, unintentionally undermining Amidala’s own work to stop the creation of a Republic Army. Jar Jar was the one to introduce the motion that gave Palpatine enough emergency power to create a Clone Army for the Republic. He basked in the Senate’s applause as the Sith lord promised to lay down the power once the crisis had ended.

Binks became a more permanent stand-in for Amidala as her pregnancy progressed and she shied from the public eye. He was a member of Palpatine’s political entourage, and was one of few politicians to greet the Chancellor after he was “rescued” from Count Dooku’s clutches. Of course, Palpatine never relinquished his newfound power.

Jar Jar was on Coruscant with Amidala when Palpatine declared the end of the Republic and ushered in the Galactic Empire. He returned home to lay Amidala to rest, appearing alongside Boss Nass at her funeral, but his homecoming was anything but sweet.

What happened to Jar Jar after the fall of the Republic? 37y6z

In the 2017 novel, Aftermath: Empires End, Author Chuck Wendig delved into Jar Jar’s fate, leaning heavily on the public’s reaction to Ahmed Best’s performance. Bink’s fate, according to Wendig, is incredibly polarized, with some fans feeling he punished the character too much, and other believing he wasn’t punished enough.

The people of Naboo, including Jar Jar’s own race, believed he had ed the rise of the Empire. He was exiled from his aquatic home and left to wander the streets of the Theed, Naboo’s capital city. Leaning into his only natural talents, the aged Jar Jar became a street performer for the refugees that ed through Theed daily. Known as simply, “The Clown,” or “The Gungan,” he worked to make children laugh.

Since children started coming in by the shipload as refugees, the Gungan has served them, performing for the kids once or twice a day. He does tricks. He juggles. He falls over and shakes his head as his eyes roll around inside their fleshy stalks. He makes goofy sounds and does strange little dances. Sometimes it’s the same performance, repeated. Sometimes the Gungan does different things, things you’ve never seen, things you’ll never see again.

But as much as the children loved Jar Jar, the adults reviled him and blamed him for ushering in the rise of the Empire.

The adults, though. They don’t say much about him. Or to him. And no other Gungans come to see him, either. Nobody even says his name.

The Gungan lived a lonely life for five years, until he met a disfigured orphan named Mapo who was entranced by his skill. After surviving an attack by the Empire that left him badly burned, Mapo struggled to make friends, and was certain he would never be adopted. He found a kindred spirit in Jar Jar, who agreed to teach him the art of clowning, and the outcasts found peace alongside one another, concluding Jar Jar’s story – for now, at least.

Many fans are fond of the Darth Binks rumors, and who can blame them? When the only alternative is a destitute clown paying for the sins of someone else, we’d gladly believe the evil mastermind approach.  

Star Wars fans have had enough of the preposterous claims that some Jedi couldn’t survive Order 66.

Reddit s brought receipts to the r/StarWars subreddit to shut down the argument that the survival of some Jedi after Supreme Chancellor Palpatine issued the order represented plot holes in the story.

Palpatine staged a coup d’etat by implementing Order 66 in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. The Jedi presented an insurmountable obstacle between the covert Sith Lord and his desire for absolute power until Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) allowed his vulnerabilities to cause him to betray himself, his family, and his Jedi brethren.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, Luminara Unduli, Jocasta Nu Ahsoka Tano, Kelleran Beq, Gungi, and Grogu were some survivors of Palpatine’s great purge. The heroic rescue of Grogu by Beq still baffled some fans apparently unaware that numerous of the order survived.

At long last, Star Wars fans could agree that some Jedi could survive Order 66 even though they were fragmented and could not immediately unite against Palpatine.

Another Redditor pointed out that the Jedi were approximately 10,000 in number when the Clone Wars took place, according to Star Wars canon.

Some fans held a more rigid view that the plot would be more believable if more time had elapsed before the surviving Jedi ed the resistance.

All in all, a more cohesive storyline emerged, and fans could turn their focus to some of the actual plotholes in the Star Wars franchise.

Warning: The article contains spoilers from The Mandalorian season three, episode four.

The Mandalorian season three might have shunned Din Djarin to the role of a ing character, but it sure is dropping jaw-dropping revelations left, right, and center. This week’s episode decided to put a stop to all those theories about who saved the young Grogu from the massacre that was Order 66 — it was a Jedi named Kelleran Beq who risked his own life to protect the child. And though he may seem like a new character for new Star Wars fans, he has his place in the quirkiest pages of the franchise’s history. 

We have met Kelleran Beq before 5e344n

Through Grogu’s painful flashback to the events of Revenge of the Sith, we get to know the heroic Kelleran was the one who picked up two lightsabers and dueled with both hands while protecting his charge — who could do nothing at this point apart from cowering in fear — from the Jedi Purge. 

Then, this skilled Jedi Master, who never appeared scared despite the very possible chance of a painful death, flew both of them away, even managing to safely land despite their aircraft taking a hit. He then quickly boarded a Naboo ship and flew into hyperspace with a terrified Grogu keeping him company. 

For many, the only connection Ahmed Best (the actor who plays Kelleran) had with Star Wars in the past was voicing the klutz Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace, a role for which he received massive criticism and racist backlash. So, while he never reprised that role, his appearance as Beq isn’t the first, either. 

Jedi Master Kelleran Beq was first seen in the children’s game show on YouTube that started in June 2020 — Star Wars: Jedi Challenge — where young contestants went through Jedi training and tried to overcome an obstacle course to win Kyber Crystals. And Beq? Well, he was their mentor, their supervisor, and in Best’s words, the “Dean of the Jedi Temple.”

Beq’s backstory in the show revealed he was a Jedi Master — aptly nicknamed “The Sabered Hand” because of his impressive lightsaber combat prowess — who led and supervised the training of Padawans on the starship Athylia. He was aided by the droids AD-3 and LX-R5 and wielded a purple lightsaber (like Mace Windu).

As shared by Best in a chat with StarWars.com, Beq is a Jedi “dedicated to just teaching” and was majorly concerned about training the next Jedi generation. Despite being set in the Star Wars universe, the game show was obviously non-canonical, and after it ran for only one season in 2020 — as it was canceled in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic — its connection to the over-arching storyline was seemingly lost forever. 

But with the revelation that Beq was Grogu’s savior — which makes sense since he was the Dean of the Jedi Temple — his status in the galaxy far, far away just became very canon. 

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Mandalorian season 3, episode 4.

The Mandalorian delivered arguably one of its most important chapters this week, with the latest installment of the Disney Plus hit’s third season finally revealing a mystery that’s been eating at Star Wars fans for years now. Namely, who was it that saved Grogu from the Jedi purge during Order 66? As expected, it was a familiar character from the saga’s lore, although it’s fair to say no one expected it to be this character, in particular.

Yes, it turns out Jar-Jar Binks is Grogu’s savior! Well, OK, not literally, but prequels star Ahmed Best returned as his secondary Star Wars role, Jedi Master Kelleran Beq, a character he previously played in the Jedi Temple Challenge game show. While Beq properly becoming canon, and Best getting something of a redemption by rescuing everyone’s beloved Baby Yoda, has got fans weepy, they’re also itting to being kind of sick of Star Wars continually manipulating their emotions by revisiting the franchise’s darkest moment.

We should know by now that whenever Dave Filoni is involved there will be an Order 66 flashback somewhere. The Clone Wars co-creator co-wrote this episode along with Jon Favreau so naturally he embraced the opportunity to reawaken our PTSD over Palpatine’s Jedi massacre.

Order 66 supercut when?

Do they realize how much it hurts every time?

At least the fascination around Beq is drying some tears.

Forget the Revenge of the Sith, Filoni might want to fear the revenge of heartbroken fans.

In recent years, we’ve revisited Order 66 in everything from The Bad Batch to Obi-Wan Kenobi, and with Filoni and Favreau not going anywhere, you can bet they’ll force us to revisit it yet again in the near future. Better emotionally prepare yourselves for another flashback in Ahsoka, people.

The Mandalorian season three trailer dropped last night, teasing an adventure into the dark heart of Mandalore and reunions with Din Djarin’s ever-growing group of comrades. But along the way there was a shot that instantly reminded us of the prequels, specifically the Order 66 sequence in Revenge of the Sith.

What appears to be a lightsaber carving through a Jedi Temple door has some excited about the prospect of Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker showing up, likely as part of a flashback to Grogu’s traumatic past. But, after seeing Order 66 in Revenge of the Sith, The Clone Wars, The Bad Batch, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Fallen Order, is this getting a bit repetitive?

Is it too soon after Obi-Wan Kenobi?

A new annual event:

To be fair it is an important event in Grogu’s life:

Worth pointing out we have already seen glimpses of what Grogu went through:

Others are more positive:

Is this even Order 66 at all?

We’re hoping this is a brief flashback rather than something more substantial. The Mandalorian was initially applauded for moving away from lightsabers and Jedi, though by the time of the second season they were beginning to become a focus of the show. Even so, we can’t deny we’re not excited to see how the show might handle an appearance from Anakin at his most monstrous, especially if he actually interacts with Grogu in some form.

Fortunately, we don’t have to wait too long to find out. The Mandalorian season three arrives on Mar 1, with the premiere directed by Jon Favreau. Mark the date in your calendars!

Hot off the back of the premiere episode of The Last of Us on HBO, we finally got our first look at the third season of The Mandalorian, in what is turning out to be a colossal couple of days for series lead Pedro Pascal.

The two-minute reveal gave us plenty of dialogue and visuals to chew on, which teased a return to Mandalore for Din Djarin as well as Grogu flexing some more of his force powers. However, a few notable seconds teased the appearance of a handful of Jedi in what appears to be a flashback sequence to Order 66, with the backdrop looking very much like the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. 

Of course, social media is ablaze with reactions, theories, hot takes, as well as unpreparedness for yet another Order 66 depiction. Given what appears to be a lightsaber cutting through the door in the background, fans are also anticipating a potential appearance from Hayden Christensen, marking the second appearance of an OG Skywalker in The Mandalorian. 

Granted, there’s only so much that we can glean from roughly two seconds of zero-context footage, but those precious few frames offer up enough telltale signs that the fandom may well be on the mark about a prospective flashback and Christensen once again reprising his role as Anakin Skywalker, as he did in Obi-Wan Kenobi last year.

Back to Pedro Pascal, though, who is set to dominate our television screens for the next few months in both The Last of Us and then The Mandalorian. The actor seems to have established a pattern of playing characters charged with escorting and protecting important children, but he doesn’t seem to mind at all. 

All will be revealed about the fate of Din, Grogu, and those Jedi in that blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment when season three of The Mandalorian arrives on Disney Plus on March 1, 2023. 

Anyone who is new to the universe of Star Wars might feel a little lost when hardcore Stans begin referencing Order 66. So just what is this mysterious directive all about? It may surprise you to know the infamous scene from a galaxy far, far away may have been inspired by everything from medieval knights to The Godfather.

By now, Ian McDiarmid’s Sheev Palpatine, aka Darth Sidious, uttering the phrase “Execute Order 66” is so well known, it’s practically a catchphrase in and of itself within the Star Wars fandom — for example, the insertion of the scene from Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith in the Obi-Wan Kenobi character arc recap for Disney Plus.

While it makes total sense for Disney Plus to relive the phrase when it comes to looking back on the life of Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, since his story is inextricably tied to the authoritarian order, the scene is so famous that it arguably stands on its own as one of the great turning points in the Star Wars universe.

As we previously alluded to, Order 66 was essentially Sidious making full-circle his coup of overthrowing the ruling power and placing it into solely his authoritarian hands by ordering the mass execution of its main protectors, the Jedi. As Wookiepedia stated, Order 66, aka Clone Protocol 66, “was a top-secret order identifying all Jedi as traitors to the Galactic Republic and, therefore, subject to summary execution by the Grand Army of the Republic.”

The actual scene in question in which Sidious utters the now-famous phrase happens a little over the halfway mark in Stars Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Shortly after that, Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker, having just been re-dubbed Darth Vader after slaying Samuel L. Jackson’s Mace Windu, goes and massacres the “younglings,” aka the Jedi-in-training known as padawans.

Perhaps writer-director George Lucas explained it best on the Revenge of the Sith Blu-ray commentary track about the significance of Order 66 in the story.

The telling of this story, of Anakin going into the Jedi Temple and the other Jedi getting killed through the Order 66 of the clones is just done as kind of one of those inevitable pay-offs in of getting rid of everybody. The Emperor that’s getting rid of all his enemies. But there’s a certain inevitability about it all and a sadness to it.

Lucas also revealed in that same commentary track that he was worried perhaps too many plot points were given away in Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones, to where people may have already guessed the clone troopers would betray the Jedi in the third film. That has everything to do with Christopher Lee’s Count Dooku and his dark side alter-ego, Darth Tyranus.

‘Cause if you go back, they mention the fact that Lord Tyranus and Count Dooku are the same person. You know, Darth Tyranus. And that Darth Tyranus is the one who started the clones. So if you were paying attention, it was very easy to figure out what’s going to happen to the clones, I mean, if they’re going to be the ones to betray everybody. Tough to put in things like that without giving everything away.

There’s actually quite a bit to unpack with just the initial scene of when Sidious is communicating to one of his clone troopers, Temuera Morrison’s Commander Cody, via a long-distance hologram call. While Cody and the other clone troopers were once the allies of Jedi, they soon betray them after getting Order 66 from Sidious.

Order 66 is a fairly important moment in the film, one that producer Rick McCallum called a “turning point” and “a great moment in the picture,” per the movie’s commentary track. However, it almost kicked off in a somewhat silly manner by featuring something of a Russian-nesting doll-like visual gag with the holograms. As visual effects supervisor John Knoll noted in the commentary track,

So originally, there was a whole question about should there be a hologram inside a hologram? Hologram of Cody with his hand out, should there be another little Palpatine there? And we did a version like that and then George decided, no, it’d be better if it didn’t re-transmit.

To show you what we’re talking about, here’s a visualization we mocked up of how the scene almost looked, according to Knoll’s description.

After that initial scene of Sidious giving the order to Cody commences, we are treated to a montage of clone troopers on various planets shooting down different Jedi who are caught completely unaware they’ve been betrayed.

It all culminates in Anakin’s famous scene of massacring younglings, which we don’t see directly, but mostly ascertain through the build-up and aftermath via security hologram footage.

Lucas explained that while the scene was extremely harrowing, it was necessary to include for Anakin’s character development, and ultimate turn to the dark side.

The thing with the kids was very necessary to establish how far down the road he’d come to do something this brutal and barbaric. And it had to be in there but I definitely didn’t want to show it.

Lucas added that the scene in question was intercut with that of Natalie Portman’s Pé worrying about her love, Anakin, just as we are seeing him “where he’s at his very worst.”

That juxtaposition works quite well ‘cause it reflects as much on the slaughter of the children as it does on her concern about him. Even though she doesn’t know that the children are being slaughtered. But it gives you this very strong emotional connection when those two sequences are pushed up against each other.

By the way, there’s a lot of speculation online that McGregor could not contain his laughter — and so covered his mouth with his hand — after uttering Lucas’ arguably stiffly written dialogue and having to say, “killing younglings” to Pé, when he later explains the situation to her, as Looper pointed out, but we digress.

After many of the Jedi are killed, there’s also a scene where Yoda can feel the disturbance in the Force caused by this and he clutches his heart briefly and almost loses his balance. That was a scene McCallum called “a very powerful moment.”

Further on in the movie, Emperor Palpatine, aka Darth Sidious, makes a grandiose speech at the Senate which is when the democratic union of the Galactic Republic officially dissolves and the authoritarian Galactic Empire is born to take its place. This “birth” scene intercut with another scene of Anakin slaying Nute Gunray and other of the Separatist Council on Mustafar — by Sidious’ order — was Lucas’ nod to Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather.

This is where, in The Godfather, he’s doing the christening of the baby and at the same time killing all of his enemies. And that’s kind of what’s going on here … is the Emperor is declaring the Empire at the same time he’s wiping out the last of his allies, really. It’s contrasting those two events against each other.

Although many Jedi died as a result of Order 66, not all of them did. For instance, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda would later appear in episodes IV-VI, aka the original Star Wars trilogy, so we know they survived, among others. As we know from an appearance by Rosario Dawson in The Mandalorian, Jedi Ahsoka Tano, Anakin’s former apprentice, also survived Order 66.

In of the clone troopers’ compliance with the Order 66 Protocol, that was actually baked into the mass manufacturing process for them using a chip. As Wookiepedia explained,

All clones were given a behavioral modification biochip that could be activated by remote order via voice command […] The biochip, when activated, would ensure total obedience in a clone, erasing existing biases and beliefs and instilling absolute loyalty to Palpatine.

Lucas also said on the commentary track that though Star Wars was written a long time ago, “it was based on history” and was always “reasonably political,” but that Revenge of the Sith is just a film that stands out even more in that regard.

In fact, although the samurai of feudal Japan are often pointed to as a major influence for the Jedi, the medieval Knights Templar of the west may have also been a major inspiration, according to History. In fact, there was even a mass execution of the knights commissioned by the King of at one point that largely resembled Order 66. The article explained,

Much like the Great Jedi Purge ordered by Chancellor Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith, ’s King Philip IV annihilated the Knights Templar after arresting hundreds of them on October 13, 1307, and subsequently torturing and executing them for heresy.

There’s also a long-running fan theory that the name of Order 66 intentionally resembles the U.S. Executive Order 9066, which is an executive order that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made after the Pearl Harbor bombing in World War II. The directive ordered the mass incarceration of Japanese-Americans into internment camps based solely on ethnic heritage. This connection was proposed by the Reddit u/misterbristles on the r/StarWars subreddit, among other fan theory sites.

“[I]t doesn’t have that much in common with Order 66 apart from the title, but, I dunno, I just kinda have this odd feeling about it,” the fan wrote, citing other connections Lucas has explicitly made about Star Wars and WWII.

We didn’t talk about it in much detail here because we didn’t want to spoil it for you, but the Disney Plus show Obi-Wan Kenobi has even more revelations about Order 66 that are quite interesting. We definitely recommend checking out the show if you’re a Revenge of the Sith fan.

Editor’s note: a previous version of this article incorrectly summarized one of the plot points from Revenge of the Sith. It has been corrected.