************************************************************** * * * CYBERSPACE * * A biweekly column on net culture appearing * * in the Toronto Sunday Sun * * * * Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer * * Free for online distribution * * All Rights Reserved * * Direct comments and questions to: * * * * * ************************************************************** I have a friend who went to see the new Star Wars picture on opening night. If /The Phantom Menace/ had been a better picture I might have been jealous. I ended up spending opening night in a jazz club in Chicago embarrassing myself. My friend takes /Star Wars/ seriously. He made his own Boba Fett costume. He hates Ewoks on principle. The principle being Ewoks were nothing more than an obvious attempt by George Lucas to sell plushy toys to kids too young to understand the power of myth subtext stuff Joseph Campbell (see www.jcf.org) yapped about on PBS. Ewoks are Teletubbies with spears. My friend, of course, hates the new Jar Jar Binks character. All true Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar, despite that the computer-animated character seems to be Lucas' pride and joy. Where Ewoks were an attempt to sell toys to kids, the Jar Jar creature (a member of the amphibian "Gungan" race) seems more of an attempt to sell Industrial Light and Magic's technology to other film makers. Each screen appearance of Jar Jar screams "Planning a Sci Fi film or corporate video? We at ILM can do this and more to make your next project a success!" All the hype built up by netizens prior to /The Phantom Menace/'s release seems to be channeled post-release into an all-out effort to vilify Jar Jar. It's like the outrage the English heaped on Queen Elizabeth following the death of Princess Di. The net hasn't seen such a massive outburst of vituperation since the days of the Green Card Lawyers (the famous duo who terrorized netizens with their email spams back in 1994). Netizens are bringing to bear the full and mighty power of the Internet to denounce and devise the demise of the miserable Gungan. Someone has started an anti-Jar Jar web ring. A good jumping off point for the web ring is the Die Jar Jar Binks, Die page at www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Heights/5927/jarjar.html. You'll notice a lot of colourful and violent anti-Jar Jar imagery at this site. Actually, pretty much every anti-Jar Jar site has images of the Gungan being blasted, hacked, burned, hung, run over by banthas, nailed in the proper Roman fashion to beams of wood, and/or in the cross hairs of a rifle scope. The Die Jar Jar page features a rather excellent graphic of Binks carved up like an Easter ham. Unlike the days when netizens used the ASCII-based net.news to gripe about the Green Card Lawyers, netizens are employing some sophisticated technology to vent their frustrations over Lucas' fumble. Photo editors, MP3 sounds files, and interactive Shockwave animations are being used to spread the message of Gungan hate. You'll find an MP3 song at www.getbot.com/jarjar titled, predictably, "Jar Jar Must Die". It's worth a cheap laugh and it's, mercifully, less than two minutes long. The pages at www.diediediejarjar.com and www.jarjarsucks.com feature several text-based and multi-media archives of anti-Jar Jar material. The Jar Jar Sucks page tries to give the pro-Jar Jar camp some equal time, however. Ah, balance. One Jar Jar lover notes he hated Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio but that's no reason to get all bent out of shape. Probably the ultimate expression of hate for the Gungan can be found at the Jar Jar Torture Engine (www.hecklers.com/jarjartorture/index.html). Using several exquisite tortures, based on Star Wars technology, you can punish Jar Jar for ruining the film two generations of techno-geeks have lived for. There, feel better now?