Over the past few months, we've been slowly looking through our old Star Wars Insider magazines for prequel news and references to Jar Jar Binks/Ahmed Best. In Issue 34 (Summer 1997), we found what is probably the first reference to Best in the Insider.

There's no way to know what part he'd be playing or that the character would be such an important one in the field of motion capture technology, but his name is listed in the "Other Actors" box on the side. As Han Solo famously said in A New Hope: "It's not much, you guys, but hey, it's something and it's worth noting! As we get closer to the release of the film, there's almost certainly going to be more and more information about Jar Jar."

We've included the entire casting announcement here for your reading pleasure. It's interesting to note that this article lists the original names of Liam Neeson and Natalie Portman's characters. Neeson's character was originally named "Jedi Master" and Portman was "Young Queen." Obviously these names would be changed in a future draft to Qui-Gon Jinn and Padmé Amidala, respectively. Nobody knows why, but perhaps the original names were a little too on the nose.