Interview with J.C. Reifenberg
We spoke with filmmaker, and Jar Jar Binks aficionado, J.C. Reifenberg for Heyblabber podcast. Below is the transcript of that interview.
Michael: So, today I'm here speaking with J.C. Reifenberg. J.C. is a filmmaker, editor, one of the owners of the Scum and Villainy Cantina in Los Angeles, Star Wars trivia expert, as certified on The Rosie O'Donnell Show, and Jar Jar Binks aficionado. So, welcome to Heyblabber Podcast, J.C.
J.C. Reifenberg: Oh my gosh, you know what's so exciting about this? I feel like we started connecting when I discovered International Talk Like Jar Jar Binks Day, like, years and years ago, but we've never actually talked except via DM. So, this is exciting to share this stage with somebody else who has pioneered the Jar Jar love.
Michael: Yeah, and I feel like you discovered it pretty early on. I feel like, maybe right after the first International Talk Like Jar Jar Binks Day, you like, tweeted something like "This is the best account ever," or something like that. So, you know, we've been exchanging messages back and forth since that point.
J.C. Reifenberg: What's wild about it, though, is when you started that, what was it, like, 2017 or 2018? Something like that?
Michael: So, it was 2016, and this year is actually gonna be the 10th celebration— Not 10 years, but the 10th celebration. So yeah, 2016.
J.C. Reifenberg: So, if you think back to 2016, I mean, I feel like today, like, I have Jar Jar shirts that I bought at BoxLunch. I'm wearing a Jar Jar hat that somebody bought me at Disneyland. Jar Jar has a Black Series figure. I feel as if, I mean, I was at Star Wars Celebration Chicago, I think that's the one, where Ahmed Best came out to like thunderous applause. Where, like, in 2016, Jar Jar was a pariah; nobody was on Team Jar Jar at that point. And I have to say, I feel like the start of the Jar Jar love and bringing Kelleran Beq into the canon of the Mandalorian, I feel like all of that started with… I bet you, you can trace a line back to International Talk Like Jar Jar Binks Day, if you did some internet sleuthing.
Michael: While I would love to be able to take some credit for that, I feel like International Talk Like Jar Jar Binks Day still doesn't have that much of a reach, but it would be nice if there was something to that. I do know that there's a lot of the fans that are the people who were children when The Phantom Menace came out, probably are a big part of that turning of the opinion of Jar Jar. They maybe didn't have the same feelings that people of our generation did, but I am…
J.C. Reifenberg: I know this is your podcast, but can I ask a question?
Michael: Absolutely.
J.C. Reifenberg: How did you— Again, I'm just going to dub you the pioneer of Jar Jar love, where did you come up with that? Like, how did that even… How did you wake up one day and you're like, "This character gets dumped on all the time and I love him." How did that even come to be?
Michael: I feel like there's a number of things that went into it, but it actually was me kind of waking up in the middle of the night, I don't remember why, but I kind of… I was trying to think of something… I used to do a bunch of, like, web development on the side, and I had some freelance work that I did outside of my main day job. And around that time, some of that work was drying up and I was just trying to think of something that I could do that could keep my skills sharp, or allow me to learn new things. I was like, I need some sort of project to base it around, I don't want to just do, like, some test thing. So, I was like, what if I make a website for something? And then it kind of was like, well, what if I make a website for a holiday? What kind of holiday could I create? I knew that around that time, there was like, and it's still around now, there's like the Talk Like a Pirate Day, I think there was, like, a Talk Like a Farmer Day. And I was like, well, pirates, I never had any connection with pirates, that's not something I was really into as a kid. But what I do like is Star Wars, and I was like, well, there's a character in Star Wars who has kind of a distinctive way of speaking and it's also not that difficult, it's not like Ewokese where it's a completely separate language. So, I kind of woke up one day and I was like, what if I create a Talk Like Jar Jar Binks Day? And then I was like, that's a really good idea, and I got real excited and I just got out of bed, like, it was the middle of the night, and I just like went, I registered the domain. When I realized, because I think it was in July, so I was like, well, what day would make sense for this to be? And then I looked, and I was like, Ahmed Best's birthday is August 19th, which is less than a month away. I was like, that makes sense, it's coming up. So, I jumped on it. So, there really wasn't that much time between when I had the idea and the first International Talk Like Jar Jar Binks Day happened.
J.C. Reifenberg: Can I ask… And again, I'm just so nerdy about this. Did you love Jar Jar and then create the holiday, or did the holiday lead to a love of Jar Jar?
Michael: I would say it's a little of both. But I'd say the holiday absolutely has increased my love of Jar Jar. Like, I would say… We're of a similar age, I think you're maybe a year or two younger than me.
J.C. Reifenberg: I'm 44.
Michael: Okay, so I just turned 46. So, I was in college when The Phantom Menace came out, so I went and saw it and I think I was fine with Jar Jar. I understood the character for what it was, which was a character for children and, you know, if you look into George's quotes, it seemed like it was even almost specifically for his youngest child who would have been, you know, probably…
J.C. Reifenberg: Jett was born in ’93. So, Jett would have been like, 6.
Michael: 6 at that time. And yeah, if you look at quotes from George, it seem to indicate, like, some of the words, maybe even the name "Jar Jar" possibly came from Jett.
J.C. Reifenberg: Gungan. "Gungan," was Jett's name for big trucks that they would drive by on the highway.
Michael: Is that true?
J.C. Reifenberg: It's… He told me that. Jett told me that. So yeah.
Michael: That's awesome. I would love to know the origin of, like, every other single Gungan word. I really want to know "Heyblibber," like, where did that come from? That's one of the mysteries that I hope to solve someday. But yeah, I would say I was okay with the character. I didn't dislike him, certainly, but I liked Jar Jar enough. But then when I saw the backlash, then specifically I started identifying with the character more. Like, I definitely don't like how his role got smaller and smaller as the movies progressed, seemingly at the reaction from the fans. So, that made me identify with him a little more. And then, I definitely wanted to know more. I was always happy when he showed up in the Clone Wars. And in between the movie coming out and creating the holiday, I definitely would throw in an occasional "Mesa" or "Yousa" when I would just be talking to my friends, or my wife, which they usually liked a lot.
J.C. Reifenberg: I would travel for work all the time and I would always go, "Wesa going hoooome!" at the end of a work trip. So, I get it.
Michael: And did that get a…
J.C. Reifenberg: A good reaction?
Michael: Eye rolls?
J.C. Reifenberg: No, it did not.
Michael: But yeah, definitely doing the holiday and then spending so much time thinking about the character and, you know, I put together that Gungan translator, and I put all the quotes of Jar Jar, and I basically, I think, found anything in canon or old canon that exists with Jar Jar. So, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the character and my love has definitely grown because of the holiday as well. To go back to your question.
J.C. Reifenberg: I love that. I have a pretty long tale as a Star Wars fan and you always get the like, "Who shot first?" or those types of things. And at a certain point, I think right around the time Disney bought it, Star Wars became kind of ubiquitous with everything. When we were growing up, if you saw somebody wearing a Star Wars shirt, you were like, "Oh my god, you know about Star Wars?" And they were your best friend. Now, you see somebody wearing a Star Wars shirt and it's like, "Oh, you got out of bed this morning and you fell into a Star Wars shirt." So, in my quest to discover and show my fandom, right? Because everybody's fandom starts and ends with like, "I'm Han Solo, Captain of the Millennium Falcon," but usually they don't know that much of the quote. I was like, what is something that I can get into, like deep, that would signal the type of Star Wars fan I am? And that's when I started leaning into Jar Jar. The more I leaned into Jar Jar, at first it was almost, like, kind of ironic, the pathway to it. The more I leaned into it, the more I fell in love with the character because, like… Everybody's like "Jar Jar is for kids," and Jar Jar is definitely for kids, but I think what—and I've talked about this, I have another podcast I did years ago where I talked for an hour about why Jar Jar is the best character in Star Wars—and it's that character is, people like you and I who grew up loving Star Wars, got teased about it, right? Especially our age because we, like, came up during the dark times, you know? So, Jar Jar comes out and Jar Jar is just unapologetically himself. Like, he's not worried about what Boss Nass thinks of him or Obi-Wan or the Jedi or anybody. He just is who he is, he's trying to help. He's kind of like, you know, kid on the spectrum that kind of we all were or that ostracized person. I mean, literally like he's like, "Oh, I was banished," right? Like, we were all banished from the cool kids table at the lunchroom. It runs parallel to who we are. And then I was 18 when the movie came out, you know? At that point, I had been on The Rosie O'Donnell Show so I was, like, cool in school, even though, like, I wore Jedi robes every day. And at the point where you're cool, you don't want to be seen as vulnerable; you've earned that cool, you've put the armor on, and Jar Jar forces you to look in the mirror subconsciously and be like, "Oh, that's who I actually am. Even if I feel cool here," or whatever. And so, you rebel against that, and you lash out against that character, and you're like, "He's stupid, he sucks, he's this." And it's like, "No, dude. He's you." Like, he is the character that George created that is the reflection of the Star Wars fans who were born between 1979 and 1990, you know? The more I dug into it, the more I just fell in love with the character and see him as, like, the pure soul of that galaxy.
Michael: Absolutely.
J.C. Reifenberg: Which is special. It's special, you know? And like, yes, he steps in poop, I'm sorry. It's a quarter of a second in a two-hour movie. Get over it. There's much bigger issues at play in The Phantom Menace than Jar Jar stepping in poop.
Michael: Yeah, and you can definitely… I mean, I think the Clone Wars really does it well too, expanding the character also, but you can really see that, like, pure, good-hearted, just wanting to help his friends in those episodes, you know, maybe even more so than in The Phantom Menace or the other prequels. I also sometimes wonder, like, if he was a Clone Wars-only character, would there be such a backlash to him? Is it just the fact that he's in the live action and people just see him as too goofy, too cartoony, and they can't accept it?
J.C. Reifenberg: Probably, but I mean like, I don't know. You know, like, he's too cartoony? Like, Admiral Ackbar, a giant squid wearing a white turtleneck, like, come on. It's just people's age. People were just too cynical when that movie came out, I think.
Michael: All right, this is a sidetrack only because you mentioned Admiral Ackbar, and this came up at dinner recently when we were having calamari. I think my wife asked, "What does ‘Mon’ mean? Why is there Mon Mothma and also Mon Calamari?" And I said, I think this is a situation where George Lucas wanted to use the name Mon, and then maybe he forgot that he gave it to both things and then they just end up both ending up in the movie. But I don't know. Have you ever considered that?
J.C. Reifenberg: I think I talked about this… God, where did I just talk about this? I just talked about this on another podcast.
Michael: Oh no.
J.C. Reifenberg: May have been Fat Man Beyond, in that, Mon… Or maybe, what was I…? No, it wasn't. I play baseball now, and one of my baseball teammates was asking me about Mon, and like, is it a name or is it a title? Because in Andor, they definitely treat Mon as Mon Mothma's name. I don't think that's what they originally intended that to be. It would have been like, Mothma was the name and Mon was the title. But Mon Calamari is a species. So, it's not like, Mon Admiral Mon Ackbar. I don't, maybe it's just a homonym, where the word sounds the same… I don't know.
Michael: I mean, maybe in universe. I really think George Lucas just wanted to use ‘Mon’ for something and then somehow both ended up in the movie.
J.C. Reifenberg: Probably.
Michael: It's kind of like, with Wedge Antilles and Captain Antilles, I know that it's Captain Colton in the novelization and it's Wedge Antilles, and I just think, somehow, Antilles made it to the screen, and they still had Wedge in there, and he ended up with the same last name. But anyway, that's a digression.
J.C. Reifenberg: But then you get the great retcons where it's like, "Yeah, Antilles. It's like the Smith last name of the Star Wars universe," you know?
Michael: Right, and droids are like toasters, so there's no way that Obi-Wan would recognize R2, 20 years later. So, there you go. But sorry, I think you're right.
J.C. Reifenberg: How awesome is it that's dinner conversation now. "Is Mon a… hmm?"
Michael: Yep. Why are they both Mon? But I think I cut you off.
J.C. Reifenberg: Oh, I don't know. I just rant on Jar Jar all the time. It's one of my favorite things. It's one of my favorite things. Obviously not as much now because I have two kids, but I used to be down at the bar all the time and people would ask me about Star Wars this or Star Wars that and eventually, always, there's a garbage comment comes up about Jar Jar, and I was like, "Well, you know that Jar Jar is the best character in Star Wars." And I would say, after I gave my speech about Jar Jar that I would convert about 60 or 70% of people and they go, "Ah, I should probably go rewatch that." Actually, in 2017, when I was really getting behind Jar Jar, after a screening of The Last Jedi at the Chinese Theater in the El Cap, Matt Wood, Star Wars sound designer, was down in the bar and I was standing at the bar and I was talking to him a little bit about Last Jedi, and I mentioned my Jar Jar theory, because I'm also writing a prequel series for Jar Jar.
Michael: Are you?
J.C. Reifenberg: Which I can go into a little bit. But anyway, I took him through this whole thing. I wanted to make a documentary on Jar Jar and it was… I wanted it to be a four, kind of, silo documentary. One of it is, which I still want to do, make the most realistic Jar Jar Binks cosplay that's ever existed. Like, I have, I'm in my office right now, but I'll show you. People at home are bored, but I have a life-sized Jar Jar in my office. I want to make the most realistic Jar Jar Binks cosplay ever. That was going to be part of it, was just documenting me making that cosplay. Another part of it was gonna be a 20-minute animated movie that's a Jar Jar prequel that explains kind of why Jar Jar got banished from Otoh Gunga. It goes deep in like, it kind of starts like Point Break, if you're familiar with it, where Jar Jar is going through the trials to join the Otoh Gunga city police special forces and he's, like, doing flips and just crushing all the targets and missing the human target, or the good guy targets on the training course. And Captain Tarpals at that point isn't head of the military, he's head of the Otoh Gunga City Police Force, and Jar Jar scores 100%. And he's then out celebrating with his classmates, and he gets a phone call that the love of his life, his fiancée, who is a biologist, was killed on an expedition to the Planet Core. And then, it makes Jar Jar spiral, and he drops out of the police force, and he goes and lives above the swamp in exile and just, like, sucks on poison frogs to ease the pain of loss that he's felt. His voice at the beginning of the cartoon is more like mine, but the more he does the poison frog drugs, the higher and higher he gets. So, his voice [high-pitched Jar Jar voice] isn't actually up here, [returns to regular voice pitch] it's down here, but it's a result of drug abuse. And then, what happens is there is a prominent member of the Naboo royal family whose child has been kidnapped, and they've blamed the Gungans for the kidnapping. And so, Captain Tarpals leaves Otoh Gunga City and goes (this is like a year later), finds Jar Jar in his, like, above the swamp hole, just an absolute mess, and he's like, "Clean yourself up, I need you." And Tarpals and Jar Jar go on, like, a buddy cop quest through Naboo to discover the source of where the Naboo child was kidnapped and rescue the child. What they end up finding out is throughout the course of their adventure, he crashes the boss's heyblibber, he floods the Otoh Gunga City Zoo as they're chasing this nemesis who stole the child. They end up rescuing the child and returning it to the Naboo, but that's what stokes the race relations that you see in Episode I between the Gungans and the Naboo humans. And because of the chaos that has ensued, they need a fall guy, and Jar Jar, who has now cleaned himself up, volunteers to be the fall guy for the Gungans so that the Gungans can continue living peacefully because he feels as if his life is null and void anyway. And then, he goes back out. He was never actually banished. He was a hero who took on the burden, almost like Batman at the end of Dark Knight, to save the reputation of the city. And then after the credits roll on the cartoon, you find out that Palpatine is the one who orchestrated the theft of the baby, and part of his plan, this is, you know, 18 years before The Phantom Menace, this was the first thing in his plan to stoke a race war between the Gungans and the Naboo, because he knew if the Gungans and the Naboo ever came together, that the force would be too powerful for the Trade Federation to overcome. That's how it ties into canon. So, that was the second part of the story. I've written, like, five pages of the 20. That was the second part of the story. Then I wanted to do, once I had the costume built, I wanted to do a part of the documentary where it's Jar Jar on a therapist's couch talking through all of the garbage he took from fans and stuff. And then at the end of that, the therapist, who's been listening to him the whole time, is Ahmed Best. So, it's Jar Jar talking to himself, working through this thing. The fourth part of it was examining, from a psychological perspective, why the hate for Jar Jar? With the thesis that it comes from a place of insecurity in people like your age and my age, and handing that down to our younger siblings and our kids being like, "Jar Jar sucks. You shouldn't like Jar Jar," because they love Jar Jar right up until an older person tells them that they don't, and just kind of exploring that through, like, man-on-the-street interviews and talking to real psychologists and psychiatrists. So, that was this big two-hour thing that I had planned. Anyway, this story is so long. But that, I pitched to Matt Wood at the bar one night, and he was so taken by it. He was just like, "Let me know if you ever get that off the ground because I want to be involved." I forgot the point of that story. When people think about Jar Jar, they don't hate him as much anymore.
Michael: I agree. And that is all fascinating. So, first of all, do you want me to keep all that in there? Because you said you're still working on it, right? This is something you, potentially, are going to still do. I don't want someone to steal your idea.
J.C. Reifenberg: I had the guy… There was a guy who did a really amazing, animated Star Wars short a couple of years ago that was "The Battle of Coruscant" from the Rogue Squadron novels. He used to come and hang out in the bar, and I was talking to him and his friend about doing the animation for it. But it's fine. Look, if anybody wants to steal that idea and bring that to fruition, they are more than welcome because I want to see it. But yeah, just leave it all in. I don’t think anybody’s going to do it.
Michael: It's a lot of work what you just described, so I imagine it would take some time. I feel like I remember you maybe going on the International Talk with Jar Jar Binks Day page and asking some questions. I feel like I had some sort of inkling that you were working on something, but I had no idea what it was or that it was that involved, and also four different parts. I mean, you have at least one person who absolutely would love to see any part of that. But all four, that would be great.
J.C. Reifenberg: I think, you know, the other thing I did that's wild with regards to Jar Jar is right before the pandemic started, my friends and I were going to do a Star Wars role-playing game. And I've never played a role-playing game. Like, I'm not a very good theater of the mind-type person. Like, I played the Decipher Star Wars CCG game, and I loved it, but it has very strict rules, and turn-based and things like that. My character in this RPG was gonna be a Gungan archeologist. So, to prepare for my character, I went deep for, like, hours and hours. Have you ever played the, I guess there was a Gungan-based game, computer game that came out in…?
Michael: Gungan Frontiers?
J.C. Reifenberg: Yeah!
Michael: I never played it. Unfortunately, I think at the time it came out, I just wasn't really… I either wasn't aware of it. I mean, it sounds like something I might've played even as a 19-year-old, you know, it's some sort of strategy game. But then I definitely learned about it after I started doing the website, and now it's like…
J.C. Reifenberg: Have you gone into the history that that had? The history of Gungan, like the Gungans and stuff?
Michael: I'm sure I probably looked at whatever was online, but I don't know how much of the game is captured. Unfortunately, I've never been able to find, like, an emulator, and I assume any computer now, it won't run.
J.C. Reifenberg: I never played it, but I went deep into like the lore that was created for the game of, like, it was a Gungan Civil War and all this stuff. There's crazy backstory to the Gungans and Naboo that's just awesome. So, I highly recommend, like, taking a deep dive on Wookiepedia through, like, the history of the Gungans and stuff. Oh, it's so wonderful. Anyway, I researched all of that for my Gungan archaeologist character that I never got to play with.
Michael: I'm sure it would come in handy for your movie as well. I used to have, like, I might even still have it, a Windows XP machine just hanging around. I wonder if I could get a copy of that game and actually get it running on it because it's a big piece of Gungan history that I feel like I should know. I should be able to play. I keep hoping that someday it's going to come on Steam, but you know, the Gungan and the Jar Jar of it all still might be a hurdle for whoever to port it to something nowadays.
J.C. Reifenberg: You're New Jersey-based, right?
Michael: Correct.
J.C. Reifenberg: If we ever open a Scum and Villainy in New York, we need to dedicate a small section of it to the Jar Jar Museum. We have to, we have to.
Michael: I agree. That sounds great. I do joke about the theoretical Jar Jar Binks Museum that I'm going to start when I retire someday. If there was an actual thing, part of Scum and Villainy, New York, that would be great. So yeah, you mentioned the statue. I was going to ask about the statue. How did you acquire that? You've had it for quite a few years now, right?
J.C. Reifenberg: Yeah, I got it… I think I bought it… I’m 44. I think I bought it on my 39th birthday, right around my 39th birthday. And obviously, my love of Jar Jar is, I wear it like a badge on my shoulder. Everybody knows that I love Jar Jar; people send me stuff in the mail, like, Jar Jar stuff in the mail. Like, the Black Series Jar Jar figures, somebody sent me two of them. They're like, "Just so you have one in the package and one to open." So, there was some guy a few towns over who had this giant Star Wars room and was selling off a bunch of his stuff. And the Jar Jar never made it in the room; it was still in the box. One of my friends found it on Craigslist, still in the box, life-size Jar Jar Binks, 1,500 bucks, and I was like, oh, I’ve got to go see it at least. And so, literally, I went there, I gave the guy $1,500 cash, I loaded it in the back of my car and drove it home. My favorite story about it, it's in my office now, which, like, we have a separate garage on the house, which I reno’d and turned into my office-man cave. But for years, Jar Jar was in our dining room because there was no other place to put it. And when my daughter was born, one of her first words was "Jar Jar" because this giant thing was basically eating dinner with us every night. And I don't know when it was, it must have been, like, my daughter was 2 or 3 when I finally got Jar Jar out of the dining room and into my office, and my daughter came out and was like, "Where'd Jar Jar go?" And I was like, "Oh, Mom wanted me to move him to the office." And she goes, "He's a member of our family, no." Which, you know, how awesome is that?
Michael: That's great.
J.C. Reifenberg: So yeah, it's one of my favorite things.
Michael: So, is your daughter, I assume she's seen the movies, or no?
J.C. Reifenberg: No. So, she's only seen Return of the Jedi because we had an extra ticket to go see it at the Hollywood Bowl. They'd play the movie, and then have a live orchestra with the movie. We brought her to that when she was tiny. Again, she was 2, I didn't even think she'd remember the movie, but I saw Return of the Jedi in the theater when I was 2, and we dragged her along, and she was so into it. And she recognized, like, R2 and C3PO, and was asking all these questions. But she is not… We watched some of those Young Jedi Adventures a little bit, but sadly, she is more of a Spider-Man kid than a Star Wars kid. I think she humors me in liking Star Wars, or uses it to manipulate me when she wants something, where she's like, "Dad, let's watch Star Wars… and ice cream." [laughs]
Michael: Yeah, we tried and tried. My wife's a big Star Wars fan too, but like, it's never really stuck. They humor us, they've gone to see any Star Wars movie that's come out since they've been born with us, but I don't think we've ever been able to get any of them into it. It's a little rebellion, I guess.
J.C. Reifenberg: My daughter has a healthy respect for it, but is not interested so much. It's been wild. We had Ahmed Best during the pandemic, we did a podcast… Was it the pandemic? Right before the pandemic, we did a podcast in the bar and Ahmed Best was a guest on one of the podcasts we did. But I had a migraine headache at the time and so I didn't have a chance to, like, talk to him because I was all out of sorts which was a big regret.
Michael: Yeah, that was going to be my question because I remember, I think it was, if we're talking about the same time, I think maybe, I remember you did, like, the first and maybe the second years of the pandemic, you did like, a May 4th thing in the bar. You had, like, 24 hours-worth of programming and in certain cases, you know, sometimes it was a documentary or something like that, and sometimes it was something like that. I think maybe it was the second year that you did it.
J.C. Reifenberg: No, it was the first year. The first year we did it in May the 4th, 2020. Yeah, and I hosted 24 straight hours of Star Wars content on our YouTube and our Facebook. And like, in the middle of the night, like, we played through Super Star Wars again and streamed that. And then we did a New Hope rewatch and an Empire Strikes Back rewatch because it was the 40th anniversary of Empire. So, like, Kevin Smith and Marc Bernardin did an Empire rewatch there. And then, one of the primetime things was we had an Episode I retrospective panel that Kyle Newman and Clare Grant and Sam Witwer and Jen Murro, who wrote for Star Wars: Forces of Destiny and also, like, Marvel's Secret Wars recently, and Dan Logan was supposed to be on, but he didn't show up, and the ultimate was Ahmed. Ahmed Best was on the panel, and he just took over the whole panel and talked about what it was like working with George in, like, 1997 and ‘98 when they were filming it. You could just watch everybody else on the panel just shut up and, like, Sam just became the de facto like, "Oh my God, and what was this like?" Like, you watched like Darth Maul become like the biggest fan boy in the world listening to Ahmed talk about making that movie. It's still on YouTube, you can still go watch it. It's wonderful.
Michael: Yeah, that was going to be my question. I definitely… I'm sure I watched it at the time because, you know, what else was there to do at that time? But also, obviously, Ahmed Best. I feel like I maybe even asked you, like, did you get to interact with him? And I feel like there was something where you're like, "No, I didn't because of this reason." I thought you were doing something else, but the migraine.
J.C. Reifenberg: Well, the migraine… So, Ahmed was on Zoom at that point. We had had him in the bar, a guy named Stephen Glickman was doing his Night Time Show podcast from the bar on location. I think it was like, May 25th, 2019, for Star Wars' birthday, and he had Ahmed come in, and that, I was sick then. So, I was lying on a bench, like just completely out of it, and that was my chance to, like, hang out and talk to Ahmed, and it didn't happen, sadly.
Michael: And nothing since?
J.C. Reifenberg: Nothing since. It's interesting though, I feel like I'm one degree of separation from him through a bunch of friends I have now. So, I'm going to try, maybe the next time, like, Kevin's not on Fat Man Beyond, I'll see if Mark wants to book Ahmed and see if he'll come on and talk about stuff. You know when it was? It was right as Ahmed was starting his podcast, and he was talking about that.
Michael: Afrofuturist.
J.C. Reifenberg: Afrofuturist, yeah. So yeah, it was awesome though. I've been a very fortunate, blessed Star Wars fan in my day. I've gotten to do a lot of really cool stuff.
Michael: So, I was going to ask, because you mentioned the third segment in your movie was going to end up being Ahmed Best being the therapist. So, I was curious if you had spoken to him about that, but you haven't.
J.C. Reifenberg: I haven’t.
Michael: You haven’t gotten his commitment yet, but it sounds like it's time to do that too.
J.C. Reifenberg: Yeah, I haven't. I feel like I need to write the most incredible script possible and present it to him in a way so that he can really believe in it, in a way that makes him want to do it, that it's not just like, "Hey, wouldn't this be fun or funny or a gag?" I want it to be legit. Actual, you know, do the research, work with licensed people to make the conversation very poignant and real. So yeah, as soon as I have that script, I'll get it out to him. I'm confident I can do that. He may be over it; he may be like, "Look, I'm not going there." But you know, I thought it would be fun. Hey, what do you think of Darth Jar Jar? Are you a Darth Jar Jar fan or not?
Michael: So, that's a question I was going to ask you.
J.C. Reifenberg: Okay, ask me first, and then I'll—
Michael: No, I'll give my answer, which, I think we might have similar answers. First of all, I don't believe that it was ever George's intention for him to be an evil character. I don't necessarily like the idea of an evil Jar Jar. I think, as we discussed, he's like, a pure character.
J.C. Reifenberg: He’s like the moral compass of the galaxy.
Michael: Yeah. On the other hand, I do like the fact that it is giving Jar Jar attention. So, I can't be totally against it. Like, they had that LEGO Star Wars last year where Darth Jar Jar appears in it, which was funny. I don't know, did you see that?
J.C. Reifenberg: I think he's in Fortnite, too. I didn't see the— No, no. You're more accepting of it than I am.
Michael: Of Darth Jar Jar?
J.C. Reifenberg: Yeah, I really don't like Darth Jar Jar. I think that it is blasphemous, is the nicest word I can use to describe it, in the corruption of, it runs completely contrary to the intent and everything that makes that character wonderful, is destroyed by the Darth Jar Jar concept. I mean, I guess it's creative. I guess it's some guy like us's ability to make Jar Jar more socially acceptable. So, in that way, like, I guess I respect the guy who's trying to do it. But you know, I just can't do it. Like, for me (and I know I'm going to get in trouble for saying this), but it's like pineapple on pizza. You know what I mean? Like, it's that level of like debate on like, "Does pineapple belong on pizza or is it abhorrent?" I actually don't care about pineapple on pizza, but it's like that level for me, where I'm like, "No, you can't. No." If you're going to make Jar Jar more cool or sympathetic, write an insanely crazy backstory like I did about how he's actually this tragic character that lost the love of his life and has sacrificed everything for his people. So yeah, no, I'm not behind it.
Michael: I gotcha. I mean, the LEGO thing is not canon, it's clearly not supposed to be canon. I don't have a problem with watching it. I definitely would not like it if it became a real thing. Like, I don't think it was George's intention. It's unfortunate that, you know, he doesn't do very many interviews these days. I've never seen anybody ask him about that. I would like to see what he said.
J.C. Reifenberg: Like to know.
Michael: I would like to, I'd just like to know what he would say. I mean, I've said, I feel like there's a chance he could be like, "Yeah, that was always the intention," just like, leading the interviewer on, and then you would never know.
J.C. Reifenberg: I also… Are you reading books now? Do you read the Star Wars books now or no? Did you read them back then?
Michael: So, I read most of the Expanded Universe, or at least, like, the post Return of the Jedi, because that was the era I was most interested in. I think I probably read some of the prequel stuff, but I read most of it. I remember it was like, there was one book left in the series that they were releasing at the time when Disney bought Lucasfilm, and I never bothered reading that last one. I was like, "None of this is going to matter anymore. They're going to reset it all."
J.C. Reifenberg: Read the Disney era stuff. And I'm getting to the point of like, did you read whatever it was, Lost Stars, or whatever that thing was that made Jar Jar, like, a pathetic clown?
Michael: I haven't read that book, but I read that section, and I hate it so much. I'm like, that is not what Jar Jar sounds like, that's not how Jar Jar would speak. I don't know if that author has seen The Phantom Menace or anything with Jar Jar, or is just, like, basing it off of some stereotype they think Jar Jar is, but I don't like it. I assume you don't like it, either.
J.C. Reifenberg: I haven't read the book either, but I read the excerpt stuff and, like, talk about punching down. There's nothing even creative. At least Jar Jar as a Sith, that was creative, and they found evidence to put all of this stuff together and weave this thing. Jar Jar is like an out-of-work performer who's like miserable and like— Give me a break. What is the least creative thing that we could do that, like, punches down and completely humiliates this character, even more so than what society has already deemed for him? Yeah, at that point, I was like, "Oh no, I can't do the Disney era Expanded Universe stuff anymore. I'm done. I'm not even going to walk down that path."
Michael: Yeah, I don't like it, and I hope that something comes out to contradict that, either just ignores it completely or says, you know, that wasn't actually Jar Jar. Because I think, in the book, it never actually calls him Jar Jar. So, there's this slight chance that, you know, maybe it's an impostor, whatever. But I mean, all the things that he says definitely lead you to think it's Jar Jar. I don't remember, but it implies that he helped bring about the Empire. I know I came across some quote from George Lucas, and it was like on MTV, and somebody asked, "Oh, what happens to Jar Jar after A New Hope?" And he says, you know, "He's one of those senators who gets sent home when the Senate gets disbanded. He's probably just with his wife and kids." And I'm like, that's something I can accept better. I always try and say, what if he's one of the members of the Rebellion? What if he's also a senator who's, and I was kinda hoping maybe he would show up in Andor, but no such luck. Like, him also being one of the secret leaders of the Rebellion.
J.C. Reifenberg: Yeah, give him, like, a hero's journey. Let him be that guy. Star Wars is all about redemption, right? Give him his redemption. Lando gets redemption, Han gets redemption, Vader gets redemption. Kylo Ren gets redemption. Why not Jar Jar?
Michael: I mean, I was thinking about that. Like, of all the major characters you have in the prequels, Jar Jar is like, the only one we don't know what happens to him, right? Everybody else, we either see or we know, you know, Bail Organa gets blown up off-screen, but we know what happens to him. But Jar Jar is like, certainly in The Phantom Menace, like the fifth, sixth most important character in that movie, and you know, then he's just gone in after Revenge of the Sith, what happens to him? We should have been able to find out.
J.C. Reifenberg: Yeah, he's at Padmé's funeral, right?
Michael: He is at Padmé's funeral. That's the last time we see him. He doesn't have any sort of line there. I think he was one of, in those cut scenes, like the, what was it? The coalition of 200, or the delegation of 200? I think he might have been one of them. I don't know if he has any lines. But as it stands, the only thing he says in Revenge of the Sith is "Ex-squeeze me," I think, or maybe just "Excuse me," and that's it. Very sad.
J.C. Reifenberg: That's too bad.
Michael: Your license plates! I know you had a license plate, Bombad. Do you still have that?
J.C. Reifenberg: I do, although it's funny, I'm about to sell that car, and my wife was like, "You need to keep the Bombad plates." So, I have to switch the plates on the car before I sell it, like this month. So, I'm keeping the Bombad plates. There is a car in Southern California, I'm not going to call them out. I used to go to a restaurant right around Warner Brothers Studios, and whenever I parked there in my Bombad car, I would always park next to the California plate that was "Jar Jar."
Michael: Okay, yeah, I think you might've sent me a picture of it once.
J.C. Reifenberg: Yeah, it was so awesome.
Michael: Unfortunately, you couldn't get those plates yourself.
J.C. Reifenberg: The family car, I wanted to have the plates be "Okieday," but I never did it.
Michael: There's always the next car, perhaps.
J.C. Reifenberg: But yeah, I've always wanted vanity plates since I was a little kid. And I knew I wasn't going to get like THX 1138, although I've seen the California THX 1138 plate too, which is pretty cool. But yeah, I was trying to come up with something. I was like, "Oh! Bombad." It's like a black and red Dodge Challenger so Bombad works for it.
Michael: Have you seen any of Detours, either officially or unofficially? I feel like you might know people who...
J.C. Reifenberg: I have not seen anything unofficially. I wish I had. I feel as if, yeah, I could be one of the people that maybe would see that, but have not. The only stuff I've seen is the same stuff that everybody else has seen, which is like, the trailers and things like that.
Michael: On Reddit a couple years ago, there was a post which showed maybe like, 10 minutes, and there was several Jar Jar things in it. There was, like, one where Jar Jar, like, went on a date and he was like, "I can't believe I have a date with two people on the same night." You never saw that one? It was so brief. It was like, I think Disney must have gotten hold of it and shut it down. But that's, like, something which I guess we're probably never going to see, but I know there's Jar Jar content there, voiced by Ahmed Best, and I wish it would make its way out someday.
J.C. Reifenberg: Maybe if I find myself in a room with Seth Green again, I'll ask him for a rundown. Just tell me what it was. Tell me about the Jar Jar stuff.
Michael: Just the Jar Jar. That's mainly what we care about. All right, I'll let you go. Is there anything…? So, you have Scum and Villainy, people should go there if they're in the area, I assume.
J.C. Reifenberg: Yeah, I mean, I'd appreciate that.
Michael: You have the Star Wars Rebels rewatch podcast, Pod of the Rebellion. You are the trivia guy, fact-checker. Are you also editing or producing?
J.C. Reifenberg: Yeah, I produce and edit the show too.
Michael: Okay, I assumed.
J.C. Reifenberg: Which is awesome. It's really fun to be a part of it; everybody on the show is great. And it's fun to, like, every week I get to talk about some weird, esoteric Star Wars fact. Like, I have, you know, I got super, super into Star Wars when I was 8 or 9 years old. And, you know, so for 36 years, I've just been filling my head with useless information in almost every single circumstance. So, it's fun to be on a weekly podcast where every week, they'll say some weird thing and I'll be like, "Oh! Well, the ITO droid, like the hypodermic needle is because George Lucas is a type II diabetic, and I read that in a magazine article," in you know, whenever it was. It's fun to be able to have an outlet for all of the insanely useless knowledge that's full in my brain, you know, and talk about Star Wars.
Michael: Is there anything else you want to plug? People should go listen to that podcast, go to your restaurant/bar. Anything else? You're involved in a lot of stuff with Kevin Smith, right?
J.C. Reifenberg: Fat Man Beyond… I just worked on a movie called Paradise Records with Logic, the rapper. It just premiered at Tribeca last week. So, if you have a chance to see that, the movie is really fun. It has nothing to do with— I mean, there's like, one joke about Yoda in it, but not really about Star Wars at all, but something I worked on that I think is really cool. I got to have a dream come true working on that movie. Back in 2004, September 2004, I was on MTV's TRL doing Star Wars trivia, and I won a trivia contest to… The prize was going to Skywalker Ranch. So, I went to Skywalker Ranch in 2005, May 5, 2005, and saw Revenge of the Sith at the Stag Theater there, and afterwards bumped into George Lucas randomly and, like, got a hug from George Lucas. It was, like, the crowning achievement of my life, maybe, outside of/in parallel with the birth of both my daughters. [Michael chuckles] Last November, with this movie, Paradise Records, I went back to Skywalker, and I stayed at Skywalker, and we finished, we did all the mixing for the movie on the same soundstage at Skywalker Ranch that they did Rogue One in. And I stayed two nights there and just got to, like, get up and walk around the ranch, and they screened Paradise Records for us at the Stag Theater. It was 2004, and so it was almost 20 years from the point that I had first been in the Stag Theater and watched Revenge of the Sith and got to meet George, to I was then watching my name scroll up in the credits of a movie on that theater.
Michael: Wow, that’s awesome.
J.C. Reifenberg: It was pretty magic. It was pretty awesome. So, you know, there's the connection to Paradise Records. If you care about me, it is very connected to Skywalker Ranch and Star Wars.
Michael: And this is out now, available? Or is it coming out?
J.C. Reifenberg: It's not. I imagine it'll be available at some point this fall somewhere, but I am not privy on that. I worked in post-production on that, so I don't have to give the nitty-gritty on it.
Michael: So, what's the deal with Skywalker Ranch? Is it still owned by George Lucas? I feel like that was something that maybe he got to keep.
J.C. Reifenberg: Yes. So, Skywalker is owned by George and rented to Disney for Skywalker Sound and those types of things, yeah.
Michael: Still making some money.
J.C. Reifenberg: So, he's still making money off Disney, yeah.
Michael: Awesome. All right, that is great. Anything else you want to plug, mention? That's a bunch of stuff.
J.C. Reifenberg: Nah, I got some cool things in the works, but I can't talk about them yet.
Michael: Okay, all right. I appreciate it. Well, I'll let you go. Sorry for keeping you a little long. Again, I feel like we could talk for several more hours.
J.C. Reifenberg: Oh yeah, I'll come on again, I'll come on again.
Michael: Thank you for talking, and good luck with everything. Enjoy the 10th annual International Talk Like Jar Jar Binks Day. I hope you can celebrate in some way and don't have to work the whole day. Oh my gosh. We'll have to do something big at the bar for it, I feel like. Okay, all right. Thanks so much, J.C. Glad to finally get to talk to you. Thanks for being on the podcast.
J.C. Reifenberg: Yeah, awesome. Anytime.
Michael: All right, thanks.
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Transcribed by Aveline Malek at TheWordary.com