WMG / The Phantom Menace

Qui-Gon deliberately abandoned Shmi.

Why didn't Qui-Gon save Shmi alongside Anakin? The traditional way of treating Force-sensitive children was to take them away from their families and raise them in the Jedi Order, where they can't form any familial attachments. But Anakin already has such an attachment to his mother, and he's older than most new apprentices (which Yoda points out). So they solve that by leaving Shmi in slavery, so that young Anakin can convince himself that he'll never be able to see her again.

Qui-Gon was certainly capable of freeing Shmi. He was under no obligation to abide by the terms of his agreement with Watto, who wasn't likely to keep his own word. He's a law enforcement officer for a government that has outlawed slavery and can safely ignore a slave owner's claim to sapient chattel. And the implant in Shmi's body that would kill her if she tried to escape could probably be disabled with technology on Amidala's royal transport (which had already proven it could fly in stealth). And he could simply come back to Tattooine and just buy her straight up with money Watto can accept. But he doesn't do any of that. Instead, he keeps her in slavery as a way of ensuring that Anakin wouldn't insist that she accompany him to Coruscant, nor try to go back for her. It... wasn't a great idea.

Yoda knew Anakin would go to the Dark Side, but let him become a Jedi anyway.

Yoda openly points out the dangers of training Anakin. He's too old, he's afraid to lose his mother, and "fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering; that is the path to the Dark Side." The only reason he let Anakin become a Jedi was because he knew it was his destiny.

Darth Maul is Emperor Palpatine's clone.

Sidious was a patient man, but he was a Sith, and Sith by their very nature want to be Drunk on the Dark Side. He was itching to take out some Jedi, but he couldn't do that without revealing who he really is, so he creates a clone that would terrorize the Jedi. He adds super-cool makeup like horns and tattoos to sate his bloodlust. The Expanded Universe does point out that Palpatine and Maul are different species, but it could just be a disguise. The EU also shows that Palpatine has made lots of clones of himself. But Maul specifically was an embodiment of Palpatine's crazy side, given his dramatic appearance, his use of the double-lightsaber, and his expendability.

• Jossed. In canon, Maul is a Zabrak from Dathomir, born from Mother Talzin, a Dark Side user who hates Darth Sidous for stealing her son from her.

Midichlorians are a species of microscopic Mushi that allow manipulation of the Life Stream.

Really, with all the various Mushi running around granting Blessed with Suck superpowers to their hosts, it's pretty obvious.

There was no Darth Maul, at least not as we saw him.

Darth Maul, for all his show and bluster, had no impact on the events of Episode I other than killing Qui-Gon. And Obi-Wan was the only surviving witness of that fight. So the only way anyone would know what happened to Qui-Gon was Obi-Wan's word. Obi-Wan could lie about it, and no one would be the wiser.

Obi-Wan actually killed Qui-Gon himself, by order of the Jedi Council, as punishment for his disobedience — which was stated explicitly in the film. By Episode III, Obi-Wan is on the Jedi Council despite being noticeably younger than the other masters. Officially, it's because he's a prodigy and the war means the Jedi Council is short of hands, but it's really a reward for removing a thorn from their side. The Jedi Council attributed Qui-Gon's assassination to a scary-looking Sith Lord named "Darth Maul", and his appearances in Episode I are just unreliable narration. No one questions it because Palpatine is known to have burned through apprentices at a rate even Sith Lords couldn't dream of.

Now, there might actually have been a Darth Maul out there somewhere. He could have been one of Palpatine's innumerable expendable fall guys, whom the Jedi latched onto as a convenient scapegoat. He might even have launched a genuine attack on the Jedi in the Theed hangar, as Queen Amidala and her entourage (as well as Anakin) would all have seen him.

Now, for this to work, there are a few issues to address:

• Episode III is inaccurate in its claim that Obi-Wan learned the Force ghost technique from Qui-Gon. Yoda just taught it to Obi-Wan straight up. It can't be that hard; Vader learned it and used it in Episode VI, and who would have taught it to him?
• In the Expanded Universe, Maul left at least one reliable living witness: "In 0 BBY, Darth Vader encountered and defeated a clone or doppelgänger of Maul created by the Secret Order of the Empire, possibly under orders from Palpatine." Not even the real thing — a "clone or doppelgänger"? That smacks of a setup.
• If Maul is supposed to be a Sith Lord, shouldn't someone have spotted him before the events of Episode I? That's probably the biggest way the Jedi screwed up — by their telling (and by our "official" record), Maul was Palpatine's first apprentice, having been trained as such from birth. That's difficult to fake without anyone doing any research. It might be easier for Maul to have been non-existent entirely. Perhaps Qui-Gon so pissed off everyone around him that the Naboo witnesses were all too happy to play along with the Jedi deception.

Also, Jossed by Star Wars: The Clone Wars, in which Darth Maul is back with a vengeance and definitely makes up for his previous appearance.

Midichlorians are a specific variety of mitochondria.

Mitochondria are organisms in your cells that let you enjoy delicious oxygen. Midichlorians are organisms in your cells that let you enjoy delicious... the Force.

This, by the way, is Word of God — in other words, this is exactly what George Lucas was aiming for. But given how divisive midichlorians seem to be, we've got a lot of alternative explanations for your Troping enjoyment, such as:

The Force attracts Midichlorians.

Midichlorians don't cause Force sensitivity; they're just drawn to it, which makes the Midichlorian count a good proxy for Force sensitivity. Otherwise, they're benign micro-organisms. They might not even have anything to do with Force sensitivity; they might both be unrelated products of some as-yet unexplained phenomenon.

This, by the way, doesn't come from us, but rather the Star Wars Technical Commentaries (best known for the "Ender Holocaust" theory).

Alternately, the Force creates midichlorians.

It's a side-effect of using the Force, which rearranges organic molecules into certain patterns inside the Force-using organism. This would explain why the exact same subcellular organelles could be found in completely unrelated lifeforms who evolved on different planets. Anakin's count is particularly high as a byproduct of his creation from the Force itself.

This theory is also endorsed by Wookieepedia — not strictly canon, but good enough for us!

Midichlorians are just a unit of measurement of Force sensitivity, like Rads.

We're all assuming from the dialogue that midichlorians are organisms, because Qui-Gon explicitly says so. But Qui-Gon isn't exactly right; midichlorians are just a measurement of some response from a being's cells, which might be a result of microorganisms but don't have to be. It's like a Jedi Geiger counter.

Midichlorians exist at roughly the same level in all beings, but only Force-sensitive beings have them "activated".

They could be analogous to "junk DNA", which makes up about 95-98% of human DNA. They don't cause any problems until you activate them. This also means that there's a way for midichlorians to "activate", which is how people can learn to use the Force after a long time. Not only do we see Luke (and much later Leia) learn the ways of the Force well after the traditional Jedi-teaching age, but in the Expanded Universe we see Luke and Exil train a fair number of Force users in a relatively short time, and Revan could get Dark Jedi on every damn street corner during the Jedi Civil War. Presumably, the Jedi and the Sith both consider the Force a Dangerous Forbidden Technique and will only activate it on their terms in their very strict environments.

Midichlorians are an organ existing in the body of Force-Sensitive species.

They aren't microbes independent of the body, but a part of a creature's own physiology, a network of cells that allows a living creature to interact with the Force. It's like an extra lining for the liver. Being a part of a creature's physiology explains how beings can pass Force sensitivity to their children, how some beings are naturally more Force sensitive than others, and how some beings can "exercise" and hone their "midichlorian system" to use the Force more effectively.

Midichlorians are a part of a Jedi's consciousness, and they're required to make Force ghosts.

Only a few Jedi have learned how to come back as Force ghosts, but those who did seem very close to the real thing — enough to posit that their consciousness survived their death. Midichlorians can encode or condense a Jedi's consciousness, and a Jedi who's very in-tune with the Force can "save" that consciousness elsewhere, which allows them to transcend life and death. But it's not pure information — they are biological in nature, and they can be detected if you have a really powerful microscope.

Midichlorians were subject to revisionism between the prequels and the original trilogy.

It's an In-Universe explanation for why they talk about them in the prequels but not in the OT. At some point between Episodes III and IV, the Jedi reconsidered the nature and purpose of midichlorians, probably inspired by a particular Jedi whose midichlorians were off the charts and took over the galaxy. The Jedi might have decided to suppress the knowledge of midichlorians hoping to head off a second Vader, or they might have decided that midichlorians weren't necessarily as correlated with Force ability as much as they thought. They may even have discovered that they were total bunk. Whatever the case, they're no longer part of the Jedi conventional wisdom.

Midichlorian counts are not a popular practice; only Qui-Gon really supports it.

It's mainstream enough for Padme's personal starship to have a midichlorian detector (presumably as part of a basic medical suite), but midichlorians might have some other utility for non-Jedi. The Jedi council thinks Qui-Gon's got a weird theory, but there's enough to it that Obi-Wan humors him for a bit.

Midichlorians are pseudo-science.

This is an extension of the theory that midichlorians are a by-product of Force usage, but can work without it. Many debunked theories regarding the Force exist throughout the galaxy; having Midichlorians generate the Force is one of the more plausible theories because an actual correlation may exist. Eventually people discover they either aren't real or they got the causation backwards, but the theory remains.

The people of Naboo have been historically brutal to the Gungans.

There has been a long-standing hatred on both sides, but the Naboo had the upper hand for most of it, going as far as occasional pogroms. That's why the Gungans are so hostile toward the surface society. It's also why they have such a large army; they didn't have too many natural enemies underwater, as long as they didn't bother the really big fish. Meanwhile, on the other side, the Naboo show evidence of strong xenophobia; they produced Palpatine, who produced the very xenophobic First Galactic Empire, and Padme doesn't seem particularly horrified by Anakin's slaughter of the Sand People.

Depending on how you take this, it could even mean that the history between humans and Gungans was a direct source of the Empire's Fantastic Racism. Palpatine grew up with a hideous opinion of Gungans, and from that he extended it to non-humans in general. He can work with them, like Mas Ammeda, but racists have long proven capable of that — he even watches alien opera music because his only humanizing trait is being Wicked Cultured and A Man of Wealth and Taste. Had the Naboo and the Gungans been on good terms, Palpatine may have been less inclined to promote Fantastic Racism in the Empire — he might still be a sociopath, but he'd be more willing to work with non-humans to his ends.

Episode I was at least partly inspired by Spaceballs.

There are some striking resemblances, more than can be explained from Spaceballs being a parody of the original Star Wars trilogy:

• Both films begin with an idyllic world of peaceful people who are attacked by bureaucratic morons with superior technology.
• The morons are specifically trying to capture a female member of the peaceful planet's royalty, but the heroes bust in and stop them.
• The heroes are forced to ditch on a desert planet, where the royalty complains about being stranded in the middle of nowhere and the heroes have to get help from the locals.
• The heroes take a short visit to the Big Bad's home planet, then return to the royal's planet just in time to save it from the attackers.

George Lucas is not very original. Or perhaps he didn't want to make the prequel trilogy, but outside forces made him do it, and he decided to do a stealth pisstake on his own creation, which had been reduced to "the search for more money".

The Trade Federation is a reference to Star Trek.

It wouldn't be the only such reference — after all, we know the Neimoidians are a reference to Leonard Nimoy (and in an earlier draft they were called "Shatnerians"). Now, given that Star Trek's Federation are the good guys and the Star Wars Trade Federation are the bad guys, this is perhaps a dig at the rival franchise.

Qui-Gon is a terrible Jedi.

His use of the Force is pretty terrible when you think about it:

• While on the Trade Federation ship at the beginning, in the heart of enemy territory, he states that he doesn't sense any danger. He's proven wrong pretty quickly. (That's his first line in the film, by the way.)
• He can't use the Jedi Mind Trick on Watto. Now, Watto explains this by saying it doesn't work on him, but how would he know that? It's doubtful he's run into many Jedi on Tattooine, out in the galactic boonies where slavery is still legal. Had Obi-Wan done the trick, it would have worked — but they left him on the ship.
• He does sense the Force in Anakin, but he needs some midichlorian-reading help to see exactly how strong he is. Armed with this information, he tries his damnedest to sell the idea of training him to the Jedi Council. The Council, and even Obi-Wan, insist that this is a horrible idea; they say it's because he's too old and attached to his mother, but their assessment of Anakin might be much less optimistic than Qui-Gon's (especially if you combine it with another WMG on this page — that only Qui-Gon even uses midichlorian count as a measure of Force sensitivity), or they can sense evil in him that Qui-Gon couldn't.
• When he does use his Force powers correctly, it's usually for corrupt purposes, like trying to get cool toys for free.

Now you see why he's being sent off to unimportant little planets in the ass-end of nowhere rather than sitting on the Jedi Council.

Qui-Gon is a good Jedi, but he's a really sketchy character who has no business being involved in such important events.

He spends most of Episode I being feckless, impulsive, and generally lacking a coherent plan (or really a coherent anything). He prefers to use the Force in all situations, even where regular diplomacy would be better. He stakes the mission on Tattooine on an insane gamble with the podrace. He brings Anakin to a warzone and leaves him unattended in what's effectively a military hangar with expensive equipment (and lucks out that Anakin figures out how to use it). And he totally ignores the premonitions of the Jedi Council about Anakin turning evil, starry-eyed at his high-midichlorian potential. He effectively set the Empire in motion.

In fact, if you analyze Qui-Gon's actions in a critical light, it's so dumb that it had to be intentional! In other words, Qui-Gon Jinn is the Phantom Menace.

Anakin does have a father.

Shmi says he doesn't, and Darth Plagueis is canon in its description of Darth Plagueis creating Anakin from whole cloth through his experiments with midichlorians. But it's easier to assume Anakin was conceived sexually like everyone else. Shmi might not want to admit it — she may have been raped (she's a slave, so it's not like anyone would be held to account for it), or the father may just have been an unsavory character she doesn't want to acknowledge. Anakin's father may as well not exist — it's not like he was around to raise him. Shmi may even have been offended by the Jedi asking who the father is (how is it their business?) and decided to fuck with them. Alternatively, she had heard that Jedi were celibate, and thought Qui-Gon might think less of her if she admitted that the father was either a rapist or some one-night stand. Qui-Gon doesn't question it because he's never had sex-ed.

Alternatively, she might still have been the result of Plagueis' experiments with the Force, but there is still a biological father to provide genetic material. It could be Plagueis himself, or it could be some other hapless victim who doesn't even know he's a father. But there is a father. Shmi might not have conceived Anakin sexually, but it's just like being a surrogate. Maybe it didn't work like how regular human artificial insemination works — like, maybe she's a mutant of some sort — but it would be problematic for there to be no genetic material from a father, if only for genetic reasons.

Qui-Gon is Anakin's father.

It's a derivative of the above WMG. It explains certain aspects of Anakin, such as his Force sensitivity, his rebelliousness, and his anti-authoritarian traits. Like Qui-Gon, he couldn't keep it in his trousers even when his Jedi training made it absolutely necessary. And like Qui-Gon, Anakin eventually died at the hands of a Sith. It also makes Qui-Gon Luke and Leia's grandfather, and Kylo Ren's great-grandfather. Anakin never figured out his paternity (at least not until he became Vader, at which point it no longer mattered).

Now, as to how exactly to reconcile this with what we see on screen:

• Qui-Gon took advantage of poor Shmi. He then wiped her memory of the whole thing, which is why she's convinced there's no father.
• Qui-Gon and Shmi had a fling which Shmi would rather forget. This might even have been before Shmi was sold into slavery. It was probably a May–December Romance, and Qui-Gon left abruptly knowing it just wouldn't work out. Qui-Gon probably didn't even know Shmi was pregnant. A bitter Shmi, forced to raise Anakin without a father, tells him he didn't exist. And when the man himself turns up again and tries to reinsert himself into the kid's life, she repeats the lie right to his face, telling him, "I remember you, and I pretend every day that I don't."
• It's all part of Plagueis' experiments (somehow). Plagueis created Shmi, not Anakin, and did so in a way that she became a perfect vector for powerful Force potential in her son (think Christianity's Immaculate Conception IN SPACE!). Plagueis maneuvered Qui-Gon into becoming the father in his continuing experiment, whether by engineering a relationship or just procuring his genetic material. This makes Anakin directly descended from both Jedi and Sith, and gives a new take on the prophecy that he would "bring balance to the Force". It also means that History Repeats, as his son and grandson are light and dark, just like his father and "grandfather".

Shmi is the most powerful Force sensitive being in galactic history.

She did spontaneously create Anakin, but not because Darth Plagueis induced it. She had incredible Force powers, but no way to learn how to use them, being a slave out in the middle of nowhere on Tattooine. She might have known she could do special things but feared retribution if she showed them. With no outlet for her incredible power, she unwittingly and spontaneously created Anakin, who inherited her powerful Force sensitivity. She may even have inspired Plagueis' research; it probably wasn't that long before the film's events that Palpatine backstabbed him. Poor Anakin was born in an unstable environment, imbued with his mother's desire for someone to love her and be loved by her, but also with her frustration with her environment and hatred for her captors. The Jedi botched Anakin's training, and his mother's hatred won out — at least until Luke got through to him.

The "hero of a thousand faces" is Padmé.

No one considers her because she's The Heart, but she runs the gamut:

First, she refuses the call ("I will not condone a course of action that will lead us to war"). Then she Crosses the First Threshold when she escapes from Naboo, which she didn't want to do because she wanted to stick with her people. By the time she lands on Tattooine, she Can't Refuse the Call Anymore (Qui-Gon is the Shapeshifter, and Anakin is the Goddess). She faces the Road of Trials when she pleads for help from the Senate but is ignored. Palpatine becomes the Temptress and gives her the "Leave Your Quest" Test. Then Padme Crosses the Return Threshold by retuning to Naboo, realizing that she was wrong to leave, but was equally wrong to avoid a fight. She captures the Viceroy and liberates her people.

Of course, one could just as easily argue that Padme has no real arc, because her worldview never really changes and she's just kind of a MacGuffin being shuttled back and forth to prevent her from falling into the wrong hands. She always knew she was in the middle of a war and could have been pressed into action (she clearly learned how to shoot somewhere), but she had no power to do anything at the start and was whisked off-planet by outside forces.

So how's this:

The "hero of a thousand faces" is Jar-Jar.

All right, he's not the guy you'd think of at first glance. But he is the one whose life gets sucked and who gets rescued from certain death by mysterious strangers. He then goes along with the strangers on a voyage where he ends up helping them rescue a princess, is awarded a ridiculous military rank in spite of having no battle experience, finds the strength within himself, defeats the bad guys on the field of battle, and gets a heroes' celebration at the end. He also does have a character arc, and he's even the only character in the film who can be described without use of physical characteristics, wardrobe, job, or actor portraying him.

Jar-Jar is the Phantom Menace.

Jar-Jar's actions in Episode I seem pretty random and impulsive, but Palpatine's convoluted plan couldn't have worked without them. He maneuvers the heroes into exactly the right place to aid Palpatine's political rise — he leads the Jedi to Padme, influences events on Tattooine that lead to Anakin's discovery, and actually acquits himself very well as a general in the battle against the droid army. In fact, he demonstrates some serious agility in that battle — as well as at other points in the film — that make it a stretch to believe that he was exiled for being "clumsy". And in Episode II, Jar-Jar himself gives Palpatine the authorization he needs to attain dictatorial power. He's working for Palpatine, pretending to be a clumsy fool to deflect suspicion. He sticks to the Jedi like glue in Episode I — notice how he glomps Qui-Gon as soon as he sees him — so that he can stay close to them, but he doesn't need to be around them in Episodes II and III.

But don't take our word for it. Reddit's way ahead of us here. They even postulate that George Lucas had planned to reveal Jar-Jar as a Magnificent Bastard villain at the end of the prequel trilogy, but the fandom's revulsion to the character in Episode I scared him enough to Retool everything.

Jar-Jar is a competent Gungan — he's just extraordinarily clumsy.

He can't have been made a general just from what we saw of his interactions with the surface-dwellers on Naboo, and as we saw in the last WMG, he was pretty adept in the battle. He was so "clumsy" that he did something that necessitated exile from his home, but his fellow Gungans recognize his competence at other things and encourage the Jedi to take Jar-Jar with them on their adventures. The Jedi similarly must have seen something in him to take him with them to Tattooine. In fact, Star Wars: The Clone Wars combined everything and made Jar-Jar's clumsiness into an asset — as long as he uses it against his enemies — and in so doing improved his reception among the fandom.

Padmé started the Separatist movement.

Padmé's declaration of no confidence in the leadership of the Republic opened many eyes to the Republic's inability to cope with anything. Unfortunately for her, this left them very easily persuaded to join Count Dooku ten years later.

Years on Naboo are much longer than normal.

Padme would actually be in her twenties anywhere else. (That only makes her romance with Anakin even creepier, but whatever.)

Rather awkwardly, this requires us to disregard Wookieepedia's contention that Naboo years last 312 standard days (measured relative to Coruscant, which are conveniently exactly the same length as Earth days), which means that if she's 14 years old by local standards that actually makes her 12 by our standards, which may be better or worse depending on your viewpoint. Maybe there's some other kind of Alternate Calendar they're using which counts something other than orbital periods, like a local moon whose own orbital period lasts longer than the local year.

An E.T. cameo broke the Star Wars universe.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial has many Star Wars references, but in one of the last shots of the Senate scene in Episode I, we can see a bunch of members of E.T.'s species. This creates a Celebrity Paradox; Star Wars is fictional in E.T.'s universe, but not vice versa. The nonsense of the prequels after that is a side-effect of the paradox. Either Star Wars really did happen "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away", or the E.T.'s are a common enough species that "our" E.T.'s adventures are fictional, making them Mutually Fictional.

Obi-Wan knew about the decoy Queen all along.

Considering all the time they spent together in the ship on Tatooine, he had to have picked up on it through the Force. When Padmé finally reveals herself in the swamp, almost everyone not apart of her security team is shocked — except Obi-Wan. He even gives Qui-Gon a dirty look — he might have been able to sense that even his "wise master" was fooled.

Sidious had a secondary purpose for his scheme to invade Naboo.

The primary purpose was to exploit the situation for political gain — but that would have worked regardless of whether everything worked out with the Trade Federation. The secondary purpose was to gauge exactly how he should become absolute ruler of the Galaxy — whether through the Senate or some Separatist organization. Regardless of whether the Trade Federation won or lost, Palpatine would side with the winner. If the Feds had won, Palpatine would have been The Man Behind the Curtain for the Separatist Council and ruled outwardly as Darth Sidious rather than Emperor Palpatine.

Qui-Gon and Darth Maul were working together.

Both of them were looking for the one who would fulfill the prophecy and bring balance to the Force. They were playing both sides — Qui-Gon outwardly sided with the Jedi, and Maul with the Sith. Neither really trusted either the Jedi or the Sith. When Anakin was discovered, they agreed that Qui-Gon should be the one to train him, because it was too dangerous to train Anakin with Sidious around. But it wasn't that easy to get the Jedi to train him, because Qui-Gon already had an apprentice who was pretty headstrong and wouldn't have wanted to give up his position.

Qui-Gon and Maul eventually make a sort of Suicide Pact, wherein Maul would kill Qui-Gon to allow Obi-Wan to take his place and train Anakin. They weren't sold on keeping Obi-Wan in the loop, but they did trust him enough to ensure Anakin uses his power for the good guys. Meanwhile, it was too risky for Maul to stay alive, because Sidious was a devious character who could suss out their plan. So they arrange for Maul to kill Qui-Gon with Obi-Wan watching, which would trigger Obi-Wan's anger and cause him to kill Maul in revenge. Notice how during the fight, Maul just stands there and lets Obi-Wan use the Force to retrieve a lightsaber rather than just kill him, and how when Obi-Wan jumps over Maul, Maul doesn't mutilate him like Obi-Wan would do to Anakin years later.

Qui-Gon knew all along that Anakin would turn to the Dark Side. At least, that he probably would.

Qui-Gon was a Force devotee first and a Jedi second. He believed that the Jedi Order was mistaken on many points regarding the nature of the Force, and that they had become sidetracked by politics. In Episode II, we learn that his own master, Dooku, felt similarly. Dooku himself mused that Qui-Gon may have sided with him, had he lived. Only Anakin, the Chosen One, could bring the Force back into balance. Qui-Gon could see his potential but also saw the budding darkness within him. Although Qui-Gon disapproved of the ways of the Sith, to him, the ends justified the means.

Jar-Jar was imposed by Executive Meddling.

The prequels have a reputation for George Lucas having total control of the project, but if there was an underlying monetary incentive for the prequels' creation (a WMG in itself), there were probably plenty of meddling executives involved. Unlike with the original Star Wars, which was a labor of Lucas's love in the vein of the New Hollywood, the executives with the prequels wanted to attract certain audiences. They insisted on a Kid-Appeal Character, without any inkling of what actually appealed to kids about the original Star Wars. Lucas had no idea how to make such a character, and thus we get Jar-Jar.

The story of Anakin is the story of George Lucas himself.

Lucas wanted to write the tragedy of himself — an independent filmmaker and artist from the New Hollywood school, who had made a film in that vein which hit it big. He was given license to make more movies in keeping with his grand vision. But that license came with a leash — he couldn't end it when he wanted to, because it was a Cash-Cow Franchise. Convinced to make the prequels, he had to write something that made money. Knowing what the execs wanted and not sure he could deliver, he sought a compelling story, and he saw himself. Now, Darth Vader went from being a highly decorated henchman to a Messianic Archetype, the leader of a vast empire which was in some sense his creation but which became a vehicle for others to enhance their power.

Unfortunately, Lucas didn't deliver — he couldn't overlay himself on the universe he made, and the prequels were not well received. Lucas felt that he had betrayed his identity as an artist, and when he was forced to do it again after the Disney acquisition, he decided to just let other directors and writers take a crack at it.

If Qui-Gon had survived, Anakin would not have become Darth Vader.

For all his playfulness and child-like tendencies, Qui-Gon was actually quite wise. The best example is in a Deleted Scene (kept in the novelization) — when young Greedo accuses Anakin of cheating at the podrace, Anakin loses his temper and beats the crap out of him. Qui-Gon sees a teaching moment and convinces Anakin that physical force cannot convince anyone to change their mind (and nor can the Force on particularly strong-willed people), and he'll have to learn to just deal with people who disagree with him. Qui-Gon's non-judgmental attitude and sense of humor enable the lesson to stick with Anakin. This would have come in very useful in Anakin's future, particularly in helping him deal with his feelings toward Padmé and Palpatine's attempts to manipulate him.

Jar-Jar was a serial killer.

Jar-Jar claims he was exiled for being "clumsy", but his "clumsiness" all happened on purpose. He killed fellow Gungans in odd ways, for his own sadistic pleasure, and made them look like accidents. This allowed him to convince whichever court caught him that he was just "clumsy". That's how he got away with just exile; if the Gungans knew his true nature, they would have executed him.

Jar-Jar is the Galaxy's greatest Troll.

He's smarter than he looks — they wouldn't make him a Senator in Attack of the Clones if he was as stupid as he behaved. He acts like a Too Dumb to Live klutz because he knows that people are generally angrier with intentional chaos — by pretending everything is an accident, he can get away with more. And boy, does he. His mission in life is personal amusement — screwing with the Gungans, the Jedi, and everyone else. He even willingly pretends to be Palpatine's Unwitting Pawn — he figures out who Palpatine really is, but helps him take over the galaxy and establish the Empire purely For the Lulz. What an asshole.

In fact, he's got Medium Awareness — so he's also trolling the audience. He's trolling you! If you've ever complained about him on the Internet, you're playing right into his hands. He shows up in random places — like his controversial cameo in Return of the Jedi — purely to annoy the audience. And if he ever decided to stop trolling and show what he's really made of... well, that's what his appearance in Star Wars: The Clone Wars is for.

Palpatine was, to a certain extent, making Qui-Gon his Unwitting Pawn.

The Jedi were Properly Paranoid about Anakin; he'd had a really difficult childhood on a Crapsack World, and they sensed danger in training him. They were also put off by Qui-Gon's maverick practices and rash nature, particularly in his insistence that Anakin be trained. Palpatine identifies Qui-Gon as someone who can help him ensure Anakin gets his Jedi training, so he uses his position as Senator of Naboo to give Qui-Gon an influential position in the Jedi Council. All part of his plan.

Palpatine is actually a bad guy.

He goes on and on about the corruption in the Senate, and we're to expect he's exempt from it? And the way he seems to interested in Anakin is vaguely creepy. And do we ever see him and Darth Maul in the same room?

Jar-Jar is imprisoned for most of the Original Trilogy.

Jar-Jar, disgusted at his hand in the rise of the Empire, starts working for the Rebellion, using his connections to help their cause. He's not that smart, so he's quickly found on Naboo and charged with treason against the Empire. He's initially sentenced to death, but he retains enough political influence to have his sentence commuted to life imprisonment. He spends the vast majority of the Original Trilogy languishing in jail. Only when the Empire is overthrown is Jar-Jar freed. It is a sort of redemption story, in that Jar-Jar suffers for his crimes but not out of proportion to them, and he becomes a more well-rounded character.

Palpatine threatened the lives of the Trade Federation.

They're total cowards, so the question remains of why they didn't squeal everything to the Republic (Palpatine's behind it all!). Palpatine, being Palpatine, made sure Maul spent some time manhandling them. When Maul died, and as far as they know, he is dead, they tried to get away with it. Sidious called and said, "Your tongue's slipping, Nute." He uses his Force Choke on him and makes it clear he'll melt the Trade Federation down into a single giant Battle Droid if he squeals.

Jar Jar Binks is a Force adept and Sith ally.

Every time he goofs off and screws up, he still somehow ends up winning the fight. It's Obfuscating Stupidity augmented by Master-level physical skills with the Force. His remarkable rise to general and then Senator are his Force powers at work. He's openly using the Jedi Mind Trick — notice how he waves his hands around when he talks. And of course, since he uses his considerable power and influence to hand emergency powers to Palpatine, he was working with Palpatine all along.

Again, Reddit is way ahead of us. They picked up on this in the leadup to The Force Awakens and predicted that Jar-Jar would play a major role in the film. Jossed — he doesn't show up at all.

Gungans are related to THE HYPNOTOAD.

Jar-Jar's eyes are very similar to those of the Hypnotoad, in particular the prominent red and yellow spots. They may have had a common evolutionary ancestor — if you look at the differences between Earth amphibians, they're about as big as the difference between Jar-Jar and the Hypnotoad. And both have some level of mind control powers — the Hypnotoad's are obvious, but Jar-Jar's are more subtle. If he's a secret Sith lord, not only could he use those powers to his advantage, he could also Hand Wave any suspicion by claiming relation to the Hypnotoad.

Jar-Jar is a Sith who used Darth Maul as a Red Herring.

It's an extension of the "Darth Jar-Jar" theory. Darth Maul is intimidating and well-regarded, but in the grand scheme of things, he was an Anti-Climax Boss. Why would they go to all the trouble of hyping Maul, only to take him out of his first movie? Because he's a Fake Ultimate Mook. This also ties in with the theory that George Lucas was planning for Jar-Jar to eventually be revealed as the hidden bad guy all along but chickened out at the character's poor reception, perhaps thinking that the audience would see Jar-Jar as a Replacement Scrappy for Maul. Dumping Maul like this would have emphasized Jar-Jar's position — The Dragon to Palpatine, mirroring Yoda.

Jar-Jar is the first Gungan ever to have his species' version of autism or Asperger's Syndrome.

In the grand WMG tradition of plonking fictional characters on the autism spectrum:

• He spends most of the film acting childishly, which is known behavior on the autism spectrum.
• He's occasionally seen mouthing what other characters are saying. This could represent a Gungan form of echolalia or scripting — when people repeat words they hear, usually from TV or movies.
• He's got peculiar sensitivities. He hates gross things like stepping in poop or being farted on. He hates the heat on Tattooine. He's very sensitive to going underwater, screaming and panicking when he's in the Bongo.
• He exhibits poor decision-making. This can happen with some people with autism; they don't understand that they're making a bad choice until someone explains it to them. This is why Jar-Jar doesn't think twice before handing Palpatine emergency powers in Attack of the Clones — even though no one really knew Palpatine was a Sith lord, the move was so politically fraught that only Jar-Jar could do it.

As the Gungans had never seen this behavior before, they ostracized Jar-Jar and eventually exiled him. But after the events of the movie, someone else realized that Jar-Jar had a disability. He taught Jar-Jar how to work through it, and Jar-Jar went on to become the Gungan representative in the Senate. After Jar-Jar hands power to Palpatine, others realize what's up and try to teach him to make better choices. The comic "Falling Up with Jar-Jar Binks" even shows Jar-Jar exhibiting many of these traits in his role as a Senator.

Jar-Jar is neither stupid, nor pretending to be. He's just sa Fish out of Water.

He's been exiled from Otoh Gunga and living alone for a while, when suddenly he's thrust into an adverture with people — a totally unfamiliar species, from a totally unfamiliar culture. They can't understand him very well — interacting with him is akin to watching Backstroke of the West. The Jedi are irritated as his panicking and jumpiness at everything, but he was leading a quiet life before giant fish and homicidal robots coming after him. And for the most part, the only characters who treat Jar-Jar as an idiot are Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, who (a) aren't that bright themselves, (b) are trained in the Force to be unflappably calm in the face of danger, and (c) may have a subconscious bias against non-humans — they're not inclined to think highly of him to begin with, and even they improve on that front by the time they get to Tattooine.

Darth Maul was intended to fill General Greivous' role in the Clone Wars.

Palpatine wanted an animalistic, combat-savvy, dreadfully deadly apprentice to function as the military commander of the Separatist movement, and that would have been Darth Maul, with some other character assuming the "Count Dooku" role as the Separatists' civilian leader and "face". When Maul was killed, Palpatine scrambled to find a new apprentice, and lucked into Count Dooku, who would perfectly play the leader of the Separatist movement. He just needed the appropriately vicious General, and the Techno Union obliged by creating Grievous.

Anakin's pod is only relatively faster than the field.

At first glance, it looks like Anakin's pod is Traveling at the Speed of Plot — he catches up from a massive deficit, yet takes forever to get past Sebulba, who had a lead from the beginning of the race. This isn't because Anakin's that much faster than Sebulba. It's because Sebulba's slowing down, pissing away his time by cheating. But it's not just for the sake of cheating — Jabba the Hutt was offering a cash reward to the most impressive cheater. It's not enough for Sebulba to just win the race; he wanted to win the prize, too. Unfortunately for him, he cannot overcome Anakin's skill and Plot Armor, and he winds up losing both.

Obi-Wan remembered his duel with Darth Maul when fighting Anakin in Revenge of the Sith.

When fighting Darth Maul, Obi-Wan is hanging in the random bottomless pit while Darth Maul is standing on the high ground. Obi-Wan jumps up out of the pit, lands behind Darth Maul, and slices him in half. When he fights Anakin, Obi-Wan finds the tables turned; now he has the high ground, and Anakin could pull the same maneuver and kill him. But Obi-Wan is ready for it. That's what he meant when he said, "Don't try it."

Jar Jar Binks is force sensitive; he just doesn't know it (at first).

Something already talked about, but more in-keeping with the apparent treatment of him being The Fool rather than a mastermind. Gungans are an insular society and likely haven't heard of the Force, so any force-sensitive traits are either seen as some sort of unusual superpower or mistaken for luck/clumsiness. Jar Jar Binks is force-sensitive, but since he never went any training and is kind of an idiot these are initially limited to increased flexibility and agility. The clumsiness he was banished for is because he caused some chaos by unintentionally using the Force. has His abilities as The Beastmaster in Star Wars: The Clone Wars is an application of animal kinship or beast control. At that point while he hasn't undergone any training, Jar Jar has gained some knowledge about the Force and the Jedi from his political career so he has tried to get some Mundane Utility from his Force sensitivity. Unfortunately for the Gungan, the rise of the Empire meant that it's better to not be public about his abilities.

If the theory that Han Solo is an unknowing Force sensitive is true, this would also make Jar Jar "rhyme" with Han in a way. Like some theorize about Han, Jar Jar's circumstances lead him to be ignorant about their powers.