Posted in: Movies | Tagged: ahmed best, andy serkis, Jar Jar Binks, porgs, star wars

Ahmed Best Protests Racist Erasure Of Jar Jar Binks From CGI History

Published Sun, 29 Oct 2017 11:23:49 -0500

Ahmed Best, the actor behind one of the greatest characters in cinematic history, Jar Jar Binks, helped to pioneer the field of motion capture with his bombad performance in critically acclaimed movies such as Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. But when Wired and Andy Serkis ignored Binks' achievements in a feature on the history of motion capture, Serkis responded to themsa while doing his best not to appear berry bitter.

https://twitter.com/WIRED/status/923539066460635136

No Jar Jar?! How wude!

The erasure of @ahmedbest's pioneering work as Jar Jar Binks from this "history of motion caputure" is at best revisionist, possibly racist. https://t.co/ovEM5rIr1x

— Aram Sinnreich 🗽🎶 (@aram) October 26, 2017

I don't know how to retweet this and not sound bitter, but I feel I have been forgotten. No disrespect to the great @andyserkis https://t.co/4F3VBPV8Aj

— Ahmed BEst (@ahmedbest) October 27, 2017

Best continued, tanking yousa fans for supporting him:

1) thread: Thanks for the love today especially the Star Wars fans. Jar Jar is bigger than just me or my performance. As much as we actors

— Ahmed BEst (@ahmedbest) October 28, 2017

2) are on the front line when it comes to the success or the failure of characters we play, what's more important is the accomplishment of

— Ahmed BEst (@ahmedbest) October 28, 2017

3) bringing the work to the screen. Jar Jar helped create The workflow, iteration process and litmus test for all CGI characters to this day

— Ahmed BEst (@ahmedbest) October 28, 2017

4) on some days the code was being written in real time as I was moving. To deny Jar Jar's place in film history is to deny the hundreds of

— Ahmed BEst (@ahmedbest) October 28, 2017

5) VFX technicians, animators, code writers and producers their respect. People like John Knoll, Rob Coleman @arfkeldo and scores of others

— Ahmed BEst (@ahmedbest) October 28, 2017

6) who I worked with for two years after principal photography was ended to bring these movies to you. There's a joke I like to use when

— Ahmed BEst (@ahmedbest) October 28, 2017

7) talking about this stuff, Jar Jar walked so Gollum could run. Gollum ran so the Na'vi could fly. Thanks for lifting me up today.

— Ahmed BEst (@ahmedbest) October 28, 2017

There's only one way to make this right. It's time to bring Jar Jar back for Star Wars: Episode IX. Who doesn't want to see Jar Jar interacting with the porgs?

Certainly not weesa.