So, as I’m recording Jar-Jar’s new voice and running into a few issues syncing the voice to the lip movements, a thought dawns on me…
What if Jar-Jar begins in the film as a Gungan who knows very little English, but slowly starts picking it up in pieces here and there over the course of the film, eventually ending in his most powerful line(s) to the Queen: “Gungans won’t go down without a fight. We are warriors…and we share the same enemy now, don’t we?”
Story-wise, this would show Jar-Jar as an intelligent creature (giving Qui-Gon’s statement about “the ability to speak does not make you intelligent” an extra layer of depth, as Jar-Jar’s ability to speak is now one of his defining characteristics), it would give him more of an evolving character arc, and set-up his eventual role as a Senator (which would now make a lot more sense as Jar-Jar being the sort of bilingual intermediary between the Gungans and the Naboo). Plus, it would make his English bits that much more impactful when he says them in progressively greater clarity (like the bit I have of him in the trailer).
Editing-wise, dubbing him with Gungan babble in the scenes where his lips don’t match my lines will be much easier to convincingly accomplish.
What do you guys think?