Many aspects of our popular culture are ripe for parody, with the Star Wars movies being a favorite target.  There is a wide range of quality among these Star Wars satires; everything from excellent shorts, such as Hardware Wars and Troops, to painfully bad amateur fan fiction, to the "so bizarre it's scary" items like the version of Episode Four, done in ASCII.  (http://www.asciimation.co.nz/)  Another satire has made its way to DVD featuring a much-maligned character from The Phantom Menace.  You can now get the inside scoop with Jar Jar Binks: The F! True Hollywood Story.

This is a spot-on parody of the E! cable network's show.  They show Jar Jar as a young baby, follow his early attempts to break into show business and then landing his big role in Episode One.  But fame has its price, and Jar Jar soon starts drinking heavily and that leads to excessive drug use.  Like many episodes of The True Hollywood Story, Jar Jar's story doesn't end nicely.

While amusing in parts, this 12 minute film isn't really hilarious.  The show primarily contains Photoshopped stills with a Jar Jar head placed on various people, be it sitting next to Jack Nicholson at a basketball game or a newborn baby.  The video segments feature an actor with a rubber Jar Jar mask walking down the road or acting drunk.  While some of the scenes are creative, they loose their punch very quickly.

The subject was a little too easy also.  Everyone hates Jar Jar.  It's no secret.  Having rabid Star Wars fans exit the first showing of The Phantom Menace distraught over the characters inclusion in the movie is nothing new. The show makes fun of all the obvious things about Jar Jar that you would expect them too; that way he talks, and his long tongue ofr example.  Yes, he was an annoying character but after the seemingly endless "Jar Jar must die" web sites, pictures, and posts that still pop up on the Internet, this short seemed dated and trite.

One area where the filmmakers deserve credit is with makeup.  They did an excellent job.  The effeminate Darth Maul looked very good, and I did a double take the first time I saw the actor playing George Lucas.  He looked a lot like the real thing.

Audio:

The two-channel audio track was a flat and not very dynamic.  Given the subject matter, it didn't need a lot of punch, but it could have sounded better.  There were no subtitles.

Video:

The full frame video had the look that a lot of short by new filmmakers have.  The image was soft and a little blurry in parts, and the lighting wasn't very good, which didn't help things.  A lot of shots were grainy, but I think that was what the creators intended to give the film an 'old home movie feel'.  There were a lot of digital defects, with a good amount of aliasing and some pixalation.  About average for this type of production.

The Extras:

There were a lot of extras included on this DVD.

Deleted Scenes:  6 ½ minutes worth of scenes that were cut.  A lot of them didn't seem to fit in with the premise, and I'm not sure why they were filmed.  The shots of Jar Jar and his girl friend in bed for example.  They were wise to leave most of these out.

Alternate Ending: This ending parodies the end of Return of the Jedi.  I though that this was pretty good, and worked better than the ending they chose.

Two (or three) Commentaries:  The commentary with the producer and co-writer/Jar Jar actor had the pair talking about why they hated Jar Jar, what scenes didn't make it on the film, and who the people in the background were.  It didn't contain any real insights to the movie or the making of it.

There is a commentary by the director, who covers a lot of the same material that the first commentary did.  There is also a 'hidden' commentary by the other writer.  I couldn't find a way to access this from the menus, but if you cycle through the audio tracks with your remote, you'll find another commentary where the writer talks in flowery prose over the short.  It was amusing for a while.

There is also  A Couchside Chat with George Lucas (sic) where an actor imitating Lucas pontificates while still pictures cycle on the screen.  I thought this was one of the dumbest extras on the disc.  It is just making fun of Lucas.  I don't like a lot of the things that he has done with his movies (Han shot first!) but I didn't think that making him sound like a new-age space case was very funny.

Trick Photos:  A series of the Photoshop altered pictures used in the film.

Production notes:  A series of production photos with some text notes accompanying them.

Outtakes:  8 minutes worth of shots that were not used.
 

Final Thoughts:

In the end, this is an amusing short, but not anything that delivers a lot of laughs.  A good attempt, but it just misses the mark, bashing a character that has already taken a lot of abuse.  Portraying Darth Maul as an effeminate man with a lisp was a little funny, but making fun of Lucas by having an actor portraying him spout nonsense wasn't.  There were a lot of extras on the disc, but when all is said and done, the short runs at only 12 minutes.  The disc is overpriced with its MSRP of $22.99.  Die-hard Star Wars fans may want to rent this, but casual fans should Skip It.