Just a little piece of Star Wars lore for you… The same actor who played Jar Jar Binks also helped Grogu escape the ravages of Order 66. (It’s a lot for us to take in too.)
Ahmed Best received an outrageous amount of fan hate during his early days in the Star Wars franchise. JarJar was not well-received by a lot of older die-hard fans. Then again, he’s really no sillier than anything from the Star Wars Christmas Special. Since those goofy elements have always kind of existed in the franchise, some people think Jar Jar should get a pass. Some think the character should be rehabilitated somehow. Maybe he should even get his own arc. In a way, he has.
Ahmed Best returned to Star Wars for a brief cameo during the most recent season of The Mandalorian, playing a Jedi Master called Kelleren Beq. He was instrumental in allowing the youngling Grogu to escape after Emperor Palpatine ordered his minions to assassinate the Jedi Order. Without Beq, Grogu likely would have fallen victim to Anakin or one of the Clone Troopers. Best previously played Kelleren as the host of a TV game show called Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge.
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Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau recently sat down with Dagobah Dispatch, an Entertainment Weekly podcast. When asked if it’s possible that Best would reprise his role as Kelleren Beq, they had some interesting responses. Filoni said:
It’s always a possibility. We love Ahmed, and he did such a great job. It was a real thrill for us to get him involved. We talked with him about it, We come up with these ideas and we think: ‘Who might work with it?’ We make sure before we get too far to bring them into the process, so it’s not just like, ‘Here’s who you’re going to play.’ It’s like, ‘What do you think of this? We want you to be this person. What are your thoughts on it?’
Favreau then chimed in…
He had done a lot of work on that character of Kelleran Beq for Jedi Temple Challenge…So he’s been involved with Star Wars all the way through and definitely had formulated this character. And we love to draw from all of Star Wars, and even things that aren’t canon. If they feel right, we’ll pull ’em in. And now that character exists squarely in Star Wars canon.
We’ll see whether Beq returns in a future episode of The Mandalorian or some other Star Wars Disney+ series.
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