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OK but, here's the thing, this kid? Not that bad.
(hexbear.net)
Obviously he didnt deserve the harassment he got regardless. Like even if he was dogshit he wouldnt have deserved that. But I just rewatched Phantom Menace for the first time in awhile. Young friend of mine are going through the star wars movies because she was a sheltered homeschooled kid and hadnt seen them. Already did the OT, starting on the prequels.
Other than the obvious "oh wow, the racial stereotypes of literally three different alien species in this movie is insane", the main takeaway my rewatch gave me is "wow ok, Jake LLoyd is average at worst". He was just like, a regular kid actor? Nothing to write home about like say, young Maise Williams or something. But absolutely fine?
He was one of the least offensive parts of the movie tbh, I think people just didn't like that there was no "main character" to self-insert as.
Anakin is a weird genius messiah-figure slave child, not really relatable and only comes into the movie halfway through and is given very little screen time outside of pod racing (pod races were the best part of the movie though).
Obi-wan was a weird aloof nerd who kept whining about the rules and never expressed any emotion outside of annoyance.
Qui-gon was pretty funny, but died part way through (spoiler). He kinda rocked, as an old burnt out dude who doesn't give a fuck about the rules anymore and has to deal with this annoying hall monitor kid nipping at his heels.