Star Wars fans hail surprise recast as ‘smartest move Disney pulled’

Star Wars have called a specific casting decision the “biggest justice that Disney ever pulled”.

There are some Star Wars characters that fans agree were incredibly casting. Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Harrison Ford as Han Solo come to mind as popular choices.

And then there are some characters that weren’t as popular, even if the actor portraying them seemed like a wise casting decision.

Jar Jar Binks is a famous example of this. Played by Ahmed Best in the prequels, the character’s immense unpopularity led to toxic abuse against the actor.

As a result, Jar Jar’s role was diminished in the following films, and Best only made smaller appearances over the next few years.

He later returned to Star Wars as a new character, Kelleran Beq, a Jedi devised for the children’s game show Jedi Temple Challenge.

Despite it only being a small role in the wider Star Wars canon, it led to Jon Favreau convincing Best to come back for The Mandalorian in a more significant capacity.

On the Star Wars Reddit page, one fan posted an image of Best as Beq, writing: “Getting the same guy, Ahmed Best, back in Star Wars but as a different character was the smartest choice and biggest justice that Disney ever pulled.”

“This man is truly a trooper,” wrote a comment in the thread. “He had been dealing with everything he had gone through and almost ended himself, but he chose not to.”

“Ahmed Best deserves and was given the royal treatment,” another comment wrote. “Samuel L Jackson got to pick his own original lightsaber, but Ahmed got to choose his own character’s backstory, nickname, had a hand in his own costume design. And he did a damn good job.”

Despite Jar Jar’s unpopularity, it’s pretty clear that Best is a good performer and was following George Lucas’ direction as well as he could. Hopefully we’ll see more of Kelleran Beq in future Star Wars projects, as it seems to be a role more suited to Best.