For me, it was Jar Jar who really put me in the movie. He's just like me except with a better attitude. I'm clumsy. I'm a misfit. I'm socially inept. But I also have a more prominant dark side than Jar Jar. Other than that, we're practically brothers! 🙂
A lot of people think that you have to be a kid to like Jar Jar. That's too subjective. After all, you can be a kid at heart at any age. I'm a 21 year old guy and I can't get enough Jar Jar! He's such a refreshing, non-rehash, unique type of character. Jar Jar is both unique and historical at the same time. He follows the classic Joe Camblian "Hero's Journey" more closely than any other TPM character. He also follows the archetype of the good-natured fool - a timeless archetype from historic literature.
There are lessons to be learned from Jar Jar, as with all characters and themes from a grandiose masterwork like the Star Wars saga. Jar Jar has many dog-like qualities and dogs have plenty of virtues. Dogs also have a certain healing ability that comes from their unconditional love. Jar Jar, like a dog, is loyal to the right people and the right cause, regardless of his own shortcomings. Also, his shortcomings are not his fault. Practically anyone who was banished from their society and even from their own kind (Jar Jar was declared to be no longer a "true" Gungan) and sent to live in isolation - regardless of the reasons - would have turned out to be just as socially inept as Jar Jar.
As inept as Jar Jar is socially, he's also sympathetic. This aspect of his character really shows his duality. He's both comedy and tragedy. He's both a clown and a martyr (or will become a martyr - no way to know for certain). He swings from awkward to somber, his somber side being revealed when he speaks with Amidala at the window on Coruscant. It's likely that we'll see this side of him more often as the Saga progresses but it's also likely that he's always retain that half-optimistic/half-pessimistic eternally-lovable nature that defines him.
There are a lot of people here who defend both Jar-Jar and Jake Lloyd.
I will repeat that Lloyd did the exact job he was told to do, was as good as he could have been seeing the lines he was given, and that was NOT a Haley Joel soirt of part; he plays reserved kids not manic ones.
JL played a brash kid pretty darn well, I thought. Just that, ineviably, most people don;t like brash kids in movies.