Michael Jackson almost starred as the absolute worst 'Star Wars' character, apparently

It's pretty well-known that Michael Jackson was a huge Star Wars fan, but it turns out he almost had the opportunity to fulfill every hardcore Star Wars nerd's dream: Actually being in one of the movies. Too bad it was the worst character ever.

According to Ahmed Best, the actor who played the much-maligned Jar Jar Binks in the prequels, Jackson wanted to play Jar Jar in prosthetics, but Lucas wanted the character to be CGI. Best told Vice:
"That's what George told me. Me, Natalie Portman, and George's kids—we were at Wembley arena at Michael Jackson's concert. We were taken backstage and we met Michael. There was Michael and Lisa Marie (Presley). George introduced me as 'Jar Jar' and I was like, That's kind of weird. Michael was like, 'Oh. OK.' I thought, What is going on? After Michael had driven off, we all go back up to a big afterparty. I'm having a drink with George and I said, 'Why did you introduce me as Jar Jar?' He said, 'Well, Michael wanted to do the part but he wanted to do it in prosthetics and makeup like Thriller.' George wanted to do it in CGI. My guess is ultimately Michael Jackson would have been bigger than the movie, and I don't think he wanted that."
The most hilarious thing is that this isn't the first time Best has mentioned this. He brought it up last year in a Reddit AMA but it didn't make too many waves, probably because the idea of MJ as Jar Jar is just SO INSANE. It's still insane, but at least Best is sticking to his story.

But here's the million-dollar question: Could Michael Jackson have saved The Phantom Menace? To be honest, we don't think even the King of Pop could have done anything to rescue that sinking ship. But maybe without the help of CGI, this wouldn't have been a thing: