pod sent us to a BBC article where George Lucas FINALLY talks about the Jar Jar racism accusations. Here's a little bit:

He believes the US media's fascination with the Internet created the controversy.

"The American press uses the internet as their source for everything, so when people were creating Websites saying, 'Let's get rid of Jar Jar Binks, he's terrible' and some of the critics were describing him as a comic sidekick, they came in and they started calling the film racist."

He added: "It started out as a way of just selling newspapers and then other people have sort of picked it up. But it really reflects more the racism of the people who are making the comments than it does the movie."

After reading the full article (and not just the quotes posted here), it sure sounded to me like many of Lucas' complaints were direct at online fans complaining about Jar Jar, not just the media. After a few letters from fans, I've deleted my initial comments and will wait till the video comes out. It's possibly the BBC article misinterpreted Lucas' quotes, so it's important to see everything in context before making statements on this stuff. Stay tuned. (BTW, my comments here are my own, and not necessarily representative of the whole team.)