“I Want Him To Sound Like Truman Capote.”

So said George Lucas, apparently, regarding the character of Ziro the Hutt (above) in the latest lifeless Star Wars outing, the animated Clone Wars movie. And so it came to pass. Since the film’s release last week, the Internet has been abuzz with fan reaction to this mincing uncle of Jabba the Hutt who is apparently a strange tribute to the diminutive and deceased author of In Cold Blood. Quoteth Aicn.com’s Alexandra DuPont:

Phonetic spellings of Ziro’s statements to Padme would read like this: ‘Ah KNOW!’ and ‘A senatah … in THIS nay-buh-hood?’ and ‘Yuh TRIED to call fuh HELP, senatah.’ I honestly haven’t decided yet if this character is SO wrong that it actually goes ’round the bend and becomes kind of perversely awesome in its totally-batshit-insane political incorrectness. But I’m guessing most everybody will hate the drag-queen Hutt, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if GLAAD issued some sort of statement.”

Read Alexandra’s full review here.

I haven’t seen Clone Wars so I can’t comment, but I will say the mere idea of a stereotypically gay Hutt character bumps “George Lucas permanent amnesia 1993” up one notch on my list of proposed wishes should I ever encounter a genie or leprechaun. My tolerance for inexplicably stupid and/or asinine Star Wars characters has officially been breached. And just when I was beginning to warm up to the idea of wearing my Phantom Menace t-shirt in public…