Obviously he didnt deserve the harassment he got regardless. Like even if he was dogshit he wouldnt have deserved that. But I just rewatched Phantom Menace for the first time in awhile. Young friend of mine are going through the star wars movies because she was a sheltered homeschooled kid and hadnt seen them. Already did the OT, starting on the prequels.
Other than the obvious "oh wow, the racial stereotypes of literally three different alien species in this movie is insane", the main takeaway my rewatch gave me is "wow ok, Jake LLoyd is average at worst". He was just like, a regular kid actor? Nothing to write home about like say, young Maise Williams or something. But absolutely fine?
I remember when the toxic side of the Star Wars fandom first made itself loudly, even violently apparent when The Phantom Menace came out...
So many adults (and I must say it, almost entirely men) acting like enraged children because whatever they imagined the first prequel was going to be didn't happen, up to and including expressions of outright violence (destroying toys and memorabilia on camera in ritualistic gestures of rage), edgy Newgrounds animations that focused on homophobia-coded violence against Jar Jar Binks, and yes, bullying Jake Lloyd for playing a character in a movie. And the bullying went on and on for Jake Lloyd for so long that he abandoned that psychologically painful part of his past, disowned all association with the character and the franchise, and he's still traumatized by the experience.
My disgust for the Star Wars fandom in general had its genesis there.
Episode One was pretty bad, but the healthy reaction to it would have been "awh that stinks, had potential. Oh well. Hope the next one is better"
Instead, because these manbabies had made their entire identity "Star Wars Fan" they had to do these extremely unhinged and out of pocket reactions to demonstrate that this isn't what they meant by Star Wars Fan.
When one eats too much of a treat, the treat begins eating into you.
It had been 16 years, like if some franchise in 2008 had been the defining moment of their lives... I guess if Half Life 3 came out today and was just kinda ok