Quote:
Originally posted by Timber Loftis:
Oh, and "It's not my fault" is used almost as many times as "I have a bad feeling about this."
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"It's not my fault!" and "I have a bad feeling about this" only really mean something if you've seen them all. Their employment is wholly an inside joke.
Half of what makes the original trilogy better comes from various things, the other half is relatively simple:
It wasn't overtly political
It didn't let the characterization get in the way of events
Following these two key elements of great Western film spectacle, Lucas achieved something he's second-fiddling to now.
The first half is a number of things:
Better actors (Liam Neeson is the only actor in the new trilogy on the level of Harrison Ford, if Gangs of New York or Nell had come out the same year as The Phantom Menace, I'd recomend either of those over it, as he was the best thing in the film, and those two had something else to recommend them as well)
Not being overly reliant on dialogue (a key of the great spectacle)
Not relying too much on actors (something Lucas also inherited from Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, which is a highly visual film)
Better editing
Knowing when to end a damn scene, and move onto the next one
Respecting an audience's intelligence enough to let them assemble the jigsaw of the plot off screen, while enjoying the visuals more (this kept the films under 3 hour running times)
The problem with The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones is the overt attempt to be a political thriller. But much of what makes that genre work is as dead as Disco. It's also limited to the fact that the films are smaller. They lack the same untouchable ambition.
Besides that, Episode V is easily the most adult film of them all, complicated, morally uncertain, and very serious stuff, naturally Lucas didn't direct it.