When I was watching the Prequel Trilogy I noted the film-to-film decline of wasted space in the movies, with Revenge of the Sith being pretty tight compared to all the unnecessary moments and camera shots in The Phantom Menace.
Watching the Original Trilogy you’ll see an almost complete lack of those sorts of gratuitous moments. There’s little to no fat on these movies (a little in Return of the Jedi, but A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back are as lean as they come) and they move along at an incredibly brisk pace. They very much show Lucas’ edict of “faster and more intense” whereas the Menace is full of bloat and laziness.
I hadn’t watched these three in quite a while and so they wound up seeming pretty fresh to me, which is nice to have happen with movies that I’ve seen regularly in theaters, on VHS and then DVD over the last 30 years. I felt excited as the space battles progressed and was caught up in the adventure, just like I should have been.
posted on Wednesday, September 03, 2008 8:01 PM by ChrisThilk
