George Lucas is known for several masterpieces of cinematography, namely Star Wars: A New Hope and American Graffiti. He is also known for... lower-quality films, chiefly The Phantom Menace and 2012's Red Tails. For the purpose of this post (and partially due to timeliness) I will analyze Star Wars and The Phantom Menace.
For starters, the reception between these two films is remarkable. While Star Wars is one of the most recognizable movies all time, The Phantom Menace is generally rejected and looked down upon as awkward, poorly-paced, Jar-Jar filled movie. The 1977 Star Wars film, on the other hand, is... well, hold on. This film is full of clunky dialogue, rushed shots, poor acting, and terrible, terrible 1997 edits. Does this mean that Lucas' style is no style at all?
Don't get me wrong. Both films have several amazing scenes and sequences, with TPM's Duel of the Fates and SW's Mos Eisley Cantina among them. However, Lucas had plenty of time in between the original release and the 1999 prequel to master his design and style, and yet the film, so full of CGI, new heroes, villians, and Gungans, did not display Lucas' great strides in directing. In fact, it appears that there were few at all.
Perhaps Lucas' style in between those two movies isn't so different after all, despite the deficit in popularity from one movie to the next. Maybe it was the spark of imagination, not the expertise and perfection, that Star Wars brought out in audiences that caused it to be the icon that The Phantom Menace definitely isn't.
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