Watching Hidden Fortress (credited by George Lucas as an inspiration for A New Hope and also borrowed from for Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones), I realized that the reason that the new movies aren't as good is that for the original three, Lucas borrowed from other movies and literary traditions left and right, but for the new ones, he couldn't get away with that like he did with the originals because this time around too many people would have been able to recognize the movies he ripped his story from. As it is, it's totally obvious that the whole princess-in-disguise-sneaking-past-enemy-lines thing in Episodes 1 and 2 was ripped from Hidden Fortress (I don't think Lucas has admitted that).
Back in the late 1970s, early 1980s, Lucas could get away with ripping large chunks from foreign films because outside of film schools, it was a lot harder for people to have the opportunity to watch old black and white films by foreign directors. Lucas didn't have to worry about coming up with original story lines because he could take from others without the American movie going public knowing it. Since he couldn't get away with ripping his plot and character piecemeal from Kurosawa films mixed with medieval european themes, he actually had to come up with his characters and storyline himself for the prequels, and we all know how far that got him. Can anyone say "Jar-Jar Binks"? Or maybe the idea that long scenes of government bureaucracy at work makes for a good story?
Posted by kathryn at Abril 12, 2004 04:31 AM | TrackBack