"Please, sir, may I kill some more?"

How did I not know that the classic shot of "everybody in the audience look that way, except for the one creepy person in the middle who keeps looking at you" comes from this movie?

I think of that as a Felllini thing.

I saw an ad for The Island for the first time this morning, and had to god I thought it was a remake of Logan's Run until the title card came along.

I'm still not convinced it isn't.

I'll say this for Hitchcock: his psychology may often have been overwrought cockamamie, but he knew how to come up with an interesting new visual.

I think the key to understanding Hitchcock is that the psychology was there only to get to the next interesting visual. Hitchcock came up with the set pieces - it was the writer's job to join the dots. Sometimes it worked out better than others, but oh those dots.

My one film class was on Hitchcock. I definitely remember the images and feelings much more than the McGuffins for most of the films.

So, I saw Episode III yesterday. I enjoyed it. Best of the prequels, still not as good as the originals, IMO.

However, the big letdown for me was Darth Vader lurching around screaming "NOOOOOOOO!" which seemed incredibly cheesy and ruined what should have been a dramatic highpoint.

I sqw III yesterday, too. Like you, I liked it more than the other two prequels, but I still thought the dialogiue was cliched and wooden, and Hayden Christenson SUCKED.

Loved the four arms with four light sabers of General Grevious. Very cool.

I saw it again over the weekend, and still think it's better than Jedi. The total lack of Ewoks is a BIG plus. (And Ewan's performance, odd as it is, has really grown on me. Poor repressed Obi-wan.)

However, the big letdown for me was

That was a very misguided moment. I think he was trying to call back to Luke's "Nooooooooooooo!!!!" when he finds out Vader is his father, but somebody really should have mentioned that Vader in the suit needs to NOT LOOK THAT STUPID. Ever.

One little throw-away bit I did love was the guy that looked like a young Grand Moff Tarkin standing with Vader and Palpatine watching the construction of the Death Star.

We watched the first Star Wars movie Sunday afternoon.

I was struck by how much better the composition was on the first movie. There was space in the frames; in crowded shots, the sets were arranged to draw your eye to the action. Many of the scenes were jaw-droppingly beautiful; even the merely competent ones made it clear what was going on, what the through-line was.

The stuff he reworked really stood out because all of a sudden there was no focus; there were ten little blips moving and you couldn't easily tell which was the important one.

Did Lucas switch cinematographers, or did he just lose his eye for visuals?

He founded ILM. The original trilogy is sparse and beautiful because he didn't have the money or technology to clutter it up.