camerawork to static in pt?

Camera work is fairly static in George Lucas-directed films - such as The Phantom Menace or A New Hope. A New Hope is VERY static, other than the action sequences (similar to the PT). Watch ANH and compare it to TPM - you'll find much of the static framed shots in both films.

With AOTC, I thought that GL loosened up a little bit - I don't know if he was influenced by his buddy Spielburg (king of the slow zooms) or if he just wanted to try something different. Cinematically, it's more dynamic just a little bit.

If you're comparing the PT to ESB, then you're comparing apples and oranges. Remember, Irvin Kershner directed ESB and he envisioned a far different film from Lucas both visually and performance wise. I believe Kersh never uttered, "Faster, more intense!"

 

maybe its the stiffness of the acting then, i don't know something feels weong about the pt

I don't see what your point is, battlewars. Editing can either compliment or destroy an actor's performance - regardless, to ultimately assert such a claim at the end of some rather perfunctory rambling, is, I'm afraid, indicative of the fact that the primary notion which was introduced in this thread hasn't, as others, as well as myself, have pointed out, been adequately substantiated. I'm not meaning to be critical, but instead am simply making an observation. Strilo, in particular, has presented factual material which strictly disproves your claim; I tried to address the matter earlier in technical detail, further citing an interview from the pre-eminent filmmaking publication in the world, and still, it is deemed to be unsatisfactory. No one is asking you to enjoy the prequel films, but replacing logic and fact with subjective feelings and conjecture immediately reveals the flaws inherent in the initial conceit.

In terms of camera movement in general, as it applies basically to motion pictures, you have to imagine a hypothetical plane onto which (filmic) action is to occur. Traditional film principles would indicate that both subject movement within the frame, as well as the movement of the camera itself, should usually correspond in a preselected and contained manner; ie. if a camera were to pan from right to left, the following movement would not usually be a pan from left to right. With that in mind, an actor contained within said frame would not portray movement on the filmic axis from right to left, only to successively convey movement in the reverse direction. It is confusing to the audience and makes little sense to anyone else. If we are to extrapolate some of these matters to the films in question, one might observe that pictures such as "A New Hope" and "Attack of the Clones" contain dialogue-heavy passages which do not, as it might exist in accordance to the aforementioned principles, lend themselves to a great deal of extraneous and/or indulgent camera movements. It's straightforward, and adheres more or less to the conventions employed by many of the directors who made the films which served as the creative template for this series of films. Few mainstream Hollywood directors in the 1930s (remember, I'm not talking about World cinema here), for instance, outside of Cukor and Lubitsch and perhaps Sturges, who, incidentally, made comedies which were saturated with dialogue, liked to use many overly flashy or mechanical features in shooting interpersonal scenes. Lucas has manifestly stated that he was trying to emulate an aesthetic similar to the serialized films of (primarily) the 20s, 30s, and 40s. These were (largely) B-Grade pulp sagas which exhibited the most basic of camera techniques. While the larger-scale adventure films which might have inspired Lucas, such as the likes of "Gunga Din", "The Wizard of Oz", "Captain Blood", and so forth, did employ lap dissolves and some other routine optical effects, they didn't contain a huge amount of tracking shots or fluid camera movements, largely, but not entirely, due to technological constraints. The wide-angle pans and the wipes that Lucas employs in the "Star Wars" pictures are largely derivative of some of Kurosawa's work, notably "The Hidden Fortress" (yes, even "The Phantom Menace" owes more than a little to that classic - watch carefully); if the man explicitly states that he is trying to work within the visual parameters of these sorts of films, than there is no inherent basis under which his remarks can be seen as contradictory. Such matters are projections of subjectivity which do not conform to, nor have any basis in practical issues or fact. I fail to understand why this is being vehemently disputed. If you desire rich, complex, sinewy camera movements, go and watch a film like "I Am Cuba" or "The Letter Never Sent", both by Mikhail Kalatazov. If you require a camera to pan continuously throughout a c