With both The Phantom Menace and A New Hope being the first films in each trilogy, George wrote and directed them both and yet ANH seems to be the better film to many people. How does his work compare between the two?
I don't know. I really don't. I prefer ANH to TPM . . . but just barely. I don't consider either movie as the highlights of the SW saga.
A "versus" thread? Between TPM and ANH? Uh oh! ANH is the most clean, neat, and focused of all six Star Wars films, in my opinion. It remains a pleasure to watch almost thirty-five full years after its original release. I, myself, became acquainted with the picture some time in the early 1990s, around the time of the notorious "Special Editions". The purity of its narrative, combined with a certain warmth and sparkle the other pictures generally lack, or run in a different direction with, makes it compelling not only in the canon of Star Wars films, but much of western cinema, period. It may, indeed, be the most popular, most beloved movie of all time. For all these reasons and more, it is kind of absurd to compare any other film in the Star Wars series to it; even the exalted TESB. On the other hand, it can feel a little sparse and dry after the grandeur of TPM, and I often find myself more drawn to Gungans and their bubble cities, geisha queens and their chrome starships, hippie Jedi Masters and their bookish padawan learners, the gleaming towers of a city planet, floating senate pods, quiet hellos and goodbyes, an epic lightsaber duel set against a raging space battle and two ground battles, and the giddy assortment of shapes and colours, offered up by TPM over its progenitor. In short, while I have a tremendous amount of affection for the picture that kick-started it all, I tend to favour some of its offshoots more. TPM vs ANH? TPM it is, for me.
I would rank 'Star Wars' ahead of 'The Phantom Menace', if only because G. Walton was pushing the first boulder up the mountain... As for the highlights of each trilogy? 'The Empire Strikes Back' and 'Revenge of the Sith' are my top two.
I think TPM is great, but I think ANH is better. I generally don't like ranking the episodes, though, since they are all great and they all serve their different purposes in the larger story of the Saga. Having said that, I agree with the following if I have to choose:
