i get what y'all are saying about the FX shot, but I'm thinking more of just an average medium or close-up shot, where the camera will just start sloooooowly creeping toward the person speaking. happens all the time in ROTS--i recall it in the Palpy/Anakin scene in the opera, for some reason, although memory may fail. maybe that's an FX trickery bit too, to keep the shot in motion for the background or something? but you can't even see much of the background. maybe I explained it poorly, too--the camera's actually static most of the time; it's just the shot that changes.

as for questioning lucas with venom and spite, i didn't come to this thread to do that--i'm honestly interested in discussing him as a director and solely that. i do have plenty of venom and spite for him, because i think the prequels are mostly horrible movies that demonstrate lazy filmmaking, great hubris, and a mysterious lack of ability on Lucas' part. that doesn't have much to do with this discussion for me, though--like I said, a bad movie doesn't necessarily have to be poorly directed. in fact, my biggest gripes with the prequels probably have more to do with story and plot.

another directing choice I liked quite a lot--those faux handheld camera shots in the geonosis battle in AOTC. clever stuff, very visceral.