Originally posted by: MTHaslett

I am guided most by the power and emotion I got from the Phantom Menace marketing-- that stuff had exactly the right "Every Saga Has a Beginning" tone-- but the movie fell short.

If Episode I could become as emotionally satisfying as the ads promised it would be, we'd really have something!

I know what you mean about the trailers and ad campaign. After you mentioned the tone poems I went back and popped in the DVD and watched 'em all again along with the trailers. God, I remember seeing those trailers in the theater and being absolutely slackjawed. I think we were all in heaven during those few months before the movie came out, saying to ourselves "this is finally it, after sixteen years of waiting for a new Star Wars movie". >sigh<

And then we saw the movie... LOL!

One of the biggest things that contributes to that feeling we get when we watch those trailers (even today) is the juxtaposition of the classic ANH music with the dazzling prequel-era images. Same thing goes for the AOTC trailers (which I loved almost as much TPM). The music has a lot to do with it. Why do those same images feel stale in one context, but exciting when matched up with better music?

Like SOTDS, one of the essential requirements for a true Phantom Menace resurrection would be a complete musical re-haul. Almost everything must go.

I also noticed the reason the entire third act of TPM felt disjointed was the lack of musical synchronicity. Ben Burtt hacked up the score so much in editing that every time you cut to Anakin, or Padme, or Jar-Jar, or the Duel the music is completely different. There is no flow of music to bond the different sequences into one narrative. It was not that way in ROTJ.

Not that the music was very good to begin with (with the exception of Duel of the Fates)... I've noticed that you can edit out huge chunks of certain scenes in that movie and not detect a musical jump whatsoever. That's pretty bad. Not the case in the OT.