Originally posted by: ADigitalMan
I thought the klunk was always present and was only clearer in the DVD release.

If God himself had put in the klunk, it would be wrong. The drama of the scene is one of intimidation: the bad guys are coming. You don't deliberately distract from that with a totally out-of-place bit of comedy shtick unless you have assaulted your audience with emotionally draining stuff for so long that they need a break, which was not the case here. There's actually a few pieces of comedy in Schindler's List because it's so heavy for so long! Saw Million Dollar Baby last night, same thing.. heavy heavy heavy, and finally a small bit of relief so you can reset.

It's filmmaking 101. The problem is, that after 25+ years, people familiar with the film take all the drama for granted, and having lost their perspective, begin eroding it with stuff like this. But if it was in the original mix, that wouldn't be all that surprising, either, because you tend to lose your perspective even in the middle of production, where constant frame-by-frame analysis over a long time has the same effect. It's often difficult to retain your memory of what a moment was like the first time you saw it, and being able to do so is one of the things that separates the men from the boys, production-wise. You have to know when to leave a thing alone. Today's Star Wars films, where one animator will work on an elbow for 6 weeks, is a study in this problem: He's got 6 weeks, one elbow. So he spends forever making the elbow thing do all kinds of stuff, when what it really might've needed was something subtle. In the end, the animation becomes too busy, the frame composition becomes too busy, and nobody knows what to care about anymore, so they don't care about anything. Phantom Menace is one of the best studies for film students in taking the drama for granted and way overplaying a scene with density of "gags". Every other instant is an opportunity for schtick, all of which detracts the audience from what the real drama is. The pod race didn't need any goofiness.. it would've been better without it, as you would've stayed in the moment. Most people agree that the lightsaber duel at the end is the most Star Wars feeling of TPM. Know why? It's clear. No shtick. You care, and you stay caring.

Filmmaking 101.

_Mike