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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 2113368" data-attributes="member: 812">I think both films would remain truly entertaining experiences without sound. The visuals alone tell a story.Perhaps I was unclear. Of course movies involve BOTH sound and visual, and any movie is an incomplete experience if you don't get one or the other (not to mention both). I never meant to suggest otherwise.But yes, in fact, you CAN follow the story of Star Wars with the sound off. Come on, it's easy: Little plucky ship overrun by big sinister ship led by BIG sinister guy in black who kills people. Beautiful princess sends funny-looking friend away and is subsequently captured by big sinister guy. Funny-looking friend hooks up with disaffected youth, leads him to old man who supplies magic sword and comfort at the death of parents. Old man leads youth into civilization, makes friends with devil-may-care rogue and they go to where the princess is being held (she's being tortured, by the way), rescue the princess while the old guy confronts and is defeated by big sinister guy, escape and return (rogue who previously bailed coming back at the right moment) to destroy big sinister guy's house.Good guys acquire medals, enjoy applause, and the credits roll. It's a fun story.A movie that WON'T work that way isn't necessarily a disaster, but it IS a bit of a warning sign that maybe the film is relying too much on exposition to move the story forward. And this is what we find in TPM -- without the great swathes of exposition, the film is incomprehensible. And that's a problem with the script that leads to the film sucking.Disney movies are often very good at this. Watch all the touches in a film like Hercules that show you what's going on -- the little skulls bubbling up in Hades' poison, the camera moves up to Olympus, all that stuff helps to tell the story VISUALLY, which is part and parcel of making a good movie.Watch Citizen Kane, for crying out loud. It's practically a silent film in its visual story-telling.Lucas can do this very well in a sequence-specific manner. His set-pieces are often very well-crafted. But assembling those into a strong story has proven beyond him in these films. He has failed at this basic cinematic task.</blockquote>

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