1. The character development was nonexistent.  I actually hated Nicole Kidman more as the movie went on.  She was neither a compelling lead nor someone I found worthy of empathy.

2. The script and dialogue weren't up to Kubrick's other works.  The level of conversation that you find in Kubrick's other work isn't there, but some of that may be due to the fact that he died before the final edit was in the can.

3. The overall tone of the movie was... opaque?  I don't know if that is the right word to describe it.  I never felt pulled in.  I felt like I was watching a puppet show through my neighbor's closed window.  The atempt was ceratinly made to be immersive, and Kubrick pulls it off in other movies, esp (to me) 2001, but he totalled missed here.

The 1977 Star Wars is Episode IV, not I (it was the first made and released).

Secondly, yes this was a "seminal" film for special effects, NOT CGI. CGI was not really a huge factor until the Jurassic Park timeframe. Of course Skywalker Ranch did play a role in developing CGI.

What little CGI there was in Top Gun was probably the flight simulator sequences the cadets watched while mocking each other. There may have been plenty of special effects, but I highly doubt there was much CGI at all to those "shots"

I am not denying Spielberg is a better director than Lucas. As you've shown, he has the resume to prove it.

Just because Lucas chose to not direct anymore does not make him a hack (somehow everone forgets American Graffiti). He had others direct so he could focus on other aspects of the films. I see nothing wrong with that.

When Lucas ended up with the financial windfall from Star Wars (due to his and his lawyers foresight I might add), he chose to go into a different direction. Skywalker Ranch, THX sound systems etc. He decided to pursue other aspects of fimmaking to improve. (Do you think Pixar would be where it is today without Lucas?)

Without his technological advances, moviemaking would not be what it is today (good or bad, we know chuck's opinion). Spielberg (and a slew of others) has dervied a lot of financial windfall from Lucas whether by joint producing, writing, special effects, etc.

Spielberg has also done a lot of personal films, more power to him because he can.

To just paint Lucas as a hack is completely unfair.

But how about this: the Searchers - arguably one of the finest, most nuanced films of its time.  And Stagecoach - with a plot device that's been used over and over - you could say run into the ground by now.  But at the time it was seen as novel.  The Informer is another great flick.  And ya gotta love "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" just for Lee Marvin's over the top, cartoonish villain.  Couple the light entertainment stuff with some socially significant movie like "The Grapes of Wrath" and I think that Spielberg and Ford are at least in a dead heat.  Plus he made Sex Hygiene, an Army training film that's been the talk of the nation since it was first screened.

And he even topped that.  In the middle of the McCarthy BS when Cecil B. DeMille was petitioning the Directors Guild of America to require every card caring member of the guild to sign a loyalty oath, Ford said the following to a meeting of all of the guild members;

"My name's John Ford. I make Westerns. I don't think there's anyone in this room who knows more about what the American public wants than Cecil B. DeMille - and he certainly knows how to give it to them. But I don't like you, C.B., and I don't like what you've been saying here tonight."

Can you're boy Spielberg match that?

Plus, I think you're argument about "back to back" greats is interesting but maybe a little under-researched.

Off the top of my head with some wiki:

• Tim Burton made Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Batman, and Edward Scissorhands all in a row.


• All 4 of Paul Thomas Anderson's major releases (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood) are pretty freaking good and were all made in a row.


• The Coens made Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, and Miller's Crossing all in a row. Then, later, they made Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and O Brother Where Art Thou all in a row.


• Tarantino made Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction back to back.


• Robert Zemeckis made Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit back to back. He made Forrest Gump and Contact back to back later. I don't even like Contact but I think some people around here have said they do before.
  

I like all the movies above (except for Gump and Contact) more than every Spielberg movie except for maybe Jaws, Schindler's List, and Saving Private Ryan.

I feel confident there are more examples.

Plus, isn't the whole concept a little wacky? Doesn't it matter more how good their movies are as a body, or how good their best movie is, or something like that? This two in a row standard, what does it really mean?

However, I'll allow that if you're into all those Spielberg movies, which is fine, I doubt you'll find my list very convincing. I just also doubt there's a lot of point to trying to argue why one set of films or one director's body of work is better than anothers. In some cases, it's obvious (like Lucas and his terrible filmography-other contributions notwithstanding) but in many, it's just taste.

Would you say that Coppola gets the nod for best back to back for Godfather I and II? Or does that not count since it is the same story essentially?

I can promise you that nobody in the 1930's was talking about Ellington as possibly the most significant composer of the century, but he was no doubt considered a very fine entertainer.

As for the stat luddite thing, what I'm really getting at is that if our most rigorous analytizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz ...

(IMBD has him as "Merlin" - but I thought that was the call sign of the 'rear' who took Goose's place for the final dogfight.  (Who, by the way, had a more memorable performance than the short Scientologist.))

Anyway, all I can remember of Robins is how stupid he looks on the deck of the carrier celebrating at the end. Still, how would he ever have gotten the role of Ebby Calvin 'Nuke/Meat' LaLoosh without that part?

One of my favorite "The Far Side" cartoons showed the Devil behind the counter of a movie rental store in the bowels of Hell and a few customers milling through the aisles.  Every box  on every shelf was labeled Ishtar.

I've never seen Red Sonya, but what exactly is the criteria for "worst 'big name' movie of all time"?  If it's at all based on expectations or hype, doesn't Heaven's Gate have to top the list.  I destroyed a movie studio after all.