You mean the "sightlines? We don't need sightlines" CG fest.
I agree with the "sightlines" thing, in spades. And I also agree the Arena scene was the worst, and I am not a pro, or even an amateur either. And I remember thinking how bad it was in the theater.
Portman was the worst in that whole sequence. It's obvious she's having a hard time looking at the ping-pong balls, or lines of tape, or whatever they used in the green-screen studio. Whether riding one of the animals, or, when she's on top of that rock surrounded, she's just flailing about, left, right, left, right, left, like she was doing the Star Wars mega-battle Hokey-Pokey dance, and they finally told her, "
Don't worry, ILM is going to have so much CGI crap going on, however you turn, there will be something going on in that direction."
It's clear to me now that when it comes to his directoral style for the big visual scenes, Lucas is a "
throw everything in, and the kitchen sink too" more-is-better type. It works to a degree for space battles, and all the buildings and air-traffic for the city-planet of Corusecant. Or the dark hellish lava of Mustafarr where Obi-Wan and Anikan have their duel. However, when you look at the re-worked CGI enhanced scenes like the original trilogy, such as the re-done Mos Eisly with extra animals, robots, and speeder-bikes etc. "Trying too hard" comes to mind for me immediately. The Arena scene is just... bleah.
When Lucas was held in check by the limited technology of the 70's and 80's, namely the blue-screen optical printing process, hand-made matte paintings, and latex aliens, he was unwittingly forced to achieve a kind of balance that reached the audience. When he had unlimited money and unlimited computing power, well, we see what we got...
