Here's a semi-related article -- the movie reviewer in this case is actually talking about the absolutely abysmal Speed Racer (another great, stupendous, high-concept-ART CGI megahit -- with no hackneyed V4's in temples to be seen anywhere!!!!!), but the reviewer also kindly and helpfully throws in a few barbed comments about how Lucas himself has come to be regarded in the business:

*Are the Wachowski brothers the new George Lucas?

It wasn't so long ago that the question would have been an implied compliment. But Lucas's cinematic reputation has taken a (deserved) beating in recent years, and it's in this latter sense that I suggest the comparison. Like Lucas, the Wachowskis quickly graduated from small, character-driven cinema (Bound is still my favorite of their movies) to special-effects-laden blockbusters (the Matrix trilogy). And, like Lucas, as they have focused more and more on the digitized environments in which their stories play out, they are less and less interested in the human beings trapped within them.*

[snip]

Worse still are the moments when Speed Racer slows down. The cast is solid, but the performances feel half-hearted and rote. As with Lucas's latter Star Wars pictures, it often seems as though background and foreground have traded places, with the former the subject of the filmmakers' passion and the latter treated as a tiresome necessity.

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=4fcdb9b7-5f50-4bf7-93de-3b803d48752a

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