2010's documentary The People vs. George Lucas features archival interview footage of Francis Coppola talking about his one-time pupil and eventual business partner in an empathic, forgiving light whenever questions of art vs. commerce come up regarding Lucas as a sellout following the blockbuster success of the first Star Wars film in 1977.Unfortunately, there is no contemporary interview in the film with Coppola reacting to the Star Wars prequels. Would Coppola have sympathized with the harsh reaction to The Phantom Menace and especially the major outcast of the new trilogy, Jar Jar Binks? Coppola tacked an additional film onto his own legendary series when he made The Godfather Part III in 1990, sixteen years after the second Godfather film was released. Interestingly, Lucas released Menace in 1999, sixteen years after Return of the Jedi played in theatres.
Coppola's third Godfather film did not receive the public lashing The Phantom Menace did, but it featured a performance as hated as the character of Jar Jar Binks. Coppola's daughter Sofia played Michael Corleone's daughter Mary, resulting in a widespread critical drubbing. Those who liked The Godfather Part III noted Sofia Coppola's performance was the worst part of the film. Those who disliked the film said Coppola's performance stood out as amateur in a film that didn't need to be made in the first place.
When I ran the idea of Sofia Coppola as the Jar Jar Binks of The Godfather Part III past my friend Braden, he ran with it, noticing a number of similarities I completely missed between GF III and Menace. Hopefully he reads this and responds in the comments section, because he has some great things to say about similarities between the two films.
Indeed! There's the brash, overly-eager up-and-comers (Obi Wan and Andy Garcia), the return of Michael to Sicily and the return to Tatooine (allow the characters themselves are there for the first time, but the audience is very familiar with it), the ethnic stereotypes (the weird, Asian aliens and the Sicilians), and the trusted authority figures who are not what they seem (Senator Palpatine and that corrupt cardinal or whoever in GFIII). Then you've got that super badass assassin in Godfather 3 who never really said anything but kicked a lot of ass before being irrelevant, a la Darth Maul. Michael Corelone, the wise elder, dies and so does the wise elder Kwai-Gon (or whatever the hell his name was). The opera scene in GFIII kinda serves the same purpose as the pod race scene in Episode I: they are both superfluous set pieces that kinda sorta act as a commentary on the main plot and/or allude to what is going to happen. The other mob bosses are blamed for the attempted hit at the beginning of GFIII but it was really something more complicated, just like the Trade Federation being the patsies for Palpatine. Both films have the strong, super-assertive female figures who want to shoot first and ask questions later and get impatient with all the dilly-dallying (Natalie Portman and Michael's sister). And of course, both films climax with elaborate, cross-cut action scenes of getting shit done and seeking revenge, both sequences being trademarks of the respective franchise.
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