I was pretty disappointed with the latest 2 starwars episodes honestly. But if we had to figure out what was revolutionary about the film, I think there'd still be a decent list. Sound is always revolutionary in SW films, and we'll be hearing these new sounds replicated in movies and video games for the next 20 years, much as we did with the original trilogy's sound clips. Another revolutionary approach was the use of over 2000 effects shots in episode one; almost ten times as many shots as any other movie before. Most shots had a digital element to them, which is impressive if you think that they aren't always that noticable. Another thing that was certainly new in the film industry was the filming of episode one entirely on digital camera. That was quite a landmark for film.
The real truth though, is that filmmakers rarely create the technology, the prize usually just goes to the first company to use what's out there, and what's cutting edge. George Lucas never developed blue-screen tech, and Peter Jackson never developed MASSIVE (the army motion emulation engine). No, what impresses me most is moviemakers that come up with an ingenious way of filling in when the technology just isn't there. In Jurrasic Park, for instance, when they show the circular rings in the cup of water, presumably created by the 'shock of the T-Rex's footsteps'. That effect i think they achieved by plucking the strings of a bass stringed-instrument. Or In the original SW trilogy, when they 'kit-bashed'; pulling thousands of model sets apart to create surfaces for their titanic starships. That's innovation! I suppose I should tip my hat off to Matrix as well, not for using slow-motion or bullet-time (already been done), but for combining slow-mo, rotating camera angles, and the bullet-time concept into amazingly effective visuals we had never experienced before. It wasn't the technology that made it great, it was the way they put different ideas all together into a new tecnique.
Symbolism in Star Wars is, I believe, limited to one central theme. Gearge Lucas has always been fascinated by mythology, and the Star Wars movies were designed to be kind of a metaphor for mythology. Most mythologies (and many religions) have an 'immaculate conception', for instance. The corruption and eventual redemption of Anikin is nothing new - it parallels mythological characters that have been written about for thousands of years. Star Wars was designed to be kind of an ultimate myth, reusing the same old themes, but putting them in a new-light as a sci-fi flick.
