Anne Lancashire "The Phantom Menace: Repetition, Variation, Integration". Film Criticism. . FindArticles.com. 29 Nov. 2008. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3076/is_3_24/ai_n28790171

This article has Anne Lancashire paying serious attention to the film Star Wars Episode I:  The Phantom Menace.

Lancashire starts her comparison of this installment of the Star Wars saga to Ben-Hur on page 7.  She claims that the storyline of Phantom Menace follows very closely with Ben-Hur suggesting that Star Wars is "a film about a hero whose loss of his mother (and sister), in a clash with the (Roman) Empire, turns [the hero] to despair and revenge, until miraculously Christ's crucifixion changes his anguish to peace through love."  Moreover, Lancashire mentions slavery as she compares Anakin to Judah. 

Most importantly, "the comparable allusion in The Phantom Menace is to...Ben-Hur" as Lancashire tells us that our film is the source for the podrace Anakin partakes in against Sebulba.  Too she claims that this idea is a "much noted" conclusion.  Within this thought arises again, the notion of slavery and the concept of losing one's family.  Anakin is set up as someone who will seek revenge because of family losses and this follows along with Ben-Hur who loses his family after being arrested.  But to sum this paragraph, Episode I is most remembered for its podrace scene.  It was a major scene and even had a videogame made from it.

So for my question, "How can one scene effect a studio?" we can see an even further projection of the chariot race to other studios, not just MGM.  As mentioned, the podrace is a definite play on the chariot race from Ben-Hur.  And other movies, not just Star Wars, like Grease and the Little Rascals to name a few, also take bits from the horse drawn chariots. 

As one scene gains recognition for being the staple that held together an epic film like Ben-Hur, it would be beneficial for any studio looking to shoot a similar action sequence to take some of the ideas and/or parts that helped make the chariot race a success, and implement them into their film.

7 essays by the author of LoTR

The best-known is "On Fairy-Stories," a discussions of the requirements of believable fantasy. It is not about those "Flower fairies and fluttering sprites...that [Tolkien] so disliked as a child." "A Secret Vice" has implications about programming and programmers.
The title essay ("The Monsters and the Critics") sheds light on the unsatisfactory Star Wars prequels.